Naval history of World War II Denmark's Faroe Islands, with the goals of damaging the German war economy and assisting Finland in its war with the Soviet Union. An allied war against the Soviet Union was part of the plan. The main naval launching point would be Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The Soviet invasion of Finland excited widespread outrage at popular and elite levels in support of Finland not only in wartime Britain and France but also in neutral United States. The League of Nations declared the USSR was the aggressor and expelled it. "American opinion makers treated the attack
Battle of the Barents Sea Battle of the Barents Sea The Battle of the Barents Sea was a World War II naval engagement on 31 December 1942 between warships of the German Navy ("Kriegsmarine") and British ships escorting convoy JW 51B to Kola Inlet in the USSR. The action took place in the Barents Sea north of North Cape, Norway. The German raiders' failure to inflict significant losses on the convoy infuriated Hitler, who ordered that German naval strategy would concentrate on the U-boat fleet rather than surface ships. Convoy JW 51B comprised fourteen merchant ships carrying war materials to the USSR — some 202