DHM1236. The attack on the Admiral Hipper by HMS Glowworm by Ivan Berryman.   B0107. HMS Glowworm's Attack on the Admiral Hipper by Ivan Berryman.  HMS Glowworm, burning severely after receiving hits from the mighty Admiral Hipper, is depicted turning to begin her heroic sacrifice off the Norwegian coast on 8th April 1940. Hugely out-gunned and already crippled, Glowworm's captain, Lieutenant-Commander Roope rammed his destroyer into the side of the Admiral Hipper, inflicting a 40 metre rip in its armour belt before drifting away and exploding. 38 British sailors were rescued from the sea and Roope was awarded a posthumous VC for his bravery, the first earned by the Royal Navy in WWII. B0205. The attack on the Admiral Hipper by HMS Glowworm by Ivan Berryman.   KMS Admiral Hippers first and uneventful operation (Nordmark) was to hunt down allied merchantmen off Scandinavia, along with the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in late February 1940.  In April 1940, she participated in Operation Weser (the invasion of Norway). During the capture of Trondheim, Admiral Hipper and her destroyer escort attacked the British destroyer HMS Glowworm.  Damaged, Glowworm rammed the Hipper before she blew up and sank.  The 40-metre hole torn in Hippers hull did not prevent her from completing her mission before repairs were carried out at Wilhelmshaven.   On the 4th June 1940, Admiral Hipper joined the battlecruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and four destroyers to take part in Operation Juno (strike against allied forces in the Harstadt region).  The group sank the tanker Oil Pioneer, the troop transporter Orama and the trawler Juniper before Hipper withdrew to Trondheim.  The following two months saw the Hipper operating in the arctic region without the aid of the two battlecruisers (withdrawn due to torpedo damage).  She returned to Wilhelmshaven for repairs after sinking the small steamer Ester Thorsen.  She remained in port but at constant readiness to take part in Operation Sealion (invasion of England), which never materialised.   On 27th November 1940 she participated in Operation Nordseetour (North Atlantic Raid).  She located convoy WS-5A on the 24th December 1940 and sank the merchant cruiser Jumna on Christmas day.  She later damaged another merchantman and scored four hits on the Kent Class cruiser HMS Berwick before withdrawing.  Hipper arrived at the port of Brest (France) on the 27th December.  She left for the Atlantic again on 1st February 1941, being past information on the whereabouts of convoy HG-35 by the shadowing U-Boat U37.  On route, U-37 lost the convoy but Hipper came across the unescorted convoy SLS-64 instead.  Hipper had no trouble in sinking seven out of the nineteen ships in this convoy.  Yet again her thirsty engines forced a re-fuel, this time at Brest (France), after which she sailed for Kiel via the Denmark straits, arriving on 28th March 1941.   Admiral Hipper spent the next months at Kiel under refit, which included the conversion of water tanks into fuel tanks to improve her range.  On the 21st March 1942 she sailed for Trondheim with an escort of three destroyers and three torpedo boats.  She next set sail in early July 1942 (Operation Rösselsprung, the attempt to hunt down the ill-fated convoy PQ-17) in company with the battleship Tirpitz and the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer.  This battle group never sited the convoy but its mere presents in the area forced the convoy to scatter, allowing U-Boats to sink two thirds of the convoy’s number.  Between 24th and the 28th September the Hipper escorted by four destroyers, laid mines off Novoya Zemelya.   On the 31st December 1942 Admiral Hipper, the pocket battleship Lützow and six destroyers attacked the convoy JW-51B (which later became known as the battle of the Barents Sea).  During the battle, the British destroyers Orwell, Onslow and Achates defended their convoy admirably by engaging Admiral Hipper.  HMS Achates was badly damaged by the heavy cruiser and later sank.  Admiral Hipper next came under fire from the advancing cruisers HMS Jamaica and HMS Sheffield; the serious damage she received below the waterline forced her withdrawal Kaafjord.  When Hitler heard of the outcome of the battle, he uttered the famous orders to scrap all his capital ships!   After carrying out minor repairs in Norway, Hipper arrived at Kiel on 7th February 1943.  From here she moved to Wilhelmshaven where she was decommissioned on the 28th February.  Adolf Hitler cancelled her proposed repair work and heavy bombing of Wilhelmshaven forced the ship to be towed to Pillau on the 17th April 1943. After many months of inactivity, repairs were granted in late 1943, which required a further move to Götenhaven, followed shortly after by her recommissioning on 30th April 1944.  Work was still outstanding by the end of the year and, as January 1945 came, a more serious effort was made to ready her for operations.    Due to advancing Russian forces, Hipper was forced to leave Götenhaven on the 30th January, carrying fleeing refugees; she accompanied the Passage Liner Wilhelm Gustloff to Kiel (the later being sunk on route).  On the 3rd February 1945 she was heavily damaged by RAF bombers and again on the 9th.  To prevent her capture, she was blown up and scuttled on 3rd May 1945 in the Deutche Werke dock by her crew.  In 1946 she was raised and moved to Heikendorfer Bay.  She remained there until she was broken up between 1948 and 1949.    Contributed by Carl Proctor