Action off the Sognefjord

28 January 1945, Off Bergen and the Sognefjord, Norway

British success; Z31 badly damaged

With Tirpitz gone, the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, Z31, Z34 and Z38, was sent south from Tromsø to the Baltic, where the army needed gunfire against the Red Army. On the night of 28 January 1945, off the Sognefjord north of Bergen, the cruisers Diadem and Mauritius intercepted them. In a running fight Z31 was hit seven times, her forward turret wrecked and 55 of her crew killed. Z34 was hit too, and the destroyers made torpedo attacks and laid smoke to cover her. They escaped into the fjords under the German coastal guns, and Z31 was patched up at Bergen.