Qualla: HMS Glowworm (H92)

HMS Glowworm (H92): Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. The German captain watched the British officer lose his grip. Lieutenant Commander Gerard Roope, hauled from the freezing Norwegian Sea by ropes lowered from the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, could not hold on. He slipped back into the water and drowned, minutes after commanding the most audacious act of the young war. Earlier that morning, on 8 April 1940, Roope had ordered his battered destroyer HMS Glowworm to ram Hipper at full speed, tearing a gash along the cruiser's hull with a ship that was already on fire and breaking apart. Kapitan zur See Hellmuth Heye, the man who had just destroyed Glowworm, was so moved by what he witnessed that he wrote to the British Admiralty through the Red Cross recommending Roope for the Victoria Cross. It was granted posthumously, the first VC of the Second World War.

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

HMS Glowworm (H92): A Small Ship in a Big War

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. HMS Glowworm was a G-class destroyer, completed in January 1936 at Thornycroft's yard in Woolston, Hampshire, at a cost of 248,785 pounds. She displaced 1,350 tons, carried four 4.7-inch guns and ten torpedo tubes, and could make 36 knots. Her peacetime complement was 137 men. Be...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

HMS Glowworm (H92): The Morning of 8 April

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown. Possibly a sailor from the Admiral Hipper., Public domain. Glowworm had been detached from her task force the previous day to search for a man lost overboard. On the morning of 8 April, alone in thick fog off the Norwegian coast, she stumbled into German destroyers transporting troops to Trondheim as part of Operation Weserubung, the inv...

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Image: Unknown. Possibly a sailor from the Admiral Hipper. | Public domain

HMS Glowworm (H92): Ramming Speed

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown. Possibly a sailor from the Admiral Hipper, Public domain. What followed was desperation transformed into purpose. Glowworm's radio room, bridge, and forward gun were destroyed. Hits punched through the engine room and the captain's cabin. When the falling mast short-circuited the wiring, the ship's siren jammed on, screaming over the ba...

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Image: Unknown. Possibly a sailor from the Admiral Hipper | Public domain

HMS Glowworm (H92): Honor From the Enemy

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. Admiral Hipper hove to and began pulling survivors from the sea. Forty British sailors were recovered, though at least six later died of their wounds. Roope was among those hauled toward safety, but the cold and his injuries were too much. He lost his grip on the rescue rope and ...

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain