Operation Juno
On 7 June, the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious had taken on board 10 Gloster Gladiators and eight Hawker Hurricanes from No. 46 Squadron RAF and No. 263 Squadron RAF Royal Air Force. These were flown off from land bases to keep them from being destroyed in the evacuation. Glorious left a larger convoy to proceed independently. The next day, while sailing through the Norwegian Sea to return to Scapa Flow, the carrier and her escorts—the destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent—were intercepted by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The carrier and her escorts were sunk with the loss of more than 1,500 men.
Scharnhorst was badly damaged by a torpedo from Acasta and both German vessels were hit by a number of medium shells. The damage to the German ships was sufficient to cause the Germans to retire to Trondheim, which allowed the safe passage of the evacuation convoy through the area later that day.
Read more about this topic: Battles Of Narvik
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