The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (22 page)

Once the strike was recovered, the fleet headed out further from the coast, hoping to avoid any attention from submarines at night - it was assumed that there would be heavy concentrations of U-boats off Norway, and particularly off the ports, and while the TBR planes could keep them down in daytime, they were ineffective at night.

The Captain of the Hipper was later court-martialed for not having tried to escape earlier; apparently he had been advised that British fleet units were in the area, but had decided to fix as much as possible of his damage and then escape that evening under cover of darkness. This might have worked if he had only been facing surface units (or maybe not, the Royal Navy was not known for its timidity in attacking the enemy), but as it was the presence of the carriers had doomed his ship.

The defeat of the German destroyers, and the effective control of the Narvik fjord was greeting with jubilation in the Admiralty. Followed by an immediate push by the First Lord to do something about occupying the town and ejecting the German troops already there. Signals were sent to both Warburton-Lee (in command of the destroyers ), and Whitworth (controlling the Battlecruiser force) to ask if they could land enough armed sailors to take the town 'at a rush' as it was suggested in Whitehall. Both commanders closer to the scene were unenthusiastic about this, as they had few men available, and were unconvinced of the idea of sending armed sailors against the elite German mountain troops
now known to be in Narvik.

However there was a change in the situation on the evening of the 10th. After sinking or neutralizing the German forces in the fjord, the British destroyers had been patrolling and keeping an eye on the town while waiting to see if they would be reinforced or withdrawn the following day. Emergency repairs were also underway on the damaged ships; two of these were too badly damaged to remain on station, and it was intended to retire them as soon as possible; the other ships damage was less serious and they would wait until relieved.

It was while this was in progress that a lookout on one of the destroyers noticed a signal from the shore, some miles seaward of the port itself. Curious, the Captain replied, and found that the signal were being sent by a survivor from one of the Norwegian patrol ships sunk by the Germans when they had entered the fjord. He was in company with a force of about 150 Norwegian reservists, who had escaped from the town when it was surrendered, unfortunately without any arms. They wanted to know what they could do to help when the British landed.

This raised some interesting possibilities in Warburton-Lee, who like most British destroyer captains had the aggressive tendencies of a wolverine with toothache; the main issues he and Whitworth had felt a landing a bad idea was due to the lack of men, the deep snow surrounding the town, and the lack of any information about what the German troops were doing. The addition of a 150 local troops with excellent local knowledge and skilled in working in the weather conditions made the idea of landing less outrageous.

A boat went to pick up the Norwegian leaders and brought them back to his destroyer for more talks, while he radioed the battlecruiser force and the Admiralty. His suggestion was fairly simple. he could muster about 150 men (assuming the two badly damaged destroyers were to return to Britain tomorrow, they wouldn't be expected to fight, and so could spare some men). He had enough spare small arms on board to equip the Norwegians. That would give him a force of about 300 men (in fact, it would be closer to 400, as more Norwegians were in fact trickling in as the discussions went on). The heavy ships could supply another 200 (no more, as they still needed to be able to fight), which could be there over the night by destroyer. A force of 500 men obviously couldn't take the town, but they could, with the help of the Norwegians, picket it from the seaward side of the fjord, and keep some of the defenders occupied. If anything went wrong, they could evacuate the men on the destroyers.

This would only make sense if stronger forces were on the way, and quickly, otherwise the Germans would reinforce and he would be forced to withdraw the sailors. Two options were available. there was a force of cruisers in the UK , originally loaded with troops as part of the aborted Operation Wilfred. These had been unloaded, as the cruisers were due to sail with a carrier arriving from convoy duty. However the ships , although empty of troops, had not yet left; they could be reloaded overnight with sufficient troops and equipment for some days, and be at Narvik by the morning of the 12th April. While the port itself was under German control, there were plenty of places on the fjord, known to the locals, where light forces could be landed. From interrogating prisoners (a man just fished out of an icy fjord tended to be easy to question), the Germans themselves had few heavy weapons but for some light AA. He had 12 4.7" guns available if necessary, more when the cruisers arrived.

Secondly, according to one of the Norwegians, there was a Norwegian division moving down from the north under General Fleischer, which would have the best part of 4,000 men, fully equipped, close to the town in a few more days. There were in addition about 200 men currently blocking the railway line from Sweden, who could be moved in to support British troops landed higher up the fjord. This would allow the Anglo-Norwegian forces to surround the town. Given that they would outnumber the defenders by 3:1, it seemed likely that they could either capture Narvik or force its surrender quickly, as it would take a while for German reinforcements to arrive; the men landed at Trondheim were only sufficient to capture the town and there was confused fighting going on in Southern Norway. It was thought unlikely that the Germans could bring up substantial reinforcements from the south in less than a week, which would give time for at least one attack on Narvik.

This suggested plan was received enthusiastically at the Admiralty, or at least by Churchill. Frazer was a bit more skeptical, but agreed on the condition that if the situation deteriorated, the troops and sailors would be withdrawn pending a properly planned assault., and that this decision would be left up to Warburton-Lee and the Army commander.

Accordingly a battalion of troops (around 1,000men) with equipment and minimal supplies, were loaded onto two cruisers, which would sail on a high-speed run for Narvik as soon as they were ready. A second battalion was to be embarked on the other two cruisers to follow, and supplies for both forces would be loaded onto a merchant ship; it was hoped to have this ready in 2-3 days, before the supplies with the troops ran out. The Home Fleet had detached a number of cruisers that night to return to refuel, so two of these would escort the supply ship (or ships, if two ships could be available without undue delay).

The plan was thus to have a force of about 1,200 men to the seaward side of the port, and another 1,000 on the landward side, hopefully to be supported by a sizeable Norwegian force attacking from the north. Intelligence placed the German forces at around 1,600 - 1,700 me
n, so they should be outnumbered about 3:1 if everything went to plan.

10th - 11th April, Home Fleet, North Sea, NorthWest of Bergen, Norway.

While the Illustrious and the Formidable had been busy
dealing with the Hipper, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been finally making their way south. They did not have detailed information on the disposition of the Royal Navy, but based on the actions so far they could make a reasonable guess. There was likely a force of some sort off Narvik - given the destroyer attack in the fjord, this was probably cruisers, maybe a battlecruiser, in support. The main body seemed to be off Trondheim, or maybe between Trondheim and Bergen. As the Luftwaffe had not located them close to the coast, they were presumably standing off. They obviously had at least one carrier, maybe more, with them.

The original intention had been to either head south close to the coast (allowing the Luftwaffe to attack the British if they followed or tried to intercept) or, if the Royal Navy was spotted close in, to slip by to seaward until they could swing back towards the coast again. The presence of a strong carrier force complicated this. Wherever the main fleet was, if it could strike at Bergen and Trondheim, it could strike at them as they slipped along the coast too. Going seaward also had
its dangers; with reconnaissance planes from both the fleet and the UK searching the area, they would need luck to escape attention.

Staying where there were wasn't an option either; the British must have planes out searching north and west, sooner or later one of them, or a ship, would spot them and then they would be trapped with the British fleet between them and home and no hope of air support.

As a result, they decided to try and slip past the Home Fleet at night, hoping that by the time they were discovered the Luftwaffe would be covering them, and they could even hope to lure heavy British units south, where they would learn the FAA wasn't the only people who could sink ships from the air. In order to do this, they ideally needed the location of the British fleet fixed, and reconnaissance by the He115 planes allocated to naval cooperation.

The fleet was finally located by an He115
acting in its reconnaissance role at about 1400 on the 10th. This was in fact the second such plane to encounter the fleet, but the first had been shot down by a Goshawk before it could complete a sighting report. Given a rough idea of where the British were, it was seen it would not be possible to slip by them in the dark at this time of year. They therefore decided to do the northern part of their escape under cover of darkness, and trust to the Luftwaffe in the morning. They knew they could outrun anything the British had except maybe their battlecruisers, and at least one of these had been reported as off Narvik, well to the north of them. It was thought unlikely that the Royal Navy would pursue with only one battlecruiser, as this would be heavily outgunned by the German ships.

The location of the British fleet had another advantage, in that they were now preparing for another air strike (unknown to the search plane, it was the second strike on the Hipper), which tended to take their attention away from the surface threat for a while.

The He115 which had located the British force had done more than just reported the location so it could be passed on to the Twins - the location was also passed on to the Luftwaffe. While naval cooperation was supposed to be an important part of the Luftwaffe's role in Norway (considering the strength of the British fleet that the Kriegsmarine was tempting , this cooperation tended to be less organized than opportunistic in the first week of the campaign
). Goering's planes were very busy in the south - covering the German army, aiding them to drive the disorganized Norwegian resistance north and out of the way, and flying in more paratroops and their supply.

So when the British fleet was reported, the duty fell on the handful of squadrons who'd normal role was that of naval cooperation. The report hadn't gone into much detail as to the strength of the British force (the pilot, understandably, hadn't flown too close), but he had spotted at least one fighter as he slipped in and out of clouds, so they certainly had a carrier with them. The location was too far away from the bases currently occupied by the Luftwaffe to allow an escort of Me109 fighters, and the Me110's, although they had the necessary range, were busy on tasks thought more important (at least by Goering's commanders) than escorting planes 'for a raid on a few ships' , as it was put.

The result was an unescorted strike by 10 He115 torpedo bombers, and 12 He111 high level bombers. In order to maximize their chances of both damaging the ships and getting out alive in the face of enemy fighters (the Goshawk was already getting a feared reputation among German bomber crews) it was planned to do a single synchronised torpedo and bomb attack, the planes withdrawing as soon as they had released their weapons. Since by the time the fleet had been reported, plotted and the usual issues of who was going to attack them had been worked out, it was too late to launch a strike that day. It was therefore arranged to plan one for dawn, three search planes having been sent out earlier to locate them - as soon as they location was give, the strike would be launched.

Dawn would also be the time the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were hoping to have slipped past the British on their way south down the coast (they were at that point just south of Trondheim, the British force having stayed well clear of t
he coast overnight). This hope was misplaced, as the British had moved south closer to Bergen; at the moment, German air attacks seemed at least manageable, and the Admiralty wanted more reconnaissance flights as far south as possible. With two fleet carriers and over 30 fighters Forbes felt he could take the risk of being in range of the Luftwaffe's longer-ranged planes (as yet, they had no knowledge of the long-range Ju87R Stuka variant)

11th April 0900, North Sea, NorthWest of Bergen, Norway.

For once the Luftwaffe search planes had had some unexpected luck. They had to guess at the movements of the Home Fleet units overnight, as they had no night-time search capability. This meant starting the search at dawn where they estimated (well, to be honest guessed) the British would be. For once, they guessed right. The contact report was immediately radioed back to base, which was good for the strike force waiting ready on the runway. Not so good for the search plane, who's attempts to keep contact with the fleet and report fell afoul of a roving Goshawk CAP patrol.

The strike got airborne as soon as the position of the fleet had been reported to the navigators, and by 1000 was closing on the fleet. It consisted of two parts, He115 torpedo planes, and He111 high level bombers (the Luftwaffe command still insisted that all of its Ju87's were busy), along with six Me110's that the Kriegsmarine had managed to get out of a grudging Luftwaffe.