On 8 June 1940, the Royal Navy suffered one of the most unfortunate losses it would go on to suffer during the Second World War, as the HMS Glorious sank, followed by her escort destroyers HMS Ardent and HMS Acasta, by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. It remains one of the catastrophes that is still mired in controversy with questions even as many decades have passed, taking 1,519 men with it.
HMS Glorious was involved in Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied forces from Norway, which was concurrent with the better-known Dunkirk evacuation. At 0300 hours, Glorious, along with her escorts, detached from Vice Admiral Lionel Wells’ squadron to continue independently to the UK. The carrier had been assigned to take on board RAF fighters, including ten Gloster Gladiators and seven Hawker Hurricanes, the latter achieving the remarkable feat of landing on her flight deck.
By 1545 hours, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had sighted the British ships. Although the British ships were taken entirely by surprise due to the lack of aircraft to give early warning, the British vessels were overwhelmed and, but for a gallant defense put up by Ardent and Acasta, which included a torpedo attack on Scharnhorst, would all have fallen well before 1820 hours when they had all sunk, leaving some 900 men in the freezing waters. Regrettably, 40 were still alive when the survivors were rescued nearly three days later, as the rescue was delayed because the British remained unaware of the sinkings until the Germans announced them.
Almost immediately, controversy erupted around the sinking of HMS Glorious. As early as July 31, 1940, Richard Stokes queried the Admiralty in Parliament, and an initial Admiralty response reported that Glorious had been sent off alone due to a lack of fuel, which almost everybody – including Winston Churchill, who later called it “not convincing”–lost no time in attacking.
Further criticism came from the Navy’s official historian, Captain Stephen Roskill, who in 1980 wrote an article for the Sunday Times. Roskill’s article was based on evidence given by Captain J.B. Heath and portrayed a ship bedeviled by leadership problems at the helm of Captain Guy D’Oyly-Hughes. According to Roskill, it was to expedite D’Oyly-Hughes’ court martial against Heath, whom he had put ashore before the final voyage, that the decision to turn home was made.
The role of HMS Devonshire, a British ship closest to Glorious at the time she sank, was also brought under scrutiny. Devonshire had the Norwegian royal family on board and is alleged to have picked up a badly corrupted distress signal from Glorious but failed to break the radio silence. It is thus mooted that the crews of Glorious and her escorts were sacrificed to save Devonshire and her valuable cargo.
The Board of Enquiry held by the Admiralty soon after the survivors reached Britain was met with general condemnation because the investigation only had a narrow scope, and it sealed the findings until 2041. Among notable absentees to testify was Vice Admiral Wells himself, who ordered Glorious to leave the company of the convoy, a possible reason to believe that there must have been a cover-up.
Although this event took place several years ago, HMS Glorious sinking to this day is a tragic, controversial page in the naval chronicles. Each year, the Association of the Men of the HMS Glorious, Ardent, and Acasta carries a memorial service on their lives, even as so many questions remain unanswered on this tragedy.