The 'Overloaded' British Destroyer That Torpedoed the Scharnhorst at North Cape

The HMS Savage torpedo attack on the Scharnhorst at North Cape is one of the most lopsided victories of the Arctic war. On the night of 26 December 1943, a 1,710-ton British destroyer helped stop a 32,100-ton German battleship in a Force 8 gale, in near-total darkness, and sailed home. This is how a ship one nineteenth the size of her target closed to point-blank range and lived to fire.

HMS Savage was an S-class destroyer carrying an experimental twin 4.5-inch turret forward, heavier than anything her sisters carried on the same small hull. Critics called ships like her overloaded and outmatched. At the Battle of North Cape, Savage and three sister destroyers, HMS Saumarez, HMS Scorpion and the Norwegian-manned HNoMS Stord, drove in from two flanks and put torpedoes into the Scharnhorst, cutting her speed and leaving her for the guns of HMS Duke of York. Only 36 of nearly 1,968 German crew survived.

This is the story of the design decision behind the "overloaded" destroyer, the torpedo doctrine that let small ships kill a battleship, and the combat record that vindicated both.

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TAGS HMS Savage, Battle of North Cape, Scharnhorst sinking, S-class destroyer, Arctic convoys, HNoMS Stord, HMS Duke of York, Royal Navy destroyer, naval history, World War Two naval battles