The Norwegian Campaign and Dunkirk
In 1940, few could have realized the eventual significance of the occupation of Norway by the Germans. At the time it was simply the loss of another friendly country, but it did prompt the British government to send troops to occupy Iceland, which had seized independence from Denmark on that country also being overrun by German forces. The feared German occupation of Iceland would have been a disaster had it happened, giving the Germans control over a large area of the North Atlantic. Of course, the Germans might not have managed it, given the distance and the fact that their amphibious assault on Norway was not without its setbacks, but Norway had armed forces and Iceland did not.
The long period of inaction on the ground came to an abrupt end on 9 April 1940 when German troops invaded Denmark and Norway. The invasion of Denmark was over quickly, with Germany and Denmark sharing a land border while an invasion fleet sailed into the harbour at Copenhagen. There was no time for British or French intervention. Norway was different as the Germans had to invade by sea and the inhospitable terrain lent itself to resistance. Expecting the Second World War to follow the same pattern as the first, the leaders of both countries were taken by surprise.
The irony was that the British and French had planned to invade Norway earlier, during the winter of 1939-40, on the pretext of aiding Finland in her war with the Soviet Union – the so-called ‘Winter War’ – as the USSR tried to regain territory lost during the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War that had followed.
German propaganda claimed that the reason for the invasion of Denmark and Norway was to forestall an Allied invasion, but the main reason was to ensure that supplies of Swedish iron ore continued to reach Germany as the use of Norwegian ports was vital to the Germans because the Gulf of Bothnia froze in winter, making the direct sea route from Sweden to German impassable.
After the Altmark incident already mentioned, there was no further action by the British in Norwegian waters until 8 April, when the Royal Navy began mining to prevent their use by German shipping. The Royal Navy had already begun laying mines in the approaches to the Kiel Canal and the Royal Air Force had dropped mines in this and other German waterways in operations known to the RAF as ‘gardening’.
Even so, the Germans must have been preparing to invade both Denmark and Norway well before this as such a major operation could not be mounted overnight. The Germans had allocated substantial forces, with troops landed from the sea at the major ports of Oslo, Kristiansand, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik, while air-landed troops arrived at the airports at Oslo and Stavanger. For the most part this operation went according to plan, but the loss of the cruiser Blücher, hit by two torpedoes fired from a coastal battery at the Drøbak Narrows, protecting the entrance to Oslo Fjord, with the main headquarters staff aboard, hindered the German landings and allowed the Norwegian government and the king to flee the city, giving time to organize resistance.
The Norwegian army had already started to mobilize and this encouraged the United Kingdom and France to send troops, assembling an initial expeditionary force of 13,000 supported by air and naval forces, including the despatch of aircraft carriers. The use of carrier-borne aircraft was necessary because of the limited number of airfields available ashore, and the nature of the terrain. Unfortunately at this time the Royal Navy had no high-performance aircraft embarked on its carriers that were capable of fending off German fighters.
The British and French agreed that the key to holding Norway would be the recapture of Trondheim, from which a counter-attack southwards could repel the invaders. Initially, however, Narvik was seen as being more easily taken and held at the outset. This was all very well in theory, but in practice the problem was that a substantial part of the available trained strength of both nations’ armies and air forces were stationed in France in anticipation of a German attack, while it was estimated that an army of at least 50,000 troops, almost four times the number actually available, would be needed to liberate Norway.
At sea, the Royal Navy soon established control. A destroyer action in Narvik Fjord on 10 April saw two German destroyers and some merchantmen sunk, although later two British destroyers were also sunk. That same day, an air-raid by Fleet Air Arm aircraft operating from the shore station at Hatston on the mainland of Orkney sank the cruiser Königsberg, the first loss of a substantial operational warship to air power. Three days later, the veteran battleship HMS Warspite and nine destroyers sank another eight German destroyers in the Second Battle of Narvik. Such heavy losses affected the Kriegsmarine badly as it was very short of destroyers even before the outbreak of war.
Aided by these successes, British forces were landed at Narvik on 12 April. These troops, under Major General Mackesy, were expected to seize the town, using naval gunfire if necessary. It soon became clear that Mackesy had no intention of taking Narvik. At first, this was because he wished to wait for the snow to melt and for his force to be joined by a half brigade of French Chasseurs Alpins (mountain infantry), not appreciating that these troops were earmarked for other operations.
While the Germans were left to strengthen their defences at Narvik, British and French troops were being landed near Namsos, further south between Narvik and Trondheim. They were expected to move south to Trondheim, a distance of 100 miles, despite 4 feet of snow which hindered movement and with no protection from German air attack.
Advancing from the north, one British brigade managed to get to within 50 miles of Trondheim by 19 April before the Germans counter-attacked two days later, forcing them back. The northern advance on Trondheim was soon back where it started, at Namsos, from where it was evacuated on the night of 3 May.
Throughout this period, the British and French troops were subjected to heavy bombing by the Luftwaffe. Air cover was provided by fighters operating from British aircraft carriers and by RAF Gloster Gladiators operating from a frozen lake some 40 miles from Åndalsnes. The Gladiators, the RAF’s last biplane fighters, were no match for the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt Bf 109s; while at this time the Fleet Air Arm did not have any high-performance fighters. A squadron of Hawker Hurricanes based at an airfield ashore were too few and too late to make a difference.
Eventually, on 24 May it was decided to withdraw from Norway as the German invasion of France and the Low Countries was well advanced. Withdrawal started on 27 and 28 May, with more than 24,000 British, French, Polish and Norwegian troops having left by 8 June, shortly before the surrender of France. The need to reinforce the British and French units fighting in France was seen as a justification for withdrawal from Norway, but the battle for France was already lost.
Air cover was provided for the evacuation by aircraft from the carriers Ark Royal and Glorious, the sister of Courageous, and at first by RAF squadrons based ashore. It was then the turn of the RAF to be evacuated, and the order was given that the aircraft had to be destroyed as they did not have sufficient range to fly back to the UK. Realizing the need for every single aircraft and despite having no previous carrier landing experience, the Hurricane pilots decided to save their aircraft by flying them to the carriers. Despite her shorter landing deck, Glorious was chosen because her larger lifts meant that the aircraft, which did not have folding wings, could be struck down into the hangar without first having their wings removed. As the Hurricanes also lacked that other requirement for carrier operations, arrester hooks, sandbags were attached to their tail wheels to weigh them down and the aircraft were landed successfully aboard the ship.
By this time, Glorious was short of fuel and this was one reason why she left Norway steaming westwards to Scapa Flow in Orkney at a stately 17 knots, which her commanding officer considered fast enough to save the ship from submarine attack. Despite not being fitted with radar, her commanding officer did not order aerial reconnaissance patrols to be flown and did not order a lookout in the crow’s nest. All of her aircraft were struck down into the hangar, while bombs and torpedoes were removed and returned to the magazines. This left the ship dependent on the protection of two destroyers. Her commanding officer, when once asked what he would do when faced with enemy warships, had replied by saying that he would steam towards them ‘with all guns blazing’. Naval air power clearly didn’t feature in his battle plans.
While most of her crew were below drinking tea and eating cake, at 1600 the two German battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau came into view. They would have spotted the carrier earlier as they were among the few German ships to be fitted with radar. At a range of 28,000 yards they both opened fire with their 11in guns; the limited armament of Glorious, with nothing heavier than 4.7in guns, had no chance of returning the fire. The carrier increased her speed and the order was given to launch her aircraft. Additional boilers were fired up and the five remaining Fairey Swordfish were brought up from the hangar and made ready to launch a torpedo attack.
At 1615 the first hit was scored on the carrier, destroying the aircraft that were on deck waiting for their crews. Once the range had been fixed, further shells struck the ship, penetrating the wooden flight deck and exploding among the precious Hurricanes in the hangar below. Fuel left in the Hurricanes ignited and their ammunition exploded, creating an inferno in the hangar deck. By the time a salvo destroyed the bridge at 1700, the ship was already a pillar of smoke, despite having increased her speed to 27 knots.
As this was happening, the destroyer escorts Ardent and Acasta were both lost in making a desperate torpedo attack on the Scharnhorst, which suffered damage from one of Acasta’s torpedoes.
An hour later, Glorious disappeared beneath the waves. It is thought that as many as 900 of her combined ship’s company and embarked RAF personnel of 1,500 may have survived the attack, but just 39 men survived two days in cold water with no food or drink until they were rescued.
The first nine months of war had seen the Royal Navy lose two of its precious carriers, and in both cases the loss had been avoidable. The wasteful search for U-boats had been the downfall of Courageous and the lack of aerial reconnaissance had done the same for Glorious, while neither had been given adequate escorts.
Worse was to follow, for on 13 June fifteen Blackburn Skuas of No. 800 and 803 Naval Air Squadrons based on board Ark Royal were sent to attack the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at Trondheim and ran into heavy anti-aircraft fire from the ships as well as a strong Luftwaffe fighter defence. The Skua, officially a fighter-dive-bomber, was described by one of its pilots as ‘more dive-bomber than fighter’ and didn’t stand a chance. Eight of the fifteen were shot down. One survivor likened the attack to the Charge of the Light Brigade, but the reality was even worse as the one bomb that hit the Scharnhorst failed to explode, possibly because it was dropped too low to be primed.
The tragedy of the Royal Navy’s first encounters with the two German battle-cruisers was all the more bitter because even while the troops were being withdrawn from Norway to reinforce the British and French armies in France, it was already too late to save Belgium and France. French surrender was still some time away, but the defenders were falling back in disarray towards the Channel ports.
As Allied defeats continued to grow, the troops that had been moved to France in September 1939 had to be brought home or left to become prisoners of war. The move of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France had been largely the work of the Merchant Navy using cross-Channel steamers, packet ships more used to carrying civilians – many of them day-trippers or holidaymakers – than troops, and mails rather than military equipment. Similar steamers from other routes around the British Isles were also called up for this service. The evacuation of troops from Dunkirk was to require not just the ferries but a wide variety of small craft including fishing vessels and pleasure-cruisers as well as small yachts and launches. Many of the smaller craft performed valuable work in taking men off the beaches and ferrying them to large ships for the return trip across the Channel.
The evacuation became known as Operation DYNAMO and was organized by Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay at Dover. Ramsay had retired from the Royal Navy before the war and rejoined shortly before war broke out; he was in fact ‘acting admiral’ at the time.
Many rear-echelon or support troops were evacuated before the main evacuation began, with 28,000 having left France by 26 May when Operation DYNAMO officially started. In the days that followed, arrangements approached their climax. Early on 29 May, the Southern Railway packet ship Brittany was requisitioned by the government, joining the Channel Island ferry Isle of Guernsey and six cross-Channel packets that were working as hospital ships, while another eight were in service as military transports. At the time Brittany was requisitioned, warning was given that another two ships might be needed, but by noon that same day the situation was such that the Southern Railway was sent a signal that ‘all available Southern Railway steamers of 1,000 tons gross with a range of 150 miles are required for immediate Government service.’ Nine ships were quickly handed over with their crews, including four Isle of Wight ferries, of which two were car ferries with low open vehicle decks that were not well-suited to a squall in the English Channel.
All of the four large railway companies that operated the main-line railway network in Great Britain had already contributed ships, including those that operated on the Irish Sea and across the North Sea as well as the cross-Channel and Channel Island ships. The Southern Railway was the main operator across the English Channel and had lost two ships before Dunkirk. One of these was the Maid of Kent, clearly marked as a hospital ship and crowded with wounded soldiers when she was hit by five bombs and sunk in the harbour at Dieppe on 23 May. Later that day, Brighton, again marked as a hospital ship, was also bombed and sunk.
As the main evacuation got under way, more ships were sunk. On 30 May Lorina and Normannia, both acting as military transports, were sunk at Dunkirk, although the crew of the Normannia was saved and reached England. On 2 June another hospital ship, the Paris, was bombed and had to be abandoned.
In the confusion, as many men as possible were crowded aboard ships as they arrived with no attention given to the size of the ship, number of lifeboats or any other consideration. So it happened that the small Isle of Wight paddle-steamer Whippingham beat much larger ships to take the record for a single voyage by moving 2,700 men on 4 June.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) also pressed its Channel Island steamers into the evacuation, deploying the St Helier and the St Julien, while these were joined by the St Andrew and the St David from the company’s Fishguard-Rosslare service. During several days on the evacuation, the St Helier carried 10,000 men.
Passenger ferries were the smart end of the operation, although it is doubtful that many of the evacuees appreciated this. Many had been without sleep, food or water for days before boarding the ships. Hitler had agreed to Göring’s request that the Luftwaffe be allowed to destroy the BEF on the beaches, while Panzer divisions were held back. While the Luftwaffe failed in its task, its bombing accounted for many casualties on the beaches and on the ships. The less fortunate evacuees were taken off by smaller cargo ships, but these at least could get closer to the troops crowded on the beaches; two-thirds of those rescued were taken off the harbour’s east mole straight onto ships. So desperate was the situation that the GWR sent the Mew, the Dartmouth-Kingswear ferry, but by the time she reached the Straits of Dover the evacuation was over.
As the evacuation at Dunkirk ended, many of the ships were sent further down the coast to St Valery but arrived after the port had fallen to the Germans and as they approached, the rescue fleet came under heavy shellfire with many of those on board killed.
Operation DYNAMO saw 338,226 troops moved from France to England, a far higher figure than had been expected, and while the bulk of these were British, there were also many French troops and smaller numbers from other countries that had been overrun by the Germans. Most of the 53,000 French personnel rescued left during the night of 3/4 June, by which time Ramsay had had to ban daylight passages.
Some of those evacuated were taken off by warships but a fighting ship is seldom the ideal vessel for an evacuation and the main role of the Royal Navy was to protect the evacuation fleet, keeping German warships, and especially the fast-moving E-boats that could have caused so much damage, away. The other role was to provide anti-aircraft cover for the evacuation fleet. While nothing larger than a destroyer could get close enough to help, shore-based Fleet Air Arm squadrons assisted RAF Coastal Command in reconnaissance and anti-shipping patrols.
Despite the best efforts of RAF Fighter Command, whose aircraft could only spend a limited amount of time over Dunkirk before running low on fuel, nine British and French destroyers were lost as well as eight troopships. Out of the officially recorded 848 civilian vessels, 72 were lost to enemy action and 163 lost in collisions with a further 45 damaged.
Britain’s new wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was moved to remind the British people that ‘wars are not won by evacuations’, but there can be no doubt that the loss of more than a third of a million Allied troops would have been a shock to national morale so severe that the will to continue fighting might have been undermined at a time when there was still a substantial movement that wanted to negotiate a peace with Germany.