The Gathering Storm: The Second World War (86 page)

All lay in suspense. The various minor expedients I had been able to suggest had gained acceptance; but nothing of a major character had been done by either side. Our plans, such as they were, rested upon enforcing the blockade by the mining of the Norwegian corridor in the North, and by hampering German oil supplies from the Southeast. Complete immobility and silence reigned behind the German Front. Suddenly, the passive or small-scale policy of the Allies was swept away by a cataract of violent surprises. We were to learn what total war means.

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.

B
EFORE 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.