The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 5, Issue 4, Fall 2016 | Page 16

to Narvik without incident, although the commander of the patrolling Soviet
submarine K-21 claimed afterward that he had torpedoed Tirpitz during her foray.
Even if the Soviets fired torpedoes at the ships, the Germans took no notice of the
attack. 26
The battle for PQ-17 was a disaster for the Allies. Even without the
benefit of hindsight, the Admiralty’s order to scatter was highly controversial—
although there were admittedly few, if any, good choices available to Admiral
Pound. Had PQ-17 not scattered it may well have been intercepted by
Schniewind’s ships and annihilated anyway. This was the end result of risking the
passage of a slow convoy in continuous daylight, across an area infested by U-
boats and dominated by German air power. Ultimately, the answer to Pound’s
fateful decision lies in the fact that the mere threat of the German battleship had
caused the British leadership to “jump the gun” and consign PQ-17 to its doom.
Thus, Tirpitz was instrumental in bringing about one of the most decisive Allied
defeats at sea without firing a single shot at an enemy vessel. The political
ramifications of the PQ-17 disaster continued long after the event; they hurt not
only the Royal Navy’s prestige but also caused immense bitterness with the Allied
merchant navies, and universal condemnation from the United States and USSR,
both of which accused the British of bungling and gross misjudgment. The
subsequent postponement of the Murmansk convoys incensed Soviet dictator
Josef Stalin and further damaged Anglo-Soviet relations, at a time when the
outcome of the war in the East was seen to hang in the balance. The Allies did not
resume Arctic summer convoys until Tirpitz was removed from the picture. 27
Tirpitz remained in Bogen near Narvik until late October, when it was
decided to return her to Fættenfjord for an overhaul and refit. Northern Norway,
severely lacking in infrastructure, was no place to perform extended repairs on a
vessel of her size. It was during this time, with Tirpitz undergoing repairs, that the
Battle of the Barents Sea (Operation Regenbogen) was fought on the last day of
1942. Its outcome would have monumental consequences for the Kriegsmarine
surface fleet.
The battle opened in characteristically poor weather conditions. Vice-
Admiral Kummetz, aboard flagship Admiral Hipper, engaged convoy JW-51B in
concert with Lützow and six destroyers, only to be brusquely driven off by the
outgunned British defenders. Each side lost one destroyer in the confused
exchange, but it was a surprising and clear-cut victory for the Royal Navy, which
through its spirited conduct saved the convoy. The German fleet’s bungled attack
threw Hitler into a towering rage. The battle’s outcome led to Grand-Admiral
Raeder’s resignation and to the Führer’s death sentence on the German surface
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