Convoy PQ 13 destroyer action

29 March 1942, Barents Sea, north of the Kola Peninsula

British success; Z26 sunk, Trinidad damaged by her own torpedo

Convoy PQ 13 had been scattered by a gale on its way to Murmansk. On 28 March Z24, Z25 and Z26 sailed from Kirkenes and sank one straggler. The next morning, in a snowstorm, they ran into the cruiser Trinidad and the destroyer Fury. Trinidad's guns crippled Z26. Trinidad then fired a torpedo at her, but in the freezing water its steering failed and it circled back and hit Trinidad herself, killing 32 men. The destroyer Eclipse caught Z26 in the snow and finished her off, but Z24 and Z25 came up, hit Eclipse twice and picked up 88 of Z26's crew. Trinidad reached Murmansk; on her way home in May she was bombed and had to be scuttled.