Operation Ostfront ( German: "Eastern Front") was the

sortie A sortie (from the French word meaning ''exit'' or from Latin root ''surgere'' meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint. The term originated in siege warfare. ...

into the Arctic Ocean by the German

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

during World War II. This operation culminated in the sinking of ''Scharnhorst''.

Background

Soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Arctic Convoys were sent by the Western Allies to the Soviet Union delivering vital supplies. In May 1941, after the loss of the , Adolf Hitler had forbidden any German capital ship from venturing into contested seas. By December 1943 the tide had turned against Germany. The

Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade ...

had been lost, and supplies poured into the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. In September 1943 the was disabled during the British Operation Source, leaving ''Scharnhorst'' and as the only operational heavy ships in the ''

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

''.

The Operation

In November 1943 the Arctic Convoys restarted. On 19 December 1943 Grand Admiral

Karl Dönitz Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...

submitted a request to Hitler to allow ''Scharnhorst'' to attack the next convoy sailing through the Barents Sea. On 25 December 1943 Dönitz ordered ''Ostfront'' to commence. Admiral Fraser (C-in-C of the Home Fleet), alerted by Norwegian resistance information to the possibility of an interception by ''Scharnhorst'', prepared a trap for the German warship. On 25 December ''Scharnhorst'' sailed to intercept the British convoy, JW 55B, believing it to be sparsely protected. In the ensuing Battle of the North Cape ''Scharnhorst'' was separated from her escorting destroyers and was sunk.

References

Operation Ostfront
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ostfront, Operation North Cape Arctic naval operations of World War II Arctic convoys of World War II