HMS Norfolk was a heavy cruiser of the Royal Navy. The ship was the lead ship of the Norfolk-subclass of which only two were built: Norfolk and . She served throughout the Second World War. During 1939-41 she operated in the Atlantic against German raiders and blockade runners. In March 1940 she was damaged by a German dive bomber in the anchorage of Scapa Flow.
In May 1941 Norfolk and her sister ship detected the German battleship and the heavy cruiser while on patrol in Denmark Strait. The two cruisers guided the battleship and the battlecruiser to the German ships, but in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May, Hood was sunk and both Prince of Wales and Bismarck were damaged. Norfolk and Suffolk kept contact with the German ships and guided the Home Fleet to the scene. Norfolk directed a torpedo bomber attack from Victorious to the Bismarck, but these aircraft could only score one insignificant hit on Bismarck. Finally Bismarck shook off the shadowing Norfolk, Suffolk and Prince of Wales, and headed to port in France. When Bismarck was found back on 26 May, Norfolk was one of the few ships left with enough fuel to continue the pursuit of Bismarck. In the evening of 26 May, torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier rendered Bismarck steerless, allowing her pursuers to catch up. In the morning of 27 May, the battleships and , Norfolk and the heavy cruiser destroyed the Bismarck with gunfire and torpedoes.
From 1942 onwards she operated in the Arctic, usually as part of the close covering force of Arctic convoys to Russia, where she was involved in the sinking of the German battleship during the Battle of the North Cape. After the war, Norfolk was sent to the East Indies as flagship. In 1949 she returned to Britain, was placed in reserve and scrapped in 1950.
Characteristics Norfolk was laid down in July 1927 at Govan by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd, launched on 12 December 1928, and commissioned on 30 April 1930. She was at maximum long overall, and had a beam of and a draught of . The cruiser displaced at standard displacement, in compliance with the tonnage restriction of the Washington Naval Treaty, and up to at full load. Norfolk was propelled by four Parsons steam turbines that drove four screw propellers. Steam was provided by eight oil-fired 3-drum water-tube boilers. The turbines were rated at and produced a top speed of . The ship had a capacity of of fuel oil as built, which provided a cruising radius of at a speed of . She had a crew of 710 officers and enlisted men.
Norfolk was armed with a main battery of eight guns in four twin turrets. She had a secondary battery consisting of four twin dual-purpose guns. The cruiser was to be equipped with multiple QF 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns, but these were not yet available when she was commissioned. In 1939 her light anti-aircraft armament consisted of two octuple 2-pounder guns and two quadruple Vickers AA machine guns. By 1945 this was modified to six quadruple 2-pounders, nine single Bofors 40 mm guns and eleven twin 20 mm guns. To compensate for the added weight of anti-aircraft armament and radars, the third ( "X" ) twin 8 inch turret was landed in 1944. Norfolk also mounted two quadruple torpedo tubes.
The County-class heavy cruisers sacrified armour for speed and armament. As built there was no belt armour, but a belt was added before the war. The sides and the barbettes used plating, the lower deck , the turrets and only the ammunition magazines received of armour plate on the sides.
During the war, Norfolk underwent five refits and repairs : April-July 1940, July-September 1941, February-March 1942, April-May 1943 and February-October 1944. On each occasion her anti-aircraft armament and radar equipment were updated with what was available at the moment.
Service history
Inter-war period
In July 1931, Norfolk and Devonshire were the first British Navy ships to visit the German harbour Kiel. In September 1931, the crew of the Norfolk were part of a mutiny that later became known as the Invergordon Mutiny. The ship later served with the Home Fleet until 1932 and was then Flagship of the 8th Cruiser Squadron on the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, between 1932 and 1934. Norfolk left Bermuda on 21 November 1934 for England. From 1935 to 1939, Norfolk served with the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, before coming home to refit in 1939, being still in dockyard hands when war was declared.
Second World War At the outbreak of war in 1939, Norfolk was part of the 8th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet. In November she was part of the Northern Patrol guarding Denmark Strait against German blockade runners and raiders. On 23 November the German battleships and attacked the Northern Patrol between Iceland and the Faroe Islands and sank the armed merchant cruiser . Norfolk was involved in the chase for the two German battleships, but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau retreated at high speed and managed to return to Germany in bad weather. In anticipation of a British reaction on the sortie of the two battleships, the (OKM) had organised a submarine trap East of the Shetland isles. In very bad weather, Norfolk was sighted on 28 November by which signalled a contact report and alerted the nearby under the command of the famous Günther Prien. Due to the bad weather, Prien managed only to launch one torpedo which missed, but Prien reported one hit, while German propaganda claimed the cruiser sunk.
In order to counter a supposed Allied invasion of Norway, the Germans executed a raid on 16 March 1940 with eighteen Junkers Ju 88 of Kampfgeschwader 30 and sixteen Heinkel He 111 of Kampfgeschwader 26 at the naval base of Scapa Flow. Norfolk was struck by a 250 kg bomb from a Junkers Ju 88 at 19:59, which hit the quarterdeck near the Y turret, passed through the upper, main and lower decks, and exploded near the Y shell room, blowing a hole in the starboard side below the waterline and flooding the X and Y magazines. Four crewmen were killed and six wounded. She went into repairs for three months. After these repairs had been completed Norfolk proceeded to a shipyard on the River Tyne for a new radar set.
In November 1940, the German "pocket battleship" broke out into the Atlantic and on 5 November attacked Convoy HX 84 and sank five ships. Trying to anticipate every possible next move of the German raider, the Admiralty sent out ships to block a possible return to Germany, allocated battleships to convoy escort and organised hunting groups in the North Atlantic. Norfolk was sent out from Freetown northwards together with her sister ship and the aircraft carrier to block the raider from going to port in occupied France. When in December the appeared in the South Atlantic, Norfolk was ordered to Freetown as part of Force K on trade protection duties. On 18 January 1941 Norfolk, under the command of Captain Phillips, acting upon a report from the armed merchant cruiser Arawa seeing in the far distance the gun flashes of the German auxiliary cruiser sinking the tanker British Union, joined in the search for the German raider together with her sister ship .
Bismarck On 21 May Norfolk, under the command of rear Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker, was patrolling in the Denmark Strait against possible German raiders. When the British received news of an impeding attempt of the German battleship and heavy cruiser to break-out into the Atlantic, the Denmark Strait patrol was reinforced with Norfolks sister ship , which was refuelling at Iceland. In the evening of 23 May the two cruisers were patrolling apart when Suffolk spotted the two German ships. Suffolk hid in the mist but when Norfolk made contact with the German ships she was spotted by Bismarck and the German battleship fired five salvoes at Norfolk before she too could escape in the mist. Norfolk and Suffolk continued to shadow Bismarck and Prinz Eugen with their radar and sent regular contact reports, in order to guide a British force consisting of the battleship , the battlecruiser and six destroyers under the command of Admiral Lancelot Holland to the scene. At midnight Bismarck suddenly reversed course and tried to chase the cruisers away. Norfolk and Suffolk lost contact and as a result, Holland sent his destroyers away on a fruitless search for the German ships. When contact was finally regained Holland could close in on the German ships but now the British ships were approaching slowly on a converging course rather than the planned advantageous head-on approach. In the ensuing Battle of the Denmark Strait Hood was sunk and both Bismarck and Prince Of Wales were damaged. Holland had not tried to involve the shadowing cruisers in his battle plan, the cruisers were too far away to close in before the battle was over. Only Suffolk fired a few salvoes which fell far too short.
Both cruisers and the damaged Prince of Wales continued to shadow the German ships in order to guide the Home Fleet to them. During the afternoon of 24 May, Bismarck turned twice on her pursuers and had a brief gun duel, first with Suffolk, and then Prince of Wales. With these diversions, Prinz Eugen was able to slip away to continue merchant raiding independently while the damaged Bismarck wanted to head to the French port of Brest for repairs. During the night, an attack with nine Fairey Swordfish aircraft was launched from the approaching Home Fleet. In bad visibility the aircraft detected Bismarck at 23:30 and the shadowing British ships with their radar, and made contact with Norfolk to get a proper heading towards the enemy. The aircraft scored one hit but this did not affect Bismarck much. Norfolk was trailing Bismarck with her radar on the port side. As the British ships entered the open Atlantic, they started to zigzag because of the U-boat danger. Norfolk had a fixed radar, not a rotating one, and was able to track Bismarck only during the first leg of the zigzag. When Bismarck turned away on 25 May at 03:06 to starboard and behind the trailing ships, the manoeuvre was detected too late and the British ships lost contact. Norfolk, Suffolk, Prince of Wales, and the approaching Home Fleet fanned out to regain contact but Bismarck had escaped.
During the subsequent search for Bismarck, many British ships had to give up the hunt because of fuel shortage and because they were searching in the wrong direction, thinking Bismarck would either continue into the Atlantic or return to Norway. Wake-Walker anticipated Bismarck continuing to a French port and when Bismarck was found back on 26 May at 10:30 by air reconnaissance on her way to Brest, Norfolk was in a position to pick up the chase again. Bismarck had its rudder jammed as a result of a torpedo aircraft attack the same day at 20:47 by the aircraft carrier from Force H. During the night Norfolk closed in together with the battleships and , but waited until the morning of 27 May to attack, while Bismarck was constantly being harassed by individual torpedo attacks of five destroyers under the command of Captain Philip Vian. Norfolk made contact with Bismarck at 07:53 but withdrew quickly awaiting the arrival of Rodney and King George V. The British initiated the battle at 08:47 and Norfolk joined at 08:54, firing from . At 08:59 she scored an important hit on the foretop of Bismarck, putting her central fire control station out of action. At 09:10 Norfolk fired four torpedoes from which all missed. During the battle she fired a total of 527 8-inch shells, and carried out flank marking for the battleships. Bismarck was put out of action by 09:30 and finally sank at 10:40. After the battle Norfolk returned independently to the Clyde on 29 May and on the way she was bombed by one German aircraft but suffered no damage.
Arctic convoys