HMS Glowworm

1940

Norwegian Sea, rammed the Hipper, Roope's VC Location: Norwegian Sea, off Trondheim, Norway · Coordinates: 64.27°N 6.45°E · Casualties: 109 · Survivors: 31 · Depth: abyssal · not located · Cause: naval gunfire · ramming — Intercepted the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and her escort of four destroyers in the Norwegian Sea on the morning of 8 April 1940. Outranged, outgunned, and unable to escape, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Roope laid smoke, closed the range, and rammed the Hipper. She was then sunk by gunfire. · Fate: abyssal Norwegian Sea · Type: destroyer · G class · Tonnage: 1,345 tons · Crew: 149 · Flag: United Kingdom · Launched: 1935 Royal Navy G-class destroyer, screening the British fleet moving north to intercept the German invasion of Norway. Ran into the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in heavy weather on the morning of 8 April 1940; outgunned by a factor of ten. Her commanding officer, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Roope, laid smoke, closed, and rammed the Hipper amidships before his ship was destroyed by gunfire. 109 dead, 31 survived. Roope received a posthumous Victoria Cross, the recommendation written by the German captain he had rammed. The Vessel HMS Glowworm (H92) was a G-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, commissioned at the John Thornycroft yard at Woolston, Hampshire, on 22 January 1936. She was 98 metres long, 1,370 tons standard displacement, armed with four 4.7-inch guns in single mountings and ten 21-inch torpedo tubes in two pentad (five-tube) mountings. Her designed speed was 35.5 knots on twin Parsons turbines. The G-class was one of the Royal Navy's most numerous interwar destroyer classes: nine ships commissioned between 1935 and 1936, with revised anti-aircraft armament and improved damage-control arrangements compared to the preceding F-class. Glowworm and her sisters served through the 1930s on Mediterranean and Home Fleet assignments, operating principally in the screening of larger fleet units. Her commanding officer from September 1939 was Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Broadmead Roope RN, 34 years old, a career destroyer officer who had served in the Mediterranean Fleet through 1938. Roope was a large-framed man known in the Royal Navy as "Rammer" from an incident during his 1936 command of HMS Garland, when he had accidentally rammed a friendly ship during fleet exercises. His crew called him "Rammer" with affection; the name would prove apt. The Disaster The appearance of Admiral Hipper transformed Glowworm's tactical situation. Against two German destroyers of roughly comparable capability she had been fighting a reasonable engagement; against an 8-inch-gunned heavy cruiser she had no gun that could range her attacker's armour and no prospect of victory. The conventional Royal Navy response would have been to withdraw under smoke and report the enemy's position. Roope chose a different course. He ordered Glowworm to close the range at full speed, laying smoke to conceal his intentions, and fired his remaining starboard torpedoes at Admiral Hipper from approximately 2,000 metres. All five torpedoes missed. Admiral Hipper's 8-inch guns had, by this time, already scored multiple hits on Glowworm: her bridge was destroyed, her forward 4.7-inch mounting was wrecked, her hull was pierced multiple times below the waterline. At approximately 09:00 on 8 April 1940, with Glowworm listing heavily to port and her speed reduced to perhaps 8 knots, Roope ordered the helm hard a-starboard and turned his ship directly into Admiral Hipper's course. Glowworm rammed Admiral Hipper on her starboard bow at a closing speed of approximately 15 knots. The ram produced a 40-metre gash in Admiral Hipper's starboard side, flooding two of her watertight compartments and taking out of action her starboard forward torpedo tubes. Glowworm's bow was crushed. She withdrew from the collision still under power, still firing her remaining after 4.7-inch guns,