However, to accomplish this task, Kummits has many misgivings. The coast and mountains near the Barents Sea are jagged. In a snowstorm, ships are often hidden in huge shadows, which makes it very difficult to observe and aim. Lei Deer also ordered Kumetz to "avoid attacking powerful enemy forces, and if it is unavoidable, destroy the enemy according to the strategy". Lieutenant General Kurt Frick, Chief of General Staff of the German Navy, also warned: "No matter how the operational order stipulates, if you confront an enemy with equal strength, you must exercise restraint in combat activities, because we don't want to put our cruiser in great danger." Kummits himself is the minister of torpedo supervision, and he is not familiar with naval warfare. These warnings seriously shook his determination.
On the morning of February 3, 65438+Kloc-0, the first batch of British ships appeared at the scheduled place on time, but the German destroyer in charge of monitoring regarded it as a Soviet ship to meet the escort fleet. Kummits fought first, and he ordered "hippel" to take the lead and rush ahead. At about 9 o'clock, in order to seize power, the destroyer "Friedrich Eckert" fired at the British destroyer "Cold" with a 127 mm main gun at the bow. The battle was immediately launched in full swing. U-354, which has been hidden at the bottom of the sea, also floated up to join in the fun, but its role can only be an observer. Herbschleb immediately sent a message to Berlin: "From the scene, the war has reached its climax. I only see a piece of red. " Although Herbschleb only described the battle scenes, Lei Deer mistakenly thought that the German ships had won a great victory. He immediately ordered cronk to tell Hitler the good news at the first time. The Fuehrer was very happy.
At first, the commander of the escort fleet, Tabruk, thought that he had been attacked by German destroyers and motorcycles. It was not until 26 minutes later that he sent a distress signal to the light cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica. Tabrook used the old "Arches" to cast a smoke screen to cover the fleet's southward withdrawal, and led four destroyers to participate in the war. Before the arrival of reinforcements, the British destroyer was forced to play a cat-and-mouse game with the Germans, casting smoke screens and launching torpedoes in the air. The recruit "hippel" left the transport ship and concentrated its fire on the destroyer.
At that time, two British light cruisers, "Jamaica" and "Sheffield", were exploring two suspicious targets in the north (in fact, radar soldiers misreported them), and it was later confirmed that they were just an anti-submarine trawler and a merchant ship left behind. After receiving the emergency report from sherbrooke, the two ships immediately turned around and returned to the south for rescue at a speed of 3 1 knot.