On 31 December 1942 off North Cape, Norway, in the Barents Sea, Captain Sherbrooke in was senior officer in command of destroyers escorting an important convoy for North Russia, when he made contact with a vastly superior enemy force—the heavy cruiser "Hipper" and the pocket battleship "Lutzow". Four times the enemy tried to attack the convoy but was forced back each time. Early in the action Captain Sherbrooke was seriously wounded in the face and temporarily blinded. Nevertheless, he continued to direct the ships under his command and even when the next senior officer had assumed control, he insisted on receiving all reports of the action until the convoy was out of danger. His actions—and the German ships' failure to neutralize the convoy despite its superior force—were pivotal in Hitler's order to end the use of surface fleet of the Kriegsmarine at the beginning of 1943.