Stand-by to Ram!

In one of the most celebrated naval actions of the early months of the Second World War, the captain of a Royal Navy destroyer became the first recipient of the Victoria Cross - albeit that it was not awarded until 1946.

When reports of the movement of large numbers of German ships towards Norway were received in London on 7 April 1940, the Admiralty Intelligence Division determined: “... these reports are of doubtful value and may well be only a further move in the war of nerves.” Soon, however, the reports were confirmed and all warships in home waters were ordered to action.

The German invasion fleet participating in Operation Weserübung included the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, two light cruisers and 14 destroyers. This force now stood between the mine-laying force of the battlecruiser HMS Renown and the escorting destroyers Glowworm, Greyhound, Hero and Hyperion, and the rest of the fleet.

If this was not a precarious-enough situation, Glowworm encountered problems and fell behind the rest of her flotilla, all alone and with the invasion fleet coming closer.

Now, in rough weather, Glowworm’s gyrocompass jumped off its mountings and as it had been impossible to take a fix for 48 hours, Roope was uncertain of his position and hove-to for the night rather than blunder around in the dark.

Dawn next day found HMS Glowworm north-west of Trondheim. The weather was still bad with poor visibility. The men had just stood-down from action stations to start breakfast, when Roope heard the shouted instruction: “Hard-a-port! Get it on, man; full speed!” A ship was spotted through the gloom – a German destroyer.

Without hesitating, Roope engaged and fired the first shots of the battle for Norway. The German returned fire but turned and fled into the mist – but not before Glowworm got off a second salvo. Then, a second destroyer came into view. Glowworm had sailed into the midst of an invasion fleet!

CLIFF OF STEEL

HMS Glowworn engaged this second target – the Bernd von Arnim – and a running battle ensued. The German ship, more heavily armoured and less able to cope with the weather, nearly capsized in heavy seas. It turned away to follow the first destroyer – with Glowworm in pursuit. As Bernd von Arnim’s skipper called for help, through the mist appeared the towering bulk of the Admiral Hipper.

Roope and Ramsay reportedly “…stared in rigid dismay across the smoking sea at the innumerable platforms, spotting tops, bridges and control towers prolonging themselves into a ranged symmetry of steel narrowing into the sky. Ahead of this cliff of steel, ugly and menacing on her fo’c’sle, waterproof against the waves washing white from her stem to superstructure, squatted her forrard turrets. Glowworm’s bridge could not see the guns reaching from them – they were pointing at it.”

Roope’s first thought was to notify the location of the German fleet so that the battleships of the Home Fleet could find them. He turned away to give his signallers the chance to report his position:

“One enemy vessel unknown identity bearing 0000, six miles, course 1800”.

By the time Glowworm received acknowledgement, Admiral Hipper had opened fire. The time was 09.58 hours.

The first shells smashed between the bridge and the funnel. Round after round crashed in, and after the fourth salvo hit, Roope ordered smoke to conceal manoeuvres. As the smoke developed, he turned the ship round back into it.

The Admiral Hipper followed, determined to finish off the impudent little destroyer and was able to track Glowworm on radar; thus, the cruiser continued to fire its guns into the smoke.

The destroyer then emerged, and the cruiser’s secondary armament was brought into action.

The destroyer had taken many hits and the radio room and aerial were destroyed, preventing communication with Renown. Nothing more was heard from Glowworm, and only after the war did the story of this remarkable battle came to light. Stoker Mechanic Bert ‘Ginger’ Loman recalled:

“I went to the Petty Officers’ Mess as an ammunition supplier, when a shell exploded there, but luckily on the other side of the gun support. The concussion knocked me out. When I came to, I found the back of my left hand was gone, and I had shrapnel in my left arm and leg. The floor of the Petty Officers’ Mess was covered in blood. It looked like a butcher’s shop.”

Communications between bridge and engine room was cut, part of the hull was torn apart, and the captain’s day cabin (being used as a first-aid station) was wrecked, killing the medics and most of the casualties.

The destroyer’s forward 4.7-inch gun was blown into the sea, the bridge smashed, and a shell exploded in the engine room. The ship’s fate was sealed.

The destroyer could not escape, and its guns had only been able to get off a few shots - none of which hit. Glowworm’s only chance lay with torpedoes. Using the smokescreen, Roope turned on the Hipper and fired off five torpedoes from 800 yards.

The Hipper’s captain, Kapitän zur See Hellmuth Heye, aware the only danger posed by Glowworm came from torpedoes, avoided presenting his side to her and none found their mark.

A further five were discharged, but with Hipper’s smaller weapons raking the upper decks, they were mis-directed and missed.It seemed that Glowworm had played her last card, but Roope had one more trick.

“We dived back into the smoke screen,” recalled Able Seaman Duncan Blair. “When we came out the captain said: ‘Stand by to ram’!”

WAILING BANSHEE

The two ships were very close; too close for Heye to take evasive action as the destroyer bore down. The smokescreen had done its job, and the 1,300-ton destroyer was about to slam into the 14,000-ton cruiser! Stoker Harris recalled:

“All our guns were firing, but our torpedoes missed although they went very close. Our captain was a good seaman and knew how to handle his ship. By now, we were badly damaged, but he kept manoeuvring so it was easier for the gun crews, but this could not go on much longer as we had a very bad list to starboard. Most of the guns were soon out of action. I was still in the magazine when Glowworm gave an extra thrust forward and there was a crash and a shudder.”

Parts of Glowworm’s yardarm crashed onto the lanyards of the siren which triggered a loud, continuous howl, and she smashed into the cruiser like a ‘wailing banshee’. The destroyer hit the Hipper on the crest of a wave, at speed, slicing high into her side just behind her starboard anchor. Lieutenant Ramsay would later describe this moment:

“There was a grinding crunch as the bows crumpled against the cruiser’s armoured plating, men fell to the deck in a welter of blood and sea water, fire, and smoke.”

Now, Glowworm slipped away, fatally damaged and wallowing in the turbulent sea, fires raging along her decks. Incredibly, the men onboard still fought on, one of her remaining guns firing its last round at close range, hitting the cruiser. This was recalled by Ramsay:

“As we drew away, we opened fire once more. We scored one hit at 400 yards. Our bows were badly stove in. A shell had passed through the wheelhouse. Another burst in the transmitting station, killing most of the crew and all the staff of the Wireless Office. A third entered the ship under the after-torpedo-tubes, crossed the ship, and burst against the forward bulkhead of the captain’s cabin ...”

Only 31 men were rescued from the 149-strong crew. Ramsay was one of those rescued, but Roope did not survive. As Ramsay recalled:

“I was taken before the Hipper’s Captain, who told me our torpedoes missed by a few yards. The ramming had damaged one set of torpedo tubes, flooded two compartments, and put her freshwater system out of action.” ~Only when survivors were repatriated at the end of the war, and in particular Lieutenant Ramsay, was the complete story of Glowworm’s endeavour told. ‘Full information concerning this action has only recently been received…’, said 35-year-old Roope’s citation.

Though not awarded until years afterwards, Gerard Roope was the man who earned the first VC of the war.

(www. warshipimages.com) ■ Launched on 22 July 1935, at the shipyard of Thornycroft at Woolston, Southampton, HMS Glowworm (H92) was one of the Royal Navy’s nine 1933 Naval Programme G-class destroyers. HMS Glowworm entered service in the interwar period and initially served in the Mediterranean, returning to Home waters in October 1939 and was the vessel on which the first VC of the war was earned.

(Both images courtesy of Maurice Laarman) ■ HMS Glowworm is engaged by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. In the bottom picture, a shell can be seen bursting within a cable’s length of Glowworm. Taken from the German vessel, the photograph shows Glowworm laying a dense smokescreen as she cuts across the enemy’s bows.

(Courtesy of Maurice Laarman) ■ Right: The badly damaged HMS Glowworm pictured in the moments after she had rammed the Admiral Hipper. The extensive damage to the destroyer’s bows can clearly be seen.

■ Left: Shrouded in dense black smoke, HMS Glowworm wallows in the heavy swell having been repeatedly hit by fire from the Admiral Hipper. (Courtesy of Maurice Laarman)

■ Survivors from HMS Glowworm cling to part of the wreckage that is all that is left of their ship after the battle with the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper on 8 April 1940. This photograph, which appeared in a German propaganda paper, was taken through one of Hipper’s gun sights. (HMP)

(Courtesy of Maurice Laarman) ■ Exhausted survivors cling to the nets thrown over the side of the Admiral Hipper’s hull. Some accounts state that LieutenantCommander Roope, assisting other survivors from his ship, managed to reach the Admiral Hipper where a rope was passed down to him. But the Glowworm’s skipper was too exhausted to hold on and he slipped back into the water and was never seen again.

(Courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) ■ Apart from the thirty-one men rescued, the remainder of HMS Glowworm’s complement, 111 officers and men, were lost with their ship. Along with their captain, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Broadmead Roope VC RN, these men are commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. Situated on Southsea Common overlooking the promenade, the Memorial commemorates around 10,000 sailors of the First World War and almost 15,000 of the Second World War who have no known grave.

■ Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Broadmead Roope VC, RN. His Victoria Cross, which is currently privately held and not on public display, was presented to his widow at Buckingham Palace on 12 February 1946. Roope is one of twenty-five holders of the VC who were lost or buried at sea.