045° for Vestfjorden. Visibility was fair to good and once it was light enough to take a tally, most of the destroyers were found to be missing. It was expected that they were not far away and would soon catch up. During the morning, the wind began to veer north-westerly, increasing to Force 7, gusting to 9, with the sea still mounting.
At 04:30 BrT (British Time), Glowworm reported to Renown that she had been hove to during the night, but would shortly proceed to rendezvous as ordered. Glowworm’s gyrocompass had jumped off its mountings and it appears that Lieutenant Commander Roope had decided it was fruitless to try to locate the battlecruiser without. All the more so as no fix had been obtained for close to forty-eight hours and Glowworm’s position was uncertain. On deck, there was damage caused by the heavy seas and the whaler and motor dinghy had been washed away. A couple of hours after dawn, another destroyer was sighted, answering ‘Swedish destroyer Göteborg’ when challenged. Roope did not find this likely; when the other ship turned away he ordered steam, hoisted the battle ensign and opened fire. Rolling badly, the shots fell short, and the other ship vanished in the murk before Glowworm could follow.74
Far from being Swedish, the sighted ship was Lüdemann trying to catch up with the battleships.75 The German lookouts sighted the British destroyer some time before it became obvious they had been sighted themselves and Korvettenkapitän Friedrichs, the captain of Lüdemann, was prepared to attack, believing he had a tactical advantage. Fregattenkapitän Hans-Joachim Gadow, C-in-C of 3rd Zerstörer Flotilla, however, decided their primary task was to bring the Jägers to Narvik and ordered him to turn away towards the north-west. The rest of the German fleet was expected to be to the north-east and it was important that the British destroyer did not find the battleships, should it succeed in following.
Vizeadmiral Lütjens was alerted to the British destroyer through two USW-radio signals from Lüdemann recorded at 08:58 and 08:59 GeT in his war diary. This means that the first sighting of Glowworm probably happened some five to ten minutes earlier, around 07:50 BrT.76 German reports state that Glowworm, when sighted from Lüdemann, was at slow speed on a southerly course with unmanned guns and without steam on several boilers. Unless this is a misapprehension, it can only be explained by the repair of the gyrocompass taking longer than expected, and Lieutenant Commander Roope believing there was no danger this far north under the prevailing conditions.
Shortly after the first destroyer had vanished, Arnim appeared on Glowworm’s port bow, closing fast, and a running fight ensued. In the heavy seas neither destroyer scored any hits. In particular Arnim was rolling badly. Onboard Lüdemann, still speeding away, a USW-radio signal was received, believed to come from Arnim, briefly sighted through the murk: ‘Am attacking enemy’. Fregattenkapitän Gadow replied as he had done to Friedrichs: ‘Consider your main task’. Korvettenkapitän Curt Rechel of Arnim later denied that the ‘Attack’ signal had come from him. In his version, he had only received a fragmented USW signal from Lüdemann and was not sure what was going on.
The British destroyer suddenly emerged from a rainsquall, too fast for him to get out of harm’s way. Rechel turned Arnim north-westwards behind a smokescreen. Roope gave chase and the German reports do not hide the fact that the British destroyer fared much better than the German in the heavy seas. At thirty-five knots, the foreship and bridge of Arnim were seriously damaged and two men lost overboard. Speed was reduced to twenty-seven knots. Glowworm could maintain a higher speed without taking damage and started to gain on Arnim, firing continuously. Arnim’s forward turrets could only bear at times and the theoretical superiority of the five German 12.7-cm guns versus the four British 12-cm came to naught. German reports claim three hits on their adversary, but none of the British survivors confirmed this. Rechel must have started to feel the situation getting out of hand; he now turned north-east, towards the fleet. What Lieutenant Commander Roope believed, we can never know, but he decided to follow the German destroyer even though it must have occurred to him that she was heading for company. German sources report British survivors to have said they never expected to find a cruiser coming at them, but few of the survivors were on the bridge. At 09:30, Gneisenau received a USW signal from Arnim, giving an assumed position, requesting support. A few minutes earlier, Lütjens had already signalled for Hipper to turn back and sort out the mess.
The Zerstörers of the 2nd Flotilla had managed to stay close during the night and when Flotilla Commander Fregattenkapitän von Pufendorf in Jacobi received copies of USW signals indicating enemy contact, he ordered the other ships of his group, Riedel, Heinemann and Eckholdt to close up and steered towards the scene of action. Not long after, gun flashes were seen to the north. Before they could get close, though, Jacobi tilted more than 55° during a particularly heavy sea, drenching the port boiler room intakes, shutting down the port engine temporarily and throwing five men overboard. Frustrated, von Pufendorf, who did not share Gadow’s view on the priorities, had to slow down, but continued towards the encounter.77
At 07:59 BrT, Lieutenant Commander Roope sent a signal to Admiral Whitworth in Renown, reporting enemy contact at 65° 04’ N, 6° 04’ E, followed two minutes later by: ‘Am engaging enemy destroyer’. Three hundred miles to the south-west, on the bridge of Rodney, Admiral Forbes received Glowworm’s signals shortly after. The reported position puzzled him. It either meant that the fleet sighted the day before had made over twenty knots during the night in spite of the atrocious weather, or there were two German fleets at large. Both cases were equally alarming. In the Admiralty War Diary, there is a scribble over the encoded position of the signal: ‘wrongly coded’. German reports place the encounter at 64° N, 07° E, sixty miles further south. At 08:40, Glowworm reported ‘Enemy making smoke’, and five minutes later, ‘Am endeavouring to draw enemy northwards’. Two more signals followed, reporting the German destroyer retiring north-eastward behind smoke, until at 08:55 came: ‘One enemy vessel unknown identity bearing 000°, 6 miles, course 180°.’ A position added to the signal was unintelligible except for 65° N. The last signal from Glowworm was made at 09:04, fading out and making a sinister indication of her fate.78 Renown and Greyhound turned south shortly before 08:45, as did Birmingham and Fearless, which had still not caught up with the flag. At 10:00 Admiral Forbes detached Repulse and Penelope with Eskimo, Bedouin, Punjabi and Kimberley from the Home Fleet, ordering them to head north-east at maximum speed.79
Receiving the signal to search for the destroyer in trouble, Heye ordered all army personnel below deck and turned his cruiser south. Going against the sea, Hipper took heavy water and, to facilitate observation and keep the forward guns ready, speed was kept moderate. From Lüdemann, a fantastic sight was witnessed when Hipper appeared briefly, crashing majestically through the heavy waves. Glowworm was in for a nasty surprise.
At 09:50, Hipper’s foretop reported a masthead forward to port and shortly after another to starboard. The destroyer to port was shrouded in smoke, apparently from a deliberate attempt to hide. Both ships were rolling madly in the heavy seas. Neither foretop nor bridge could at first decide which of the two emerging destroyers was the enemy and Kapitän Heye held his fire. The starboard destroyer started to flash ‘A-A-A’ repeatedly towards the cruiser. The signal did not make sense to the Germans, but one of the officers held it was English, meaning ‘What ship?’ Heye still hesitated, but finally gave permission to fire when the foretop reported the signalling destroyer to be flying a White Ensign. It was 09:58 GeT when Admiral Hipper’s 20.3-cm guns opened fire in anger for the first time. Range to target was 8,400 metres.
Glowworm laying smoke. This photograph was taken from Hipper. (Bundesarchiv Koblenz)
Heye kept the cruiser’s bow at the destroyer to avoid torpedoes
