Operation Juno

German Schlachtschiff KMS* Gneisenau firing her guns at HMS Glorious.
(Photo taken from Gneisenau's sister ship, KMS Scharnhorst.)
(Source)

For my first battle post for the month of June, I could have gone with the obvious, the Battle of Midway but I thought I would go with a perhaps lesser known battle which took place off the coast of Norway in June of 1940. A battle in which a British aircraft carrier was sent to the bottom by a pair of German surface ships.

The loss of HMS Glorious was the only occasion in history where a fleet carrier was engaged and destroyed by enemy surface units. (At Leyte Gulf, Japanese surface units sank an American light carrier and two escort carriers. American surface units sent a Japanese light carrier to Davy Jones' locker in return. Different by degree perhaps, not so different to the crew lost on those ships!)

In the early days of World War II in Europe, Germany was running amok. Poland had been overrun (with help from our later "buddies" the Soviets) in September of 1939. Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg had been dispatched before June of 1940. France was on the brink of surrender in early June.

The Norwegian campaign began in April of 1940, the Germans were concerned about the British interfering with shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which traveled by sea down the coast of Norway. The British were concerned with the Germans using the territorial waters of neutral Norway for military purposes. Both sides decided to invade, Hitler moved first.

The fight in Norway was tough, the Norwegians fought hard, it took the Germans two months to defeat them. The help provided by the British and the French was not really intended to benefit Norway, it was intended to benefit Britain and France.

While the Germans were defeating the Norwegians in main actions in the south, the Western Allies occupied the port of Narvik, in the far north of Norway, from which port Swedish ore was shipped to Germany. Long story short, due to the disasters being suffered by Britain and France after the Wehrmacht drove from the Ardennes to the Channel, the decision was made by Britain and France to withdraw from Norway. If their home countries fell, there was no point to holding onto Narvik.

In naval terms the campaign was a disaster for the German Kriegsmarine -

The German losses at sea were heavy, with the sinking of one of the Kriegsmarine's two heavy cruisers, two of its six light cruisers, 10 of its 20 destroyers and six U-boats. With several more ships severely damaged, the German surface fleet had only three cruisers and four destroyers operational in the aftermath of the Norwegian Campaign. Two torpedo boats and 15 light naval units were also lost during the campaign. Two German battleships and two cruisers were damaged during the campaign. (Source)

But on the 8th of June HMS Glorious, escorted by destroyers HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent, were spotted by German Schlachtshiffe KMS Scharnhorst and KMS Gneisenau.

The commanding officer of Glorious, Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, was a former submariner who had been executive officer of Courageous for 10 months. He was granted permission to proceed independently to Scapa Flow in the early hours of 8 June to hold a court-martial of his Commander (Air), J. B. Heath, who had refused an order to carry out an attack on shore targets on the grounds that the targets were at best ill-defined and his aircraft were unsuited to the task, and who had been left behind in Scapa to await trial. On the way through the Norwegian Sea the funnel smoke from Glorious and her two escorting destroyers, Acasta and Ardent, was spotted by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at about 15:46 pm. The British spotted the German ships shortly after 16:00 and Ardent was dispatched to investigate. Glorious did not alter course or increase speed. Five Swordfish were ordered to the flight deck and Action Stations were ordered 16:20. No combat air patrol was being flown, no aircraft were ready on the deck for quick take-off and there was no lookout in Glorious's crow's nest. Scharnhorst opened fire on Ardent at 16:27 at a range of 16,000 yards (15,000 m), causing the destroyer to withdraw, firing torpedoes and making a smoke screen. Ardent scored one hit with her 4.7-inch guns on Scharnhorst but was hit several times by the German ships' secondary armament and sank at 17:25.

Scharnhorst switched her fire to Glorious at 16:32 and scored her first hit six minutes later on her third salvo, at a range of 26,000 yards (24,000 m), when one 28.3-centimetre (11.1 in) hit the forward flight deck and burst in the upper hangar, starting a large fire. This hit destroyed two Swordfish being prepared for flight and the hole in the flight deck prevented any other aircraft from taking off. Splinters penetrated a boiler casing and caused a temporary drop in steam pressure. At 16:58 a second shell hit the homing beacon above the bridge and killed or wounded the captain and most of the personnel stationed there. Ardent's smokescreen became effective enough to impair the visibility of the Germans from about 16:58 to 17:20 so they ceased fire on Glorious.

Glorious was hit again in the centre engine room at 17:20 and this caused her to lose speed and commence a slow circle to port. She also developed a list to starboard. The German ships closed to within 16,000 yards and continued to fire at her until 17:40. Glorious sank at 18:10, approximately at 68°38′N 03°50′E, with 43 survivors.

As the German ships approached Glorious, Acasta, which had been trying to maintain the smokescreen, broke through her own smoke and fired two volleys of torpedoes at Scharnhorst. One of these hit the battleship at 17:34 abreast her rear turret and badly damaged her. Acasta also managed one hit from her 4.7-inch guns on Scharnhorst, but was riddled by German gunfire and sank at around 18:20.

Survivors estimated that about 900 men abandoned Glorious. The Germans did not try to pick up survivors. The Royal Navy knew nothing of the sinking until it was announced on German radio. The Norwegian ship Borgund, on passage to the Faroe Islands, arrived late on 10 June and picked up survivors, eventually delivering 37 alive to Thorshavn of whom two later died. Another Norwegian ship, Svalbard II, also making for the Faeroes, picked up five survivors but was sighted by a German aircraft and forced to return to Norway, where the four still alive became prisoners of war for the next five years. It is also believed that one more survivor from Glorious was rescued by a German seaplane. Therefore, the total of survivors was 40, including one each from Acasta and Ardent. The total killed or missing was 1,207 from Glorious, 160 from Acasta and 152 from Ardent, a total of 1,519.

The sinkings and the failure to mount an effective rescue were embarrassing for the Royal Navy. All ships encountering enemies had been ordered to broadcast a sighting report, and the lack of such a report from Glorious was questioned in the House of Commons. It emerged that the heavy cruiser Devonshire had passed within 30–50 miles (48–80 km) of the battle, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral John Cunningham, who was carrying out orders to evacuate the Norwegian Royal Family to the UK and maintain radio silence. Some survivors from Glorious and Devonshire testified that a sighting report had been correctly sent, and received by Devonshire, but that it had been suppressed by Cunningham, who departed at high speed in accordance with his orders. It was also alleged that there was confusion over the use of wireless telegraphy frequencies on board Glorious which could have contributed to the failure of any other ship or shore-station to receive a sighting report. The absence of normal airborne patrols over Glorious and its destroyers, in conditions of maximum visibility, were named as contributors to the sinkings.

The circumstances of the sinking were the subject of a debate in the House of Commons on 28 January 1999. (Source)

The last photo of HMS Glorious.
(Photographed in May 1940 from the deck of HMS Ark Royal; the destroyer with her is HMS Diana.)
(Source)

As I read that account (and others at the sources listed below) I was struck by the following:

1. Glorious's captain was a submariner.
2. Glorious's CAG (which is what the USN calls that position, Commander Air Group) wasn't aboard but was awaiting court-martial back at home base for refusing a mission that he felt was beyond the capabilities of the aircraft embarked on Glorious.
3. All three British ships were apparently making far too much smoke, perhaps due to overconfidence?
4. Glorious, once spotted, made no speed or course changes, no combat air patrol was aloft.
5. Scharnhorst hit Glorious on her third salvo which started a fire on the hangar deck and holed the flight deck removing any chance for Glorious to get her aircraft in the air.
6. Subsequent hits left Glorious losing speed and apparently out of control as she was circling slowly to port.
7. HMS Acasta did manage to severely damage Scharnhorst before being destroyed by German gunfire.
8. Although approximately 900 men managed to get off Glorious, only 40 actually survived and two of those were from the escorting destroyers. The Royal Navy learned of the sinking from German radio broadcasts.

Harsh lessons were learned that day, the sea is good at teaching those sorts of lessons.

Operation Juno was originally planned for late May and was intended to disrupt the flow of Allied reinforcements to Norway. In reality, the Allies were already planning on (and were in the midst of) evacuating Norway. With France falling and Britain in peril, fighting men could not be spared for a secondary theater.

Not that it means much, but I have run through this very scenario in the computer game Atlantic Fleet. I managed to escape the Germans with "only" the loss of HMS Ardent. The key was an ancient stratagem called "Run away, run away!"

HMS Glorious was damaged but made her escape through nothing more fancy than hightailing it from the Germans as fast as the engines could drive the hull through the water. That and making copious amounts of smoke to confuse the German gunners. By having the two destroyers weave back and forth across Glorious' wake, I managed to save two ships out of three. One being the carrier.

But that was a computer game, turn based as well. In real life things are seldom that simple. As the brave crews of HMS Glorious, HMS Ardent, and HMS Acasta learned, most paying with their lives.

The Final Resting Place of HMS Glorious
Google Maps

For what it's worth, some sources (Ovid for one) say that the month of June is named for the ancient Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter. So the first battle post for June is about an operation named after a Roman goddess who may (or may not) be the origin of the month name, June. I never argue with poets.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Campaign
https://codenames.info/operation/juno-i/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Juno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Glorious

* Schlachtshiff (plural Schlachtshiffe) is the German word for battleship. KMS stands for Kriegsmarine Schiff, Kriegsmarine was the name for the German Navy in WWII and Schiff is the German for ship. In WWI German ships were designated much like the Royal Navy's. SMS = Seine Majestäts Schiff, His Majesty's Ship (which is of course HMS in the Royal Navy).