Action off Lofoten

9 April 1940, Off the Lofoten Islands and the mouth of the Vestfjord

Indecisive; Gneisenau damaged, the German battleships escaped north

Having left the destroyers for Narvik at the mouth of the Vestfjord, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau under Admiral Günther Lütjens were covering them at sea when Admiral Whitworth's Renown found them in a snowstorm before dawn on 9 April. Renown's 15-inch guns hit Gneisenau three times, knocking out her main fire control and a forward turret; Renown was hit twice, without serious damage. Lütjens turned away north-east into heavy seas, where Renown, a single old battlecruiser, could not keep up, and the Germans escaped. It was the first time a British capital ship had fired on a German one since 1918, and the only time in the war a battlecruiser fought two fast battleships.