The Royal Navy's Early War (1939-41) Quiz

Answer: Gunther Prien

Gunther Prien was one of the new breed of German U-Boat commanders. This was undoubtedly a propaganda coup for the Nazi regime as the loss of HMS Royal Oak was a disaster and the loss of the ship with 834 men was a genuine shock for the whole nation!

Prien was awarded the prestigious Knights Cross for this achievement and was the first U-Boat commander to win this medal.

Kretschmer and Schepke were both very successful U-boat commanders. Note that Otto Kretschmer on 17th March 1941 he became a POW when his beloved U-99 was bought to the surface by depth charges and he and his crew captured.

Joachim Schempke was killed on the same day when HMS Vanoc depth charged and rammed U-100 sinking the submarine with all hands lost.

Prien and U-47 went missing earlier in the month when he was attacking Convoy OB293. It is assumed the submarine was sunk by HMS Wolverine but this was never proven one way or the other.
Between the three of them (Prien, Kretschmer and Schepke) they had sunk 113 allied merchantmen with a total tonnage of more than 620,000 GRT. Such was the threat from these 'aces' of the German U-boat force.

Finally, Karl Donitz is better known as the overall commander of German submarine forces who took over control of Nazi Germany after the death of Hitler and who surrendered to the Allies.

Answer: HMS Cumberland

The Graf Spee was perfectly designed to be a commerce raider and was performing this anti shipping mission during the early months of the war. By the time the Royal Navy finally caught up with her, Graf Spee had already sunk 9 Allied Merchantman and Tankers with a tonnage of over 50,000 gross register tons (GRT).

The initial battle on the 13th December ended up with minor damage to Graf Spee which bolted to the neutral port of Montevideo and some damage to all three of the RN Cruisers with HMS Exeter coming off the worst. Admiral Harwood deceived the German Captain and convinced him that heavier reinforcements were available so he decided to scuttled the pocket battleship outside of the harbour. This was the first major victory that the RN achieved during the war and went a long way to restoring the Countries faith in the Royal Navy post Royal Oak.

HMS Cumberland was a 'County-class' Heavy Cruiser allocated to Force G, which was involved in the hunt for the Graf Spee but was not involved in the battle itself.

Answer: 299

The Altmark was the supply tanker for German Raiders such as the Admiral Graf Spee where she replenished them with fuel, ammunition and spares. The Altmark had been given the captured merchant crews from the 9 freighters, steamers and merchant vessels sunk by the Graf Spee before her scuttling at Montevideo.

The action by the Captain and Crew of HMS Cossack was not without criticism, as the Norwegian Navy were partially protecting the Altmark as it took passage through Norwegian waters.

However it did coin the very popular phrase, "The Navy's here!"

Answer: 10 Destroyers, a U-Boat and 7 supply ships/freighters

The German invasion of Norway was ultimately successful although at a considerable loss to their surface fleet. The Germans lost 10 of their 17 Destroyers at Narvik, and also lost the Heavy Cruiser Blucher to Naval Guns based on the approaches to Oslo as well as two other light cruisers. Whilst the Royal Navy lost one of their carriers (HMS Glorious) as well as 2 light cruisers and 7 destroyers, but they were much more able to accept these losses than the Germans.

These losses almost guaranteed that the Germans would be unable to support an invasion of Britain under 'Operation Sealion' regardless of the efforts of the Luftwaffe.

Answer: Operation Dynamo

Operation Dynamo was under the command of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay who was responsible for marshalling and managing nearly 900 ships from the Royal Navy as well as Belgium, France, Netherlands and Poland. The ships involved included cruisers to tiny pleasure boats as part of the flotilla of 'little ships'. The evacuation was ultimately successful with over 198,000 BEF personnel as well as 140,000 French Army Troops.

The Naval losses were remarkably light at only 8 RN Ships as well as the loss of 145 RAF aircraft.

Operation Mercury was associated with the German invasion of Crete in May 1941
Operation Cycle was the codeword for the evacutation from Le Havre in June 1940.
Operation Dynamite was a codeword used for operations in Norway in 1941.

Answer: Mers-el-Kebir

Force H was a powerful naval unit and comprised of the the battle cruiser HMS Hood, and the battleships HMS Valiant and Resolution as well as the carrier HMS Ark Royal. The RN issued an ultimatum to the French Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul about surrendering the Vichy French Fleet to the British. As these negotiations dragged on it became apparent that there would be no peaceful resolution to the situation so on 9th July, Force H attacked the Fleet at anchor at Mers-el-Kebir. The resulting action saw the Battleships Bretagne sunk and Dunkerque and Provence damaged with additional 5 smaller vessels sunk or damaged.

The modern battleship Strasbourg managed to escape through the minefield and make its way to the Vichy Port of Toulon. There were only 2 British casualties who were aircrew from Ark Royal.

The decisive action by the RN meant that other Vichy France Naval Units such as the Battleship Richelieu at Dakar, after negotiation, surrendered or remained in port for the duration of the war.

Answer: HMS Illustrious

The attack involved a total of 20 Fairey Swordfish aircraft in two waves. With only half the aircraft armed with Torpedoes and the rest armed with flares and bombs, the aircraft managed to weave through the heavy flak and balloon defences to strike at the Italian fleet in Taranto harbour.

With the loss of only two aircraft and two aircrew killed, the Fleet Air Arm had sunk one battleship (Conte di Cavour) and damaged two others (Caio Duilio and Littorio. Four other warships were sunk or damaged.

All this achieved with what were seen as slow, obsolete biplanes such as the Swordfish.

Answer: Battle of Matapan

The Battle of Matapan was a genuinely decisive action. The Italians never really recovered from the loss of 3 cruisers sunk and a battleship and various other warships damaged for a loss of over 2,500 sailors killed in action. The RN had only slight damage to 4 of their own cruisers and only incurred 3 casualties.

The balance of power in the Mediterranean would be with the Royal Navy after this battle.

Answer: Prinz Eugen

The Prinz Eugen was a 16,700 ton heavy cruiser armed with a primary batteries of 8 x 8" guns and secondary batteries of 12 x 4.1" guns. Prinz Eugen escorted Bismark out of the Baltic into the Atlantic and took part in what was to become the Battle of the Denmark Straits where HMS Hood was destroyed. Following the battle, it separated from the Bismark to managed to make it to the safety of the French Port of Brest on the 1st June 1941.

Scharnhorst and Gneisau were battlecruisers and were both having repairs in the French port of Brest and the battleship Tirpitz had just finished acceptance trials and was located in the Baltic.

Answer: HMS Glorious (June 1940)

Apologies for the slight 'trickery' involved in this question but HMS Glorious was not sunk by a U-boat, but by the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 8 June 1940 in the North Sea. This was part of the British final retreat from Norway.

HMS Courageous was an aircraft carrier and has the dubious distinction of becoming the first Royal Navy Warship sunk during World War 2. She was sunk by U-29 on 17th September 1939 in the Western Approaches - the irony being she was on an Anti-Submarine Patrol.

HMS Ark Royal, the famous carrier whose air groups was responsible for disabling the Bismark earlier in the year, was finally sunk on 14th November 1941 by U-81 off of Gibraltar.

HMS Barham, a veteran Battleship involved in the Battle of Jutland in 1916, was sunk by U-331 in the Mediterranean on 25th November 1941.