Battle of the north cape 26 december 1943

[WG Smith]

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the North Cape when units of the Home Fleet under the command of Admiral Bruce Fraser in the battleship Duke of York sank the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst as it attempted to attack Russian convoy JW.55B.

The engagement would be the last between capital ships in the European theatre and mark the end of an era in naval warfare

[happy daze john in oz]

Back in 2019 we were in that region and saw the memorial plaque to commemorate the event.
A bleak part of the world in winter, and not so warm in summer, but a most wonderful spot.

[vic mcclymont]

Interesting article about that encounter in Saturdays Daily Mail.
Vic

[Robert Graham (2)]

The Scharnhorst was first detected on radar by HMS Belfast which is now a museum ship docked in London and has been since 1972. Belfast was in the company of HMS Sheffield and HMS Norfolk. It was HMS Norfolk that first engaged the Scharnhorst and disabled its main search radar leaving the Germans effectively blind.

[j.sabourn]

I did a radar course in 1957, and we’re introduced to the radars of 1944 circa. since my first introduction to radar their progress in the adaptability of then and now to me wouldnt be such a big gap or disadvantage as made out to be as an excuse for the vessel being at some huge disadvantage. As regards merchant ships it was a number of years before they became common usually one had to ask permission to switch on. And even then were rarely
Used to their future capability’s as today. The first thing anyone asked after a collission was
Was it Radar assisted, the collission that is. I would have thought in 1943 the Navy would have put more faith in its fighting top where the range finders were found and could be seen by the human eye. JS
Just a bit more on marine radar as maybe people on site with no marine background . The screen on a radar set today has a trace going clockwise through 360 with adjustable range rings . This was not the case that I saw in 1957 re the war naval radars . The trace went horizontal . The first radars I sailed with were all relative bearings to the ships head , no true motion like one has today and I don’t think the navy in 1943 would have had true motion either. Radar was in its infancy during the war years. The biggest aid to killing people was the magnetic mine which was the big invention of the times. The biggest invention to counteract this was by a cable going round the ship and being able to reverse the ships polarity. Cheers JS..

[Robert Graham (2)]

Reference the navy in 1943 having more faith in the fighting top and human eye - not much use in the pitch black night of a Norwewgian winter!! Also, the German submarine launched torpedo destroyed vastly more ships and people than the magnetic mine ever did and once a magnetic mine was recovered and disarmed an effective countermeasure was easily found.

[Brenda Shackleton]

Hello
Then there was High Frequency / Direction Finding ; known as Huff/Duff ( HF/DF)
The practical sea-trials of Huff/ Duff were carried out in the Atlantic in October 1940 using SS BEACHY ; later the first Rescue Ship to enter service (not the HONTESTROOM as she commenced service in January 1941)
The first ships to have Huff/Duff fitted were the Rescue Ships, COPELAND & TOWARD

From my Dad's notes;-.....
"Provided the Rescue Ship was on the same Wave HF as the U-boat shadowing a Convoy then a bearing of that signal by HF/DF could be taken as the U-boat passed its signal to Bremerhaven.
Frequent changes of H/F were made throughout the day. Huff Duff was installed in a separate cabin where secrecy was maintained. The Captain was the only person with right of entry. Personally, I never availed myself of that privilege in case I was ever taken prisoner. I could not divulge secrets that I did not possess. " W.J. Hartley. Master COPELAND

Brenda

[j.sabourn]

The d/f was never a good position fixer during my time at sea even with the two loops which it eventually evolved to. It was a last resort the error for half collination was among others too variable. Radar was the coming in thing as its name implies radio and range and distance. However when talking about modern warfare today is far in advance of the two previous world wars. As to doing in the dark then one waited for daylight to do in a lot of cases. Most submarine attacks were made from the surface if you ever talked to a submariner from those early years. At least the British Navy did. The term half collination maybe the wrong word as memory not 100% but to convert a radio great circle bearing to a mercatoral bearing is none too accurate especially over long distances. There was more personal skills to warfare then than today where is nearly all scientific and electronic gadgets. Our earlier mariners had hearts of oak and certainly needed them. Think the main error for the d/f was half dlong X cosine of the latitude , and to anyone not up in their arithmetic and apart from other errors , accuracy was debateable. JS.
PS Collination is the wrong word that is one of the errors on the sextant and is to set the telescope parallel to the plane of the instrument ,everything comes back to he who waits.
So memory has its ups and downs, JS.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
When I was on the Wave Baron she still had paravanes on board, we never got to stream them. In 49 the Trevose still had her degausing gear .
Des

[j.sabourn]

De gaussing was still being built into British new buildings in the late 50s Des,courtesy of the Admiralty who I believe the taxpayer paid for. It was worth a bomb on any ship going for scrap as was all copper cable going right round the ship on the main deck and protected by casing.we used to test by placing a lifeboat compass on top of casing and switching on. The compass needles used to swing 180 degrees. Cheers JS