Battle of The Barents Sea - Aftermath

Aftermath

Despite this German attack on convoy JW 51B, all fourteen of its merchant ships reached their destinations in the USSR.

Even more critically for the outcome of the war, Adolf Hitler was infuriated at what he perceived as the uselessness of the surface raiders, seeing that two heavy cruisers were driven off by mere destroyers. There were serious implications: this failure nearly made Hitler enforce a decision to scrap the surface fleet, and for the German Navy to concentrate on U-boat warfare. Admiral Erich Raeder, supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine, offered his resignation—which Hitler accepted, apparently reluctantly. Raeder was replaced by Admiral Karl Dönitz, the commander of the U-boat fleet, who saved the German surface fleet from scrapping (though Hipper and several light cruisers were laid up), but many of those same ships, including Hipper and Lützow, were bombed and sunk later during the British bombing campaign of the first 4 months of 1945, and only Prinz Eugen, Nürnberg and 20-odd destroyers survived the war afloat.

Aside from the E-boats operating off the coast of France, the only major surface operation ever completed following the battle was the attempted raid on Convoy JW 55B by the battleship Scharnhorst, but she was sunk by an escorting British task force in what is later known as the Battle of the North Cape.

On the British side, Captain Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke was awarded the Victoria Cross. He generously acknowledged that it had truthfully been awarded in honour of the whole crew of Onslow. In the action he had been badly wounded, and had lost the sight in one eye. However, he returned to active duty, and retired from the navy in the 1950s, with the rank of Rear-Admiral.

At the memorial for Bramble, Captain Harvey Crombie stated of the crew: "They had braved difficulties and perils probably unparalleled in the annals of the British Navy, and calls upon their courage and endurance were constant, but they never failed. They would not have us think sadly at this time, but rather that we should praise God that they had remained steadfast to duty to the end."

Also, the battle became the subject of the book 73 North by Dudley Pope.