German destroyer Z4 Richard Beitzen

An active sonar system was scheduled to be installed in June 1940 but it is uncertain when it was done. During the war, the light anti-aircraft armament was augmented several times. Improved 2 cm C/38 guns replaced the original C/30 guns and three additional guns were added sometime in 1941. The two guns on the aft shelter deck were replaced by a single 2 cm quadruple Flakvierling mount, probably during her late 1941 refit. Z4 Richard Beitzen appears not to have had any additional AA guns added after this time.[9] After mid-1941 the ship was fitted with a FuMO 24[Note 1] search radar above the bridge.[10]

On 22 February 1940, Z4 Richard Beitzen and the destroyers, Z3 Max Schultz, Z1 Leberecht Maass, Z6 Theodor Riedel, Z13 Erich Koellner and Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt, sailed for the Dogger Bank to intercept British fishing vessels in Operation Wikinger. En route, the flotilla was erroneously attacked by a Heinkel He 111 bomber from Bomber Wing 26 (Kampfgeschwader 26). Z1 Leberecht Maass was hit by at least one bomb, lost steering and broke in half, sinking with the loss of 280 of her crew. During the rescue effort, Z3 Max Schultz hit a mine and sank with the loss of her entire crew of 308. Hitler ordered a court of inquiry to be convened to investigate the cause of the losses and it concluded that both ships that been sunk by bombs from the He 111. The Kriegsmarine had failed to notify its destroyers that the Luftwaffe was making anti-shipping patrols at that time and had also failed to inform the Luftwaffe that its destroyers would be at sea.[22] Postwar research revealed that one or both ships struck British mines laid by the destroyers Ivanhoe and Intrepid.[23]

Z4 Richard Beitzen was held in reserve for Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway on 9 April. Two days later, she escorted the light cruiser Köln home to Wilhelmshaven. The ship helped to lay a minefield in the Kattegat from 28 April to 20 May and then began a refit that lasted until September.[13] She was transferred to Brest, France, in October. On the night of 24/25 November, Z4 Richard Beitzen, Z10 Hans Lody and Z20 Karl Galster sortied from Brest, bound for the Land's End area. En route they encountered some fishing ships south-west of Wolf Rock and engaged them with gunfire with little effect. The German ships then spotted a small convoy and sank one of the three merchantmen and damaged another. The flash from the guns alerted the five destroyers of the British 5th Destroyer Flotilla but they could not intercept the German destroyers before dawn. Three nights later the German ships sortied again for the same area. They encountered two tugboats and a barge but only sank one of the former and the barge, totaling 424 GRT. This time the 5th Destroyer Flotilla was able to intercept the ships around 06:30 on 29 November. The Germans opened fire first, each destroyer firing four torpedoes, of which only two from Z10 Hans Lody hit their target, HMS Javelin. The torpedoes hit at each end of the ship and blew off her bow and stern, but the British were able to tow her home.[24]

During January 1941, the ship laid a minefield off the coast of south-east England. The following month, she escorted the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper on leaving and returning to Brest. Z4 Richard Beitzen departed for Kiel briefly on 16 March to begin a refit. She was then sent to Kirkenes, Norway in July 1941.[13] As part of the 6th Destroyer Flotilla (6. Zerstörer-Flottille), she participated in a sortie on 12–13 July that sank two small Soviet ships, at the cost of expending 80 percent of her flotilla's ammunition. Another sortie on 22 July saw Z4 Richard Beitzen sink a Soviet flying boat on the water. She was damaged by shock from near-misses during another sortie on 9 August, during which the Germans sank a converted fishing trawler, and departed for Germany for repairs five days later.[25]

She escorted the battleship Tirpitz for several days in mid-January 1942 as the battleship sailed from the Baltic to Trondheim, Norway.[26] Z4 Richard Beitzen, together with the rest of the 5th Zerstörer Flotille, sailed from Kiel on 24 January for France as part of the preparations for the Channel Dash.[27] On the evening of 25 January, Z8 Bruno Heinemann struck two mines laid by HMS Plover[28] off the Belgian coast and sank. Z4 Richard Beitzen rescued 200 of the survivors and proceeded to Le Havre to put them ashore before reaching Brest on the 26th. The German ships departed Brest on 11 February, surprising the British. Z4 Richard Beitzen helped to repel an attack by five British destroyers and was damaged by a near-miss from a Bristol Blenheim bomber that she shot down with her newly installed 2 cm Flakvierling.[29] Shortly afterwards, the ship joined four other destroyers in escorting Prinz Eugen and the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer to Trondheim. Heavy weather forced Z4 Richard Beitzen and two other destroyers to return to port before reaching Trondheim and Prinz Eugen was badly damaged by a British submarine after their separation. After her return, the ship needed her machinery overhauled and began a refit at Bremen on 14 March. After it was completed, she was part of the screen for the heavy cruiser Lützow to Bogen Bay, Norway and laid a minefield in the Skaggerak en route.[13]

Z4 Richard Beitzen took part in the preliminaries of Operation Rösselsprung, an attempt to intercept Arctic convoy PQ 17 in July. Admiral Scheer and Lützow formed one group while Tirpitz and Admiral Hipper composed another. While en route to the rendezvous at the Altafjord, Lützow and three destroyers ran aground, forcing the entire group to abandon the operation. Z4 Richard Beitzen, in the meantime escorted two oil tankers to the Altafjord on 2–3 July.[13] During Operation Wunderland in August, Z4 Richard Beitzen, Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt and Z15 Erich Steinbrinck escorted Admiral Scheer at the beginning and end of its mission to attack Soviet shipping in the Kara Sea. The ships also escorted the minelayer Ulm as it departed to lay a minefield off Cape Zhelaniya in mid-August.[30] On 13–15 October, Z4 Richard Beitzen, Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt and the destroyers Z27 and Z30 laid a minefield off the Kanin Peninsula at the mouth of the White Sea that sank the Soviet icebreaker Mikoyan. Three weeks later, the same four destroyers escorted Admiral Hipper as she attempted to intercept Allied merchant ships proceeding independently to Soviet ports in early November.[31]

During Operation Regenbogen, the attempt to intercept Convoy JW 51B sailing from the UK to the Soviet Union in late December, Z4 Richard Beitzen, Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt and the destroyer Z29 escorted Admiral Hipper as she attempted to divert the convoy escorts while Lützow and three other destroyers attacked.[30] The three destroyers separated from Admiral Hipper to search for the convoy, which they found on the morning of 31 December. The destroyer HMS Obdurate spotted them in turn and closed to investigate when the German ships opened fire at a range of 8,000 meters (8,700 yd).[32] Obdurate turned away to rejoin the convoy without sustaining any damage and the German ships did not pursue as they had been ordered to rejoin Hipper. The Germans found the minesweeper HMS Bramble, which had been detached earlier from the convoy to search for stragglers, as they maneuvered to close with the convoy and the destroyers were ordered to sink her, while Hipper engaged the convoy escorts. This took some time in the poor visibility and Hipper was surprised in the meantime by the British covering force of the light cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica. After sinking Bramble, the German destroyers attempted to rejoin Hipper but had no idea that British cruisers were in the area. They confused Sheffield with Hipper when they spotted each other at 4,000 meters (4,400 yd) range and were surprised when Sheffield opened fire on Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt with every gun she possessed, sinking her with the loss of all hands. Z4 Richard Beitzen was not engaged before she escaped into the darkness.[33]

Commander (Fregattenkapitän) Hans Dominik assumed command in January 1943[34] and the ship escorted the damaged Admiral Hipper and Köln down to Kristiansand at the end of the month. She began escorting convoys between that port and Aarhus, Denmark, before she escorted the battleship Scharnhorst to Altafjord in early March. The following month she screened Nürnberg during the latter's return to the Baltic and began a refit at Swinemünde that lasted until October. Returning to the Arctic, she ran aground in the Karmsund on 27 October, suffering extensive damage. Z4 Richard Beitzen was refloated on 5 November and towed to Haugesund for emergency repairs. She reached Bergen on 26 November for temporary repairs that took until 18 December. The ship arrived at Stettin five days later but repairs, which included fitting a new bow, did not begin until 17 January as the dry dock was busy. The repairs were completed in June but machinery problems meant that she was not operational again until 5 August when she reached Horten, Norway.[35]

Z4 Richard Beitzen resumed escort work and laid mines in the Skagerrak until she ran aground again in November. Repairs were slow and she was not fully operational until 15 February 1945. The ship was badly damaged by radar-equipped bombers while screening a convoy on the morning of 24 April and put into Oslo, Norway, for repairs that were not completed before the end of the war.[36] Z4 Richard Beitzen was captured by the British on 14 May and temporarily turned over to the Royal Norwegian Navy on 15 July, while the Allies decided on the disposition of captured German ships. She was allocated to Britain at the end of 1945 and was then towed to Rosyth in February 1946. Z4 Richard Beitzen was ordered to be used as a target in September, but a serious leak three months later, caused her to be beached lest she sink. Temporary repairs were made and she was allocated for disposal in January 1947. The ship was allocated to C. W. Dorkin for breaking up the following year and she was towed to their facility in Gateshead on 10 January 1949.[37]