Erich Bey

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Erich Bey with Ritterkreuz
Erich Bey with Ritterkreuz

Erich Bey (23 March 1898-26 December 1943) was a German naval officer who most notably served as a commander of the German Navy's (Kriegsmarnine) destroyer forces and who Commanded the Scharnhorst in the Battle of North Cape on 26 December 1943, during which the German battlecruiser was sunk. He was killed during that action.

Bey joined the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) on 13 June 1916 and served most of his naval career in the destroyer arm of that organization and its successors.

As Fregattenkapitän (Commander) in the Kriegsmarine, he led the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, consisting of the destroyers Bernd von Arnim, Erich Giese and Erich Koellner, as part of the force that carried mountain troops for the occupation of Narvik during the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940. In the following Battles of Narvik on 10 April and 13 April, Bey distinguished himself by leading a small group of destroyers in a brave though unsuccessful action against a superior Royal Navy force which included the battleship Warspite.

After Narvik, Bey received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (or Ritterkreuz), on 9 May 1940. On 10 May 1940, he was promoted to Captain and appointed Führer der Zerstörer (Leader of Destroyers), succeeding Commodore Friedrich Bonte who had been killed on 10 April at the first Battle of Narvik.

Captain Erich Bey then commanded in February 1942 the destroyer screen protecting the ships of the Brest Group (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen) during Operation Cerberus (the "Channel Dash").

Promoted to Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral), Bey on 25 December 1943 led a task force consisting of the battleship Scharnhorst and the destroyers Z 29, Z 30, Z 33, Z 34, and Z 38 out of Alta Fjord in an operation named Ostfront. Intending to intercept an Allied convoy en route to Murmansk, but without adequate aerial reconnaissance, Bey detached the destroyers before encountering a strong Royal Navy force led by the far more powerful battleship HMS Duke of York. In the following Battle of North Cape, Scharnhorst was sunk after a long battle. Of her crew of 1,968, Royal Navy vessels recovered 36 seamen alive from the icy sea, not one of them an officer.

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