But smoke and Prinz Eugens torpedo-dodging course changes made firing and observation difficult for the German gunners. Then, as Worcester was still- holding a steady course towards her, Petty Officer Kuhn managed to get a "fix" on the destroyer's muzzle fire. None of the German gunners could tell through the mist whether she was a new destroyer or one of the four at which they had already fired.
Although it was only a matter of seconds before the German guns must register a hit, Coats still stayed on course, firing back. Some of his shells aimed at Prinz Eugen burst harmlessly in the high waves. Douglas Ward fired one round from his after 4.7 gun, and then his second shot misfired. In the excitement of battle someone had forgotten to put in the cordite.
It was three minutes since Campbell and Vivacious had fired. It seemed like three years. The ship was lurching and shaking and everywhere there was a shattering, overpowering noise. It was impossible to tell which were their guns firing and which were German shells exploding.
On the bridge, a young sub-lieutenant with a pistol-type instrument in his hand waited for the order: "Fire One." Then he would press the trigger which fired the torpedoes electronically. Torpedo-gunner Wellman had his own sights below. If the bridge did not give the order to fire, his duty was to pull his own lever and fire the torpedoes himself. The bridge ordered a deflection of 25 knots for the torpedo firing. By voice tube and telephone this order was given to Wellman, who acknowledged it.
Worcester steamed on into the hellish cauldron, the Gneisenau a grey mass towering before her. But the usual count-down went calmly on—"40, 30, 20" — reporting the degrees to go before the "fish" went off. The orders were repeated continually, so there could be no misunderstanding.
She began to heel over heavily to starboard before making her big turn to port to launch her torpedoes, while in the sea near her slanting deck there were dozens of fountains from shell splashes. She was now so near that Bohsehke in the forward gun position on Prinz Eugen ordered a flattened trajectory, which could hardly miss her.
Coats, about one and a quarter miles away, running broadside to the German ships, was just about to give the order to fire when there was an ear-splitting crash. Three heavy shells exploded on Worcester at almost the same time, with a cloud of white smoke and orange flashes.
One burst abreast of the 12-pounder gun, and all the gun crew were either killed or wounded. Just forward of the 12-pounder was Gunner Wellman, with the ratings manning the torpedo tubes. Deafened, their faces blackened, they dodged the splinters shaken but unhurt.
Forward of the torpedo tubes on the starboard side a hole was driven which extended from half-way across the deck to below the water-line, completely wrecking and flooding the No. 1 boiler room. Fragments of shell penetrated No. 2 boiler room, making another large hole from the deck halfway to the water-line.
Another direct hit landed on the starboard side of the fo'c'sle deck about fifteen feet from the sick-bay, drilling it full of holes and knocking out Dr. Jackson and his sick-bay attendant, A. J. Shelley. It also tore up her decks, smashing the lower part of the bridge and wrecking the radio room. Miraculously, neither Cdr. Coats nor his officers were hurt, even though below the bridge boxes of ammunition for the Oerlikon guns began to explode.
The third shell exploded on the water just short of the ship level with the wardroom, completely wrecking it and blowing to pieces some of the supply and repair party. The three shells which hit the ship were so heavy that some of the crew thought they were from shore batteries firing from the Dutch coast.
Worcester had still not fired her torpedoes when Bohsehke's shells hit her. The sub-lieutenant on the bridge still continued giving orders to prepare to fire but Wellman on the torpedo deck, deafened and dazed, could not hear him because of the noise. When the Oerlikon ammunition started exploding, Wellman thought the bridge had gone and muttered, "We will have to fire the torpedoes ourselves." Still not being able to hear the bridge, he did his duty and went ahead and fired.
When they jerked over the side they were 2,500 yards from the Gneisenau. Yet, although the Worcester had steamed so near to the Gneisenau, her three torpedoes passed harmlessly astern of her and ahead of the Prinz Eugen, which was dodging seven bombs RAF planes had just aimed at her.
The noise was appalling. There were so many explosions that it was impossible to make out whether they were being hit again or not. The ship was completely curtained by shell splashes. That concealment momentarily helped to save them from further punishment. All sight of the German ships was lost and it was difficult to see what had happened to the torpedoes.
Coats, still unhurt on the bridge, recalls, "It was three minutes after Campbell had fired diat I launched my torpedoes. As I went in zigzagging to avoid the German shells, it was the longest three minutes of my life. The other destroyers had vanished making me feel very lonely. When I fired my torpedoes I saw black smoke coming up from the water. I thought it was a hit from one of my torpedoes, but it was a bomb exploding near Gneisenau. I felt shattered and useless as I realized my torpedoes had gone well astern of Gneisenau and ahead of Prinz Eugen."
After the three shells had disabled her, Worcester made an almost complete circle, her engines silent, drifting to her port broadside to Prinz Eugen. It was like target practice for Bohsehke's gunners. Two of his shells scored direct hits to be followed by two more from the Gneisenau. The four heavy shells ripped through the disabled destroyer, smashing her guns and tearing more great gaping holes in her side.
One shell from Prinz Eugen went through her bows, exploding in the paint locker and starting a fire. When someone shouted, "Fire in the fo'c'sle!" the sea was so high that at first the waves seemed to put it out, but it flamed up again.
As Chief Engineer Griffiths came on deck to report his boilers useless, there was a puff of brown smoke and large jagged splinters whistled across the deck. A shell hit the base of the forward funnel, making a hole about four feet across and breaking the mast six feet above the deck. It fell backwards and leaned, swaying crazily, against the top of the funnel, with the rigging hanging loose. Commander Coats's mind went back to Nelson's day when grapeshot tore down the rigging and he muttered to Lt. Taudevin, "This is just like old times."
Worcester, drifting beam-on exposed to point blank fire from the two German ships, was clearly seen by Petty Officer Hehenberger on the range-finder in the foretop of Prinz Eugen. He watched Worcester, on fire and apparently stopped, disappear into the black smoke of more heavy bursting shells. When the smoke cleared, other men on the foretop of Prinz Eugen glimpsed her for a short time through the haze before, battered by Bohsehke's shells, she seemed to disappear beneath the waves. Master-gunner Emmanuel Pietzka, on the stern flak gun, also saw Worcester burning in a vast cloud of smoke. A few seconds later, she could no longer be made out — only smoke and surging water. The sight reminded him strongly of the sinking of Britain's biggest warship, the Hood, which he had observed from the same position in Prinz Eugen.