Fullbore Friday

Another visit to the Battle of Narvik. The German Destroyer Erich Giese. How is this for a short but storied record?

04.09.1939:	Together with Theodor Riedel and the mine layers Cobra and Roland , the Erich Giese lays the anti submarine mine field "f" MARTHA-HANS in the North Sea. 666 Mines are laid during this operation, 100 from Erich Giese .
05-06.09.1939:	Together with Theodor Riedel and the mine layers Cobra and Roland , the Erich Giese lays the mine field "a" MARTHA-IDA in the North Sea. 666 Mines are laid during this operation, 100 from Erich Giese .
06-07.12.1939:	Mine laying operation with Bernd von Arnim and Hans Lody against Cromer. During the operation, the German destroyers attack the British destroyers Juno and Jersey , damaging the Jersey with a torpedo fired from Erich Giese .
07.04.1940:	Operation Weserübung: Erich Giese joins the destroyers Georg Thiele , Wolfgang Zenker , Anton Schmitt , Bernd von Arnim , Erich Koellner , Diether von Roeder , Hans Lüdemann , Hermann Künne and Wilhlem Heidkamp in the Narvik Attack Group.
13.04.1940:	Operation Weserübung: The destroyer is sunk by the British destroyers Cossack and Foxhound west of Narvik.

One of their officers who survived - and fought on - with an incredible record of his own.

Gerhard Schaar; began his naval career in October 1937. He served on the destroyer Erich Giese, which was sunk during the occupation of Norway in April 1940. After some months on shore in Narvik, he served as training officer in the Marineschule Mürwik (Naval Academy) before transferring in February 1942 to the U-boat force.

After two patrols on U-704, in April 1943 he took command of the Type VIIC boat U-957, which was attached to the 11th Flotilla and was in action in the Arctic Sea. Schaar won his Knights Cross for leading the landing operation on the Soviet island Sterligova, where a radio station was destroyed in September 1944. In April 1945 Schaar commissioned the Type XXI U-boat U-2551, which was scuttled one month later.