 She escorted the battleship Tirpitz for several days in mid @-@ January 1942 as the battleship sailed from the Baltic to Trondheim , Norway . 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 . On the evening of 25 January , Z8 Bruno Heinemann struck two mines laid by HMS Plover off the Belgian coast and sank . 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 , totally surprising the British . 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 20 cm Flakvierling . Shortly afterwards , the ship joined four other destroyers in escorting Prinz Eugen and the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer to Trondheim . Heavy weather forced 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 screened the heavy cruiser Lützow to Bogen Bay , Norway and laid a minefield in the Skaggerak en route . 
