The Battle of the North Cape was a Second World War naval battle which occurred on 26 December 1943, as part of the Arctic Campaign. The German battlecruiser Scharnhorst, on an operation to attack Arctic Convoys of war matériel from the Western Allies to the USSR, was brought to battle and sunk by superior Royal Navy forces—the battleship HMS Duke of York plus several cruisers and destroyers—off Norway's North Cape.
The battle was the last battle between big gun capital ships in the war between Britain and Germany. The British victory confirmed the massive strategic advantage held by the British, at least in surface units.
Read more about Battle Of The North Cape: Background, Battle, Aftermath
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“Nelson’s famous signal before the Battle of Trafalgar was not: “England expects that every man will be a hero.” It said: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” In 1805 that was enough. It should still be.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Nelson’s famous signal before the Battle of Trafalgar was not: “England expects that every man will be a hero.” It said: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” In 1805 that was enough. It should still be.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)