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Lord Chatfield’s Retirement — The Prime Minister Invites Me to Preside over the Military Co-ordination Committee — An Awkward Arrangement — “Wilfred” — Oslo — The German Seizure of Norway — Tragedy of Neutrality — All the Fleets at Sea — The “Glowworm” — The “Renown” Engages the “Scharnhorst” and “Gneisenau” — The Home Fleet off Bergen — Action by British Submarines — Warburton-Lee’s Flotilla at Narvik — Supreme War Council Meets in London, April 9 — Its Conclusions — My Minute to the First Sea Lord, April 10 — Anger in England — Debate in Parliament, April 11 — The “Warspite” and Her Flotilla Exterminate the German Destroyers at Narvik — Letter from the King.
BEFORE RESUMING THE NARRATIVE, I must explain the alterations in my position which occurred during the month of April, 1940.
Lord Chatfield’s office as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence had become redundant, and on the third, Mr. Chamberlain accepted his resignation, which he proffered freely. On the fourth, a statement was issued from Number 10 Downing Street that it was not proposed to fill the vacant post, but that arrangements were being made for the First Lord of the Admiralty, as the senior Service Minister concerned, to preside over the Military Co-ordination Committee. Accordingly I took the chair at its meetings, which were held daily, and sometimes twice daily, from the eighth to the fifteenth of April.
I had, therefore, an exceptional measure of responsibility but no power of effective direction. Among the other Service Ministers, who were also members of the War Cabinet, I was “first among equals.” I had, however, no power to take or to enforce decisions. I had to carry with me both the Service Ministers and their professional chiefs. Thus, many important and able men had a right and duty to express their views of the swiftly changing phases of the battle – for battle it was – which now began.
The Chiefs of Staff sat daily together after discussing the whole situation with their respective Ministers. They then arrived at their own decisions, which obviously became of dominant importance. I learned about these either from the First Sea Lord, who kept nothing from me, or by the various memoranda or aides-mémoires which the Chiefs of Staff Committee issued. If I wished to question any of these opinions, I could of course raise them in the first instance at my Coordinating Committee, where the Chiefs of Staff, supported by their departmental Ministers whom they had usually carried along with them, were all present as individual members. There was a copious flow of polite conversation, at the end of which a tactful report was drawn up by the secretary in attendance and checked by the three service departments to make sure there were no discrepancies. Thus we had arrived at those broad, happy uplands where everything is settled for the greatest good of the greatest number by the common sense of most after the consultation of all. But in war of the kind we were now to feel, the conditions were different. Alas, I must write it: the actual conflict had to be more like one ruffian bashing the other on the snout with a club, a hammer, or something better. All this is deplorable, and it is one of the many good reasons for avoiding war and having everything settled by agreement in a friendly manner, with full consideration for the rights of minorities and the faithful recording of dissentient opinions.
The Defence Committee of the War Cabinet sat almost every day to discuss the reports of the Military Co-ordination Committee and those of the Chiefs of Staff; and their conclusions or divergences were again referred to frequent Cabinets. All had to be explained and re-explained; and by the time this process was completed, the whole scene had often changed. At the Admiralty, which is of necessity in wartime a battle headquarters, decisions affecting the Fleet were taken on the instant, and only in the gravest cases referred to the Prime Minister, who supported us on every occasion. Where the action of the other services was involved, the procedure could not possibly keep pace with events. However, at the beginning of the Norway campaign the Admiralty in the nature of things had three-quarters of the executive business in its own hands.
I do not pretend that, whatever my powers, I should have been able to take better decisions or reach good solutions of the problems with which we were now confronted. The impact of the events about to be described was so violent and the conditions so chaotic that I soon perceived that only the authority of the Prime Minister could reign over the Military Co-ordination Committee. Accordingly, on the fifteenth, I requested Mr. Chamberlain to take the chair, and he presided at practically every one of our subsequent meetings during the campaign in Norway. He and I continued in close agreement, and he gave his supreme authority to the views which I expressed. I was most intimately involved in the conduct of the unhappy effort to rescue Norway when it was already too late. The change in chairmanship was announced to Parliament by the Prime Minister in reply to a question as follows: “I have agreed, at the request of the First Lord of the Admiralty, to take the chair myself at the meetings of the Coordination Committee when matters of exceptional importance relating to the general conduct of the war are under discussion.”
Loyalty and good will were forthcoming from all concerned. Nevertheless, both the Prime Minister and I were acutely conscious of the formlessness of our system, especially when in contact with the surprising course of events. Although the Admiralty was at this time inevitably the prime mover, obvious objections could be raised to an organisation in which one of the Service Ministers attempted to concert all the operations of the other services, while at the same time managing the whole business of the Admiralty and having a special responsibility for the naval movements. These difficulties were not removed by the fact that the Prime Minister himself took the chair and backed me up. But while one stroke of misfortune after another, the results of want of means or of indifferent management, fell upon us, almost daily, I nevertheless continued to hold my position in this fluid, friendly, but unfocused circle.
* * * * *
On the evening of Friday, April 5, the German Minister in Oslo invited distinguished guests, including members of the Government, to a film show at the Legation. The film depicted the German conquest of Poland, and culminated in a crescendo of horror scenes during the German bombing of Warsaw. The caption read: “For this they could thank their English and French friends.” The party broke up in silence and dismay. The Norwegian Government was, however, chiefly concerned with the activities of the British. Between 4.30 and 5 A.M. on April 8, four British destroyers laid our minefield off the entrance to West Fiord, the channel to the port of Narvik. At 5 A.M. the news was broadcast from London, and at 5.30 a note from His Majesty’s Government was handed to the Norwegian Foreign Minister. The morning in Oslo was spent in drafting protests to London. But later that afternoon, the Admiralty informed the Norwegian Legation in London that German warships had been sighted off the Norwegian coast proceeding northwards, and presumably bound for Narvik. About the same time reports reached the Norwegian capital that a German troopship, the Rio de Janeiro, had been sunk off the south coast of Norway by the Polish submarine Orzel, that large numbers of German soldiers had been rescued by the local fishermen, and that they said they were bound for Bergen to help the Norwegians defend their country against the British and French. More was to come. Germany had broken into Denmark, but the news did not reach Norway until after she herself was invaded. Thus she received no warning. Denmark was easily overrun after a formal resistance in which a few soldiers of the King of Denmark’s Guard were killed.
That night German warships approached Oslo. The outer batteries opened fire. The Norwegian defending force consisted of a minelayer, the Olav Tryggvason, and two minesweepers. After dawn two German minesweepers entered the mouth of the fiord to disembark troops in the neighbourhood of the shore batteries. One was sunk by the Olav Tryggvason, but the German troops were landed and the batteries taken. The gallant minelayer, however, held off two German destroyers at the mouth of the fiord and damaged the cruiser Emden. An armed Norwegian whaler mounting a single gun also went into action at once and without special orders against the invaders. Her gun was smashed and the Commander had both legs shot off. To avoid unnerving his men, he rolled himself overboard and died nobly. The main German force, led by the heavy cruiser Bluecher, now entered the fiord, making for the narrows defended by the fortress of Oskarborg. The Norwegian batteries opened, and two torpedoes fired from the shore at five hundred yards scored a decisive strike. The Bluecher sank rapidly, taking with her the senior officers of the German Administrative Staff and detachments of the Gestapo. The other German ships, including the Luetzov, retired. The damaged Emden took no further part in the fighting at sea. Oslo was ultimately taken, not from the sea, but by troop-carrying airplanes and by landings in the fiord.
Hitler’s plan immediately flashed into its full scope. German forces descended at Kristiansand, at Stavanger, and to the north at Bergen and Trondheim. The most daring stroke was at Narvik. For a week supposedly empty German ore ships returning to that port in the ordinary course had been moving up the corridor sanctified by Norwegian neutrality, filled with supplies and ammunition. Ten German destroyers, each carrying two hundred soldiers, and supported by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, had left Germany some days before, and reached Narvik early on the ninth.
Two Norwegian warships, Norge and Eidsvold, lay in the fiord. They were prepared to fight to the last. At dawn destroyers were sighted approaching the harbour at high speed, but in the prevailing snow-squalls their identity was not at first established. Soon a German officer appeared in a motor launch and demanded the surrender of the Eidsvold. On receiving from the commanding officer the curt reply, “I attack,” he withdrew, but almost at once the ship was destroyed with nearly all hands by a volley of torpedoes. Meanwhile, the Norge opened fire, but in a few minutes she too was torpedoed and sank instantly.
In this gallant but hopeless resistance two hundred and eighty-seven Norwegian seamen perished, less than a hundred being saved from the two ships. Thereafter the capture of Narvik was easy. It was a strategic key – for ever to be denied us.
* * * * *
Surprise, ruthlessness, and precision were the characteristics of the onslaught upon innocent and naked Norway. Nowhere did the initial landing forces exceed two thousand men. Seven army divisions were employed, embarking principally from Hamburg and Bremen, and for the follow-up from Stettin and Danzig. Three divisions were used in the assault phase, and four supported them through Oslo and Trondheim. Eight hundred operational aircraft and two hundred and fifty to three hundred transport planes were the salient and vital feature of the design. Within forty-eight hours all the main ports of Norway were in the German grip.
* * * * *
On the night of Sunday the seventh, our air reconnaissance reported that a German fleet, consisting of a battle cruiser, two light cruisers, fourteen destroyers, and another ship, probably a transport, had been seen the day before moving towards the Naze across the mouth of the Skagerrak. We found it hard at the Admiralty to believe that this force was going to Narvik. In spite of a report from Copenhagen that Hitler meant to seize that port, it was thought by the Naval Staff that the German ships would probably turn back into the Skagerrak. Nevertheless, the following movement was at once ordered. The Home Fleet, comprising Rodney, Repulse, Valiant, two cruisers and ten destroyers, was already under steam and left Scapa at 8.30 P.M. on April 7; the Second Cruiser Squadron of two cruisers and fifteen destroyers started from Rosyth at 10 P.M. on the same night. The First Cruiser Squadron, which had been embarking troops at Rosyth for the possible occupation of Norwegian ports, was ordered to march her soldiers ashore, even without their equipment, and join the fleet at sea at the earliest moment. The cruiser Aurora and six destroyers similarly engaged in the Clyde were ordered to Scapa. All these decisive steps were concerted with the Commander-in-Chief. In short, everything available was ordered out on. the assumption – which he had by no means accepted – that a major emergency had come. At the same time the mine-laying operation off Narvik, by four destroyers, was in progress, covered by the battle cruiser Renown, the cruiser Birmingham, and eight destroyers.
When the War Cabinet met on Monday morning, I reported that the minefields in the West Fiord had been laid between 4.30 and 5.00 A.M. I also explained in detail that all our fleets were at sea. But by now we had assurance that the main German naval force was undoubtedly making towards Narvik. On the way to lay the minefield “Wilfred,” one of our destroyers, the Glowworm, having lost a man overboard during the night, stopped behind to search for him and became separated from the rest of the force. At 8.30 A.M. on the eighth, the Glowworm had reported herself engaged with an enemy destroyer about one hundred and fifty miles southwest of West Fiord. Shortly afterwards she had reported seeing another destroyer ahead of her, and later that she was engaging a superior force. After 9.45 she had become silent, since when nothing had been heard from her. On this it was calculated that the German forces, unless intercepted, could reach Narvik about ten that night. They would, we hoped, be engaged by the Renown, Birmingham, and their destroyers. An action might, therefore, take place very shortly. “It was impossible,” I said, “to forecast the hazards of war, but such an action should not be on terms unfavourable for us.” Moreover, the Commander-in-Chief with the whole Home Fleet would be approaching the scene from the south. He would now be about opposite Statland. He was fully informed on all points known to us, though naturally he was remaining silent. The Germans knew that the Fleet was at sea, since a U-boat near the Orkneys had been heard to transmit a long message as the Fleet left Scapa. Meanwhile, the Second Cruiser Squadron off Aberdeen, moving north, had reported that it was being shadowed by aircraft and expected to be attacked about noon. All possible measures were being taken by the Navy and the R.A.F. to bring fighters to the scene. No aircraft carriers were available, but flying boats were working. The weather was thick in places, but believed to be better in the north, and improving.
The War Cabinet took note of my statement and invited me to pass on to the Norwegian naval authorities the information we had received about German naval movements. On the whole, the opinion was that Hitler’s aim was Narvik.
On April 9, Mr. Chamberlain summoned us to a War Cabinet at 8.30 A.M., when the facts, as then known to us, about the German invasion of Norway and Denmark were discussed. The War Cabinet agreed that I should authorise the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet to take all possible steps to clear Bergen and Trondheim of enemy forces, and that the Chiefs of Staff should set on foot preparations for military expeditions to recapture both those places and to occupy Narvik. These expeditions should not, however, move until the naval situation had been cleared up.
* * * * *
Since the war we have learned from German records what happened to the Glowworm. Early on the morning of Monday the eighth, she encountered first one and then a second enemy destroyer. A running fight ensued in a heavy sea until the cruiser Hipper appeared on the scene. When the Hipper opened fire, the Glowworm retired behind a smoke-screen. The Hipper, pressing on through the smoke, presently emerged to find the British destroyer very close and coming straight for her at full speed. There was no time for the Hipper to avoid the impact, and the Glowworm rammed her 10,000-ton adversary, tearing a hole forty metres wide in her side. She then fell away crippled and blazing. A few minutes later she blew up. The Hipper picked up forty survivors; her gallant captain was being hauled to safety when he fell back exhausted from the cruiser’s deck and was lost. Thus the Glowworm’s light was quenched, but her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Roope, who commanded, was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously, and the story will long be remembered.
When the Glowworm’s signals ceased abruptly, we had good hopes of bringing to action the main German forces which had ventured so far. During Monday we had a superior force on either side of them. Calculations of the sea areas to be swept gave prospects of contact, and any contact meant concentration upon them. We did not then know that the Hipper was escorting German forces to Trondheim. She entered Trondheim that night, but the Glowworm had put this powerful vessel out of action for a month.
Vice-Admiral Whitworth in the Renown, on receiving Glowworm’s signals, first steered south, hoping to intercept the enemy, but on later information and Admiralty instructions he decided to cover the approaches to Narvik. Tuesday the ninth was a tempestuous day, with the seas running high under furious gales and snowstorms. At early dawn the Renown sighted two darkened ships some fifty miles to seaward of West Fiord. These were the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, who had just completed the task of escorting their expedition to Narvik, but at the time it was believed that only one of the two was a battle cruiser. The Renown opened fire first at eighteen thousand yards and soon hit the Gneisenau, destroying her main gun-control equipment and for a time causing her to stop firing. Her consort screened her with smoke, both ships then turned away to the north, and the action became a chase. Meanwhile, the Renown had received two hits, but these caused little damage, and presently she scored a second and later a third hit on the Gneisenau. In the heavy seas the Renown drove forward at full speed, but soon had to reduce to twenty knots. Amid intermittent snow-squalls and German smoke-screens the fire on both sides became ineffective. Although the Renown strained herself to the utmost in trying to overhaul the German ships, they at last drew away out of sight to the northward.
* * * * *
On the morning of April 9, Admiral Forbes with the main fleet was abreast of Bergen. At 6.20 A.M. he asked the Admiralty for news of the German strength there, as he intended to send in a force of cruisers and destroyers under Vice-Admiral Layton to attack any German ships they might find. The Admiralty had the same idea, and at 8.20 made him the following signal:
Prepare plans for attacking German warships and transports in Bergen and for controlling the approaches to the port on the supposition that defences are still in hands of Norwegians. Similar plans as regards Trondheim should also be prepared if you have sufficient forces for both.
The Admiralty sanctioned Admiral Forbes’ plan for attacking Bergen, but later warned him that he must no longer count on the defences being friendly. To avoid dispersion, the attack on Trondheim was postponed until the German battle cruisers should be found. At about 11.30 four cruisers and seven destroyers, under the Vice-Admiral, started for Bergen, eighty miles away, making only sixteen knots against a head wind and a rough sea. Presently aircraft reported two cruisers in Bergen instead of one. With only seven destroyers the prospects of success were distinctly reduced, unless our cruisers went in too. The First Sea Lord thought the risk to these vessels, both from mines and the air, excessive. He consulted me on my return from the Cabinet meeting, and after reading the signals which had passed during the morning, and a brief discussion in the War Room, I concurred in his view. We therefore cancelled the attack. Looking back on this affair, I consider that the Admiralty kept too close control upon the Commander-in-Chief, and after learning his original intention to force the passage into Bergen, we should have confined ourselves to sending him information.
That afternoon, strong air attacks were made on the Fleet, chiefly against Vice-Admiral Layton’s ships. The destroyer Gurkha was sunk, and the cruisers Southampton and Glasgow damaged by near misses. In addition the flagship Rodney was hit, but her strong deck-armour prevented serious damage.
When the cruiser attack on Bergen was cancelled, Admiral Forbes proposed to use torpedo-carrying naval aircraft from the carrier Furious at dusk on April 10. The Admiralty agreed, and also arranged attacks by R.A.F. bombers on the evening of the ninth and by naval aircraft from Hatston (Orkney) on the morning of the tenth. Meanwhile, our cruisers and destroyers continued to blockade the approaches. The air attacks were successful, and the cruiser Koenigsberg was sunk by three bombs from naval aircraft. The Furious was now diverted to Trondheim, where our air patrols reported two enemy cruisers and two destroyers. Eighteen aircraft attacked at dawn on the eleventh, but found only two destroyers and a submarine besides merchant ships. Unluckily the wounded Hipper had left during the night, no cruisers were found, and the attack on the two German destroyers failed because our torpedoes grounded in shallow water before reaching their targets.
Meanwhile, our submarines were active in the Skagerrak and Kattegat. On the night of the eighth, they had sighted and attacked enemy ships northward-bound from the Baltic, but without success. However, on the ninth the Truant sank the cruiser Karlsruhe off Kristiansand, and the following night the Spearfish torpedoed the pocket battleship Luetzow returning from Oslo. Besides these successes submarines accounted for at least nine enemy transports and supply ships with heavy loss of life during the first week of this campaign. Our own losses were severe, and three British submarines perished during April in the heavily defended approaches to the Baltic.
* * * * *
On the morning of the ninth, the situation at Narvik was obscure. Hoping to forestall a German seizure of the port, the Commander-in-Chief directed Captain Warburton-Lee, commanding our destroyers, to enter the fiord and prevent any landing. Meanwhile, the Admiralty transmitted a press report to him indicating that one ship had already entered the port and landed a small force. The message went on:
Proceed to Narvik and sink or capture enemy ship. It is at your discretion to land forces, if you think you can recapture Narvik from number of enemy present.
Accordingly, Captain Warburton-Lee, with the five destroyers of his own flotilla, Hardy, Hunter, Havock, Hotspur, and Hostile, entered West Fiord. He was told by Norwegian pilots at Tranoy that six ships larger than his own and a U-boat had passed in and that the entrance to the harbour was mined. He signalled this information and added: “Intend attacking at dawn.” Admiral Whitworth, who received the signals, considered whether he might stiffen the attacking forces from his own now augmented squadron, but the time seemed too short and he felt that intervention by him at this stage might cause delay. In fact, we, in the Admiralty, were not prepared to risk the Renown – one of our only two battle cruisers – in such an enterprise. The last Admiralty message passed to Captain Warburton-Lee was as follows:
Norwegian coast defence ships may be in German hands: you alone can judge whether in these circumstances attack should be made. Shall support whatever decision you take.
His reply was:
Going into action.
In the mist and snowstorms of April 10, the five British destroyers steamed up the fiord, and at dawn stood off Narvik. Inside the harbour were five enemy destroyers. In the first attack the Hardy torpedoed the ship bearing the pennant of the German Commodore, who was killed; another destroyer was sunk by two torpedoes, and the remaining three were so smothered by gun-fire that they could offer no effective resistance. There were also in the harbour twenty-three merchant ships of various nations, including five British: six German were destroyed. Only three of our five destroyers had hitherto attacked. The Hotspur and Hostile had been left in reserve to guard against any shore batteries or against fresh German ships approaching. They now joined in a second attack, and the Hotspur sank two more merchantmen with torpedoes. Captain Warburton-Lee’s ships were unscathed, the enemy’s fire was apparently silenced, and after an hour’s fighting no ship had come out from any of the inlets against him.
But now fortune turned. As he was coming back from a third attack, Captain Warburton-Lee sighted three fresh ships approaching from Herjangs Fiord. They showed no signs of wishing to close the range, and action began at seven thousand yards. Suddenly out of the mist ahead appeared two more warships. They were not, as was at first hoped, British reinforcements, but German destroyers which had been anchored in Ballangen Fiord. Soon the heavier guns of the German ships began to tell; the bridge of the Hardy was shattered, Warburton-Lee mortally stricken, and all his officers and companions killed or wounded except Lieutenant Stanning, his secretary, who took the wheel. A shell then exploded in the engine-room, and under heavy fire the destroyer was beached. The last signal from the Hardy’s Captain to his flotilla was:
Continue to engage the enemy.
Meanwhile, the Hunter had been sunk, and the Hotspur and the Hostile, which were both damaged, with the Havock made for the open sea. The enemy who had barred their passage was by now in no condition to stop them. Half an hour later, they encountered a large ship coming in from the sea, which proved to be the Rauenfels carrying the German reserve ammunition. She was fired upon by the Havock, and soon blew up. The survivors of the Hardy struggled ashore with the body of their Commander, who was awarded posthumously the Victoria Cross. He and they had left their mark on the enemy and in oar naval records.
* * * * *
On the ninth, MM. Reynaud and Daladier, with Admiral Darlan, flew over to London, and in the afternoon a Supreme War Council meeting was held to deal with what they called “the German action in consequence of the laying of mines within Norwegian territorial waters.” Mr. Chamberlain at once pointed out that the enemy’s measures had certainly been planned in advance and quite independently of ours. Even at that date this was obvious. M. Reynaud informed us that the French War Committee, presided over by the President, had that morning decided in principle on moving forward into Belgium should the Germans attack. The addition, he said, of eighteen to twenty Belgian divisions, besides the shortening of the front, would to all intents and purposes wipe out the German preponderance in the West. The French would be prepared to connect such an operation with the laying of the fluvial mines in the Rhine. He added that his reports from Belgium and Holland indicated the imminence of a German attack on the Low Countries; some said days, some said hours.
On the question of the military expedition to Norway, the Secretary of State for War reminded the Council that the two British divisions originally assembled for assistance to Finland had since been sent to France. There were only eleven battalions available in the United Kingdom. Two of these were sailing that night. The rest, for various reasons, would not be ready to sail for three or four days or more.
The Council agreed that strong forces should be sent where possible to ports on the Norwegian seaboard, and joint plans were made. A French Alpine division was ordered to embark within two or three days. We were able to provide two British battalions that night, a further five battalions within three days, and four more within fourteen days – eleven in all. Any additional British forces for Scandinavia would have to be withdrawn from France. Suitable measures were to be taken to occupy the Faroe Islands, and assurances of protection would be given to Iceland. Naval arrangements were concerted in the Mediterranean in the event of Italian intervention. It was also decided that urgent representations should be made to the Belgian Government to invite the Allied armies to move forward into Belgium. Finally, it was confirmed that if Germany made an attack in the West or entered Belgium, “Royal Marine” should be carried out.
* * * * *
I was far from content with what had happened so far in Norway. I wrote to Admiral Pound:
10.IV.40.
The Germans have succeeded in occupying all the ports on the Norwegian coast, including Narvik, and large-scale operations will be required to turn them out of any of them. Norwegian neutrality and our respect for it have made it impossible to prevent this ruthless coup. It is now necessary to take a new view. We must put up with the disadvantage of closer air attack on our northern bases. We must seal up Bergen with a watched minefield, and concentrate on Narvik, for which long and severe fighting will be required.
It is immediately necessary to obtain one or two fuelling-bases on the Norwegian coast, and a wide choice presents itself. This is being studied by the Staff. The advantage of our having a base, even improvised, on the Norwegian coast is very great, and now that the enemy have bases there, we cannot carry on without it. The Naval Staff are selecting various alternatives which are suitable anchorages capable of defence, and without communications with the interior. Unless we have this quite soon we cannot compete with the Germans in their new position.
We must also take our advantages in the Faroes.
Narvik must be fought for. Although we have been completely outwitted, there is no reason to suppose that prolonged and serious fighting in this area will not impose a greater drain on the enemy than on ourselves.
For three days we were deluged with reports and rumours from neutral countries and triumphant claims by Germany of the losses they had inflicted on the British Navy, and of their master-stroke in seizing Norway in the teeth of our superior naval power. It was obvious that Britain had been forestalled, surprised, and as I had written to the First Sea Lord, outwitted. Anger swept the country, and the brunt fell upon the Admiralty. On Thursday the eleventh, I had to face a disturbed and indignant House of Commons. I followed the method I have always found most effective on such occasions, of giving a calm, unhurried factual narrative of events in their sequence, laying full emphasis upon ugly truths. I explained for the first time in public the disadvantage we had suffered since the beginning of the war by Germany’s abuse of the Norwegian corridor, or “covered way,” and how we had at last overcome the scruple which “caused us injury at the same time that it did us honour.”
It is not the slightest use blaming the Allies for not being able to give substantial help and protection to neutral countries if we are held at arm’s length until these neutrals are actually attacked on a scientifically prepared plan by Germany. The strict observance of neutrality by Norway has been a contributory cause to the sufferings to which she is now exposed and to the limits of the aid which we can give her. I trust this fact will be meditated upon by other countries who may tomorrow, or a week hence, or a month hence, find themselves the victims of an equally elaborately worked-out staff plan for their destruction and enslavement.
I described the recent reoccupation by our Fleet of Scapa Flow, and the instant movement we had made to intercept the German forces in the North, and how the enemy were in fact caught between two superior forces.
However, they got away…. You may look at the map and see flags stuck in at different points and consider that the results will be certain, but when you get out on the sea with its vast distances, its storms and mists, and with night coming on, and all the uncertainties which exist, you cannot possibly expect that the kind of conditions which would be appropriate to the movements of armies have any application to the haphazard conditions of war at sea…. When we speak of the command of the seas, it does not mean command of every part of the sea at the same moment, or at every moment. It only means that we can make our will prevail ultimately in any part of the seas which may be selected for operations, and thus indirectly make our will prevail in every part of the sea. Anything more foolish than to suppose that the life and strength of the Royal Navy should have been expended in ceaselessly patrolling up and down the Norwegian and Danish coasts, as a target for the U-boats, on the chance that Hitler would launch a blow like this, cannot be imagined.
The House listened with growing acceptance to the account, of which the news had just reached me, of Tuesday’s brush between the Renown and the enemy, of the air attack on the British Fleet off Bergen, and especially Warburton-Lee’s incursion and action at Narvik. At the end I said:
Everyone must recognise the extraordinary and reckless gambling which has flung the whole German Fleet out upon the savage seas of war, as if it were a mere counter to be cast away for a particular operation…. This very recklessness makes me feel that these costly operations may be only the prelude to far larger events which impend on land. We have probably arrived now at the first main clinch of the war.
After an hour and a half the House seemed to be very much less estranged. A little later there would have been more to tell.
* * * * *
By the morning of April 10, the Warspite had joined the Commander-in-Chief, who was proceeding towards Narvik. On learning about Captain Warburton-Lee’s attack at dawn, we resolved to try again. The cruiser Penelope with destroyer support was ordered to attack “if in the light of experience this morning you consider it a justifiable operation.” But while the signals were passing, Penelope, in searching for enemy transports reported off Bodo, ran ashore. The next day (twelfth) a dive-bombing attack on enemy ships in Narvik Harbour was made from the Furious. The attack was pressed home in terrible weather and low visibility, and four hits on destroyers were claimed for the loss of two aircraft. This was not enough. We wanted Narvik very much and were determined at least to clear it of the German Navy. The climax was now at hand.
The precious Renown was kept out of it. Admiral Whitworth shifted his flag to the Warspite at sea, and at noon on the thirteenth he entered the fiord escorted by nine destroyers and by dive-bombers from the Furious. There were no minefields; but a U-boat was driven off by the destroyers and a second sunk by the Warspite’s own Swordfish aircraft, which also detected a German destroyer lurking in an inlet to launch her torpedoes on the battleship from this ambush. The hostile destroyer was quickly overwhelmed. At 1.30 P.M., when our ships were through the Narrows and a dozen miles from Narvik, five enemy destroyers appeared ahead in the haze. At once a fierce fight began with all ships on both sides firing and manoeuvring rapidly. The Warspite found no shore batteries to attack, and intervened in deadly fashion in the destroyer fight. The thunder of her fifteen-inch guns reverberated among the surrounding mountains like the voice of doom. The enemy, heavily overmatched, retreated, and the action broke up into separate combats. Some of our ships went into Narvik Harbour to complete the task of destruction there; others, led by the Eskimo, pursued three Germans who sought refuge in the head waters of Rombaks Fiord and annihilated them there. The bows of the Eskimo were blown off by a torpedo; but in this second sea-fight off Narvik, the eight enemy destroyers which had survived Warburton-Lee’s attack were all sunk or wrecked without the loss of a single British ship.
When the action was over, Admiral Whitworth thought of throwing a landing party of seamen and marines ashore to occupy the town, where there seemed for the moment to be no opposition. Unless the fire of the Warspite could dominate the scene, an inevitable counter-attack by a greatly superior number of German soldiers must be expected. With the risk from the air and by U-boats, he did not feel justified in exposing this fine ship so long. His decision was endorsed when a dozen German aircraft appeared at 6 P.M. Accordingly, he withdrew early next morning after embarking the wounded from the destroyers. “My impression,” he said, “is that the enemy forces in Narvik were thoroughly frightened as a result of today’s action, I recommend that the town be occupied without delay by the main landing-force.” Two destroyers were left off the port to watch events, and one of these rescued the survivors of the Hardy, who had meanwhile maintained themselves on shore.
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His Majesty, whose naval instincts were powerfully stirred by this clash of the British and German Navies in Northern waters, wrote me the following encouraging letter:
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
April 12, 1940
My dear Mr. Churchill,
I have been wanting to have a talk with you about the recent striking events in the North Sea, which, as a sailor, I have naturally followed with the keenest interest, but I have purposely refrained from taking up any of your time, as I know what a great strain has been placed upon you by your increased responsibilities as Chairman of the Co-ordination Committee. I shall, however, ask you to come and see me as soon as there is a lull. In the meantime I would like to congratulate you on the splendid way in which, under your direction, the Navy is countering the German move against Scandinavia. I also beg of you to take care of yourself and get as much rest as you possibly can in these critical days.
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
GEORGE R.I.