Story of a naval battle: how a single old battlecruiser drove off two modern battleships

The video below tells the story of a battle in terrible weather in the North sea off Lofoten Island, on the first day of the invasion of Norway by the Nazis, 9th April 1940, in which the World War one vintage battlecruiser HMS Renown attacked, and scored a tactical victory over, two modern German capital ships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Both sides took damage from the terrible weather as well as from each other.

There was some debate, then and since, about whether Scharnhorst and Gneisenau should be considered battleships or battlecruisers. At the time the Royal Navy classified them as battlecruisers because they were optimised and used as very heavy commerce raiders, while the German navy called them battleships because their speed did not come at the price of lighter armour protection. What is not in doubt is that they were very powerful ships and together outnumbered HMS Renown two to one.

Both sides had an escort of screening units - destroyers and on the German side the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper - but on both sides these escorts had either been detached or had trouble keeping up in very heavy seas so they did not play a major part in the action.

One story briefly referred to in the account below is that one of the British escorts, the destroyer HMS Glowworm, had encountered some of the German escorts including the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. Pressing her attack with great gallantry, Glowworm was sunk but rammed and inflicted some damage on the much larger German cruiser.  Glowworm's captain, Lieutenant Commander Gerard Roope was killed in the battle but later posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, partly because of a letter commending his courage, sent to the admiralty via the Red Cross from Hipper's captain, Hellmuth Heye. To the best of my knowledge this is the only occasion in the history of the Royal Navy when a medal has been awarded partly on the recommendation of the enemy commander. 

Although HMS Renown was a much older ship, she had been very extensively rebuilt just before World War II, and one important detail which should perhaps have been picked up in the video below is that her main armour plating belt had been increased from the original six inch thickness to nine inches.

Her main armament of six fifteen-inch guns - the most effective naval guns deployed by any navy in world war one or world war two - had been retained but modern fire control and a much more effective secondary argument had been installed. HMS Renown's fifteen-inch guns and a Royal Navy tradition of aggressive action were her two advantages in the battle. We have previously blogged about the Royal Navy's fifteen inch guns here and here.

It is an interesting story: to hear a well described account of it click on the video below.