The Gathering Storm: The Second World War (87 page)

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.