Battle of the Barents Sea

31 December 1942, Barents Sea, north of North Cape

British victory; the convoy got through and Hitler turned against his big ships

When U-354 reported convoy JW 51B, fourteen merchant ships bound for Murmansk, Vice-Admiral Oskar Kummetz sailed from Altafjord with Admiral Hipper, Lützow and six destroyers, splitting them to catch the convoy between two forces in the twilight of the polar winter. His orders told him not to risk his ships. On the morning of 31 December the convoy's five destroyers, under Captain Robert Sherbrooke in Onslow, turned on Hipper, feinting torpedo attacks and laying smoke, and kept her away from the merchant ships for more than two hours. Hipper hit Onslow, wounding Sherbrooke, who kept command with one eye destroyed and was given the Victoria Cross; she sank the destroyer Achates and, with her destroyers, the minesweeper Bramble. Then the cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica, under Rear-Admiral Robert Burnett, came out of the dark and hit Hipper three times. Friedrich Eckoldt, taking Sheffield for Hipper, closed and was blown apart. Lützow, coming up from the south, fired at the convoy in poor light and hit nothing. Kummetz broke off. No merchant ship was lost. Hitler, in a rage, ordered the big ships paid off and scrapped; Grand Admiral Raeder resigned, and Karl Dönitz took his place.