Battle of the North Cape

Battle of the North Cape
Part of World War II
German battleship Scharnhorst, c. 1939
Date 26 December 1943 Location Off the North Cape, Barents Sea 72°31′N 28°15′E / 72.517°N 28.250°E / 72.517; 28.250 Result Allied victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Canada Norway	Germany
Commanders and leaders
Bruce Fraser	Erich Bey †
Strength
Battleship Duke of York Heavy cruiser Norfolk 3 light cruisers 8 destroyers	Battleship Scharnhorst 5 destroyers
Casualties and losses
21 killed 11 wounded Duke of York slightly damaged Norfolk damaged Saumarez damaged	1,932 killed 36 captured Scharnhorst sunk

The Battle of the North Cape was a Second World War naval battle that occurred on 26 December 1943, as part of the Arctic campaign. The German battleship Scharnhorst, on an operation to attack Arctic convoys of war materiel from the western Allies to the Soviet Union, was brought to battle and sunk by the Royal Navy's battleship HMS Duke of York with cruisers and destroyers, including an onslaught from the destroyer HNoMS Stord of the exiled Royal Norwegian Navy, off the North Cape, Norway.

The battle was the last between British and German big-gun capital ships. The outcome increased the British advantage in major surface units. It was also the penultimate engagement between battleships in history, the last being the October 1944 Battle of Surigao Strait.^[1]