On 8th April 1940 at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, a Sunderland flying boat sighted a battleship of the ‘Scharnhorst’ class accompanied by two cruisers of the ‘Leipzig’ class and two destroyers. They were a hundred and thirty miles from the Alsboen Light off the West coast of Norway. The ships saw the Sunderland almost at the same moment and opened anti-aircraft fire which was both heavy and accurate. The Sunderland was hit almost at once; two of its tanks were holed and the hull gradually filled with petrol. When it landed at its base it had lost 300 gallons. That same day German destroyers had been seen at various times in the neighbourhood of the Horns Reef, steaming on a Northerly course. The German attack on Norway had begun.
Throughout the next day aircraft of Coastal Command were very busy reconnoitring the new area of battle. Before midday a London flying boat had reported the presence of a German cruiser of the ‘Koln’ class in Bergen. This intelligence was confirmed later by a Blenheim and a Wellington. A Sunderland reported one ‘Hipper’ class cruiser in Trondheim Fjord and Wellingtons enemy warships and possibly transports at Kristiansand (South). The cruiser at Bergen was attacked that afternoon by Wellingtons, which dropped thirty armour-piercing 500-lb bombs from between 4,000 and 6,000 feet. They were met by heavy fire, but thought that they had scored one direct hit on her stern. On the next day a Hudson reported that after a further attack by naval Skuas from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious the cruiser had sunk.
On 12th April a Wellington, put at the service of Coastal by Bomber Command, flew from an aerodrome in Northern Scotland over a thousand miles’ of sea to the North of Norway. When it entered Narvik Fjord ‘huge rocks towered up on either side of us,’ reports the wireless operator. ‘Snow drifted down so that we could see only a few yards ahead. The gusts were terrific, bouncing and throwing us about ... By then we reckoned we were within about ten miles of Narvik, but we could not continue. Visibility was almost nil ... We went about and picked our way down the fjord again ... like a boat hugging the shore. Suddenly we saw once more the open sea. ‘They soon saw something else, a Ju 88 crossing their bows. ‘We began to circle each other, two heavy bombers waiting to pounce.’ Then the inevitable curtain of snow fell and they lost each other: Near Narvik the compass showed errors of between twenty and thirty degrees, but the Wellington set course for base and landed safely after a flight of fourteen and a half hours. When the Wimpy entered Narvik Fjord ‘huge rocks towered up on either side of us,’ reported the wireless operator. ‘Snow drifted down so that we could see only a few yards’ ahead. The gusts were terrific, bouncing and throwing us about.... By then we reckoned we were within about ten miles of Narvik, but we could not continue. Visibility was almost nil.... We went about and picked our way down the fjord again. like a boat hugging the shore. Suddenly we saw once more the open sea.’ They soon saw something else, a Ju 88 crossing their bows. ‘We began to circle each other, two heavy bombers waiting to pounce.’ Then the inevitable curtain of snow fell and they lost each other: Near Narvik the compass showed errors of between twenty and thirty degrees, but the Wellington set course for base and landed safely after a flight of fourteen and a half hours. On the next day the Royal Navy entered the fjord and sank seven German destroyers. By 14th April the German Air Force was in occupation of all the aerodromes in Norway and Denmark ...’
Coastal Command: The Fight for Norway Air (Air Ministry 1942.)
The great consolidation of the Empire Air Force began almost concurrently with the fall of France in May 1940. In this, the Atlantic Delivery Service was a major factor. The service was inaugurated on the night of 10 November 1940 when seven Hudson aircraft, crewed by men from Britain, Australia, South Africa, Norway, Canada and the United States made the first flight under the leadership of Captain D. C. T. Bennett, who later became Air Officer Commanding RAF Pathfinder Force. Headquarters for the Atlantic Delivery Service were set up at Montreal and with the help of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company the service was built up. Pilots and radio operators were at first obtained from British Overseas Airways as a nucleus. Later, service navigators trained under the Joint Air Training Plan became available. 7
In Coastal Command, Hudsons were just coming into squadrons at the outbreak of war and eventually they completely superseded the shorter range Avro Anson. Hudsons gave excellent service for a number of years on anti-submarine and general reconnaissance duties from bases all round the British coastline and they also served in a maritime role with the RAF in West Africa, the Mediterranean area, the West Indies, in Iceland and in the Far East. They were the first American aircraft to be delivered by air to Britain and the first aircraft in Coastal Command to carry airborne lifeboats for air-sea rescue duties. Hudsons were hard at work over the North Sea from the first day of the war, their main task being to keep a watch for German surface raiders attempting to escape into the Atlantic between Scotland and Norway. A Hudson on 224 Squadron can claim to be the first RAF aircraft operating from the United Kingdom to shoot down an enemy aircraft, on 8 October 1939, when the Hudson succeeded in destroying a Dornier Do 18 flying-boat during a patrol over Jutland.
224 Squadron began operations before war was declared. During the Munich crisis all the Coastal Squadrons were sent to their war stations. 224 Squadron was already at Leuchars, from which they were to patrol the North Sea in venerable Ansons, which could not reach the Norwegian coast and be able to return. All the German fleet had to do was to cling to the coast and slip out to the Atlantic without being seen, As the threat of war increased the Squadron was equipped with Lockheed Hudsons, Two weeks before the war truly began, 224 sent out its first sortie, disguised as an exercise but actually to report the movements of the German naval units off the coast of Norway, while the Home Fleet was moving from Portsmouth to Scapa Flow.
Wing Commander Terry McComb, CO of 224 Squadron recalled, ‘Going to Norway was a big thrill in those days. I know it must seem funny now, but we had all wanted to look at the Norwegian coastline because it had been impossible in our old Ansons, The first member of the Squadron to see it was quite a hero for a few hours. During the exercise the weather was bloody awful and the Squadron suffered its first war casualty; Dingle Bell, the Squadron adjutant, who crashed into a Norwegian cliff.’ The aircraft were poorly armed and gun turrets had not arrived. Although they had no gun turrets, 224 aircraft waded into the enemy with two fixed front guns. ‘It was not long before we had our first kill. Three Hudsons led by the Flight Commander of ‘C’ Flight did it. The leader was ‘Dog-shooter’ Womersley, who always wore drain pipe trousers, a shooting jacket and bow tie.’
The Squadron also took part in photographic reconnaissance. It began with nervous little attempts to photograph the enemy country on the other side of the Channel. A detached flight of 224 Squadron was kept at Thornaby at the beginning of the war to photograph and report on the movements of naval units in the Heligoland Bight. McComb said that photographic reconnaissance was ‘a very dirty job’ in those days, but that as a result of those flights, information was brought back, making it possible for the Wellingtons and Hampdens to attack enemy ships in force. In those early days the aircraft of 224 Squadron flew battle flights to intercept and shoot down enemy aircraft, they bombed aerodromes in Norway, searched for enemy ships and photographed enemy harbours and attacked shipping. That cumbersome word, specialization, has conquered all these uncertain arrangements and 224 now do little but hunt and kill U-boats at night. 8
On 31 January 1940 fourteen Hudsons became the first aircraft in Coastal Command to be fitted with ASV radar which enabled the location of U-boats at night or in poor visibility. In February 1940 a Hudson on 220 Squadron directed naval forces to the hideout of the German prison ship Altmark (an auxiliary of the Graf Spee) in Norway. Many British prisoners of war were set free as a result. A Flight Commander on 224 Squadron gave a talk on the BBC about a raid on Norway. ‘When I was last in London I was actually taken for a Scotsman, but, as you may guess, my home is in Canada - Vancouver, British Columbia. In some ways, Scotland is quite like home - pine trees, mountains and plenty of snow in the winter.
‘We’ve been pretty busy in the last few weeks with our American-built Hudson aircraft. It’s a mixed type of work that falls to the Coastal Command. We spend most of our time over the North Sea doing reconnaissance work, looking for U-boats and escorting convoys. These are comparatively peaceable occupations, although you may run into German aircraft doing the same job from the other side. But sometimes you get an operation which breaks the monotony. We had a bit of excitement the other day when orders came through for us to attack some shipping in a Norwegian harbour. Our leader was our Wing Commander [Terry McComb] and we had a talk in his office before starting, discussing the method of attack and then we got ready for the flight. Soon after we left we ran into mist, fog and rain and had to fly blind for about half an hour. There was a possibility that the bad weather might spoil the fun, but nearer to the Norwegian coast, it cleared.
In the half light the scores of little islands were a greyish-brown colour, with the sea a darker shade. The wide fjord showed up almost black ahead. We flew into it, keeping level with the tops of the surrounding mountains. We kept on until we had a big, snow-covered mountain between us and the harbour. We skipped over the top of this mountain and flew down the other side so close to the snow that we almost seemed to be tobogganing down it. In a few minutes we were below the snow level, skimming the rocks and the tops of the pines. The wing commander was leading, with five of us streaming along behind. That was just about the moment that the guns opened up on us. Batteries on the mountain-side behind started firing down from above and anti-aircraft posts on each flank and in from let us have all they’d got. Streams of tracer shells coming at us made a criss-cross pattern all round and there were bursts of black smoke ahead where the heavy stuff was exploding. It was really a fireworks display and, actually, it looked very nice - if you were in a position to appreciate it.
‘Another few seconds and we were down over the harbour. Machine gunners were shooting from the windows of the hotels on the waterfront. One of our rear gunners sprayed the buildings with bullets as we passed - and the windows emptied like magic. The guns on either side were firing so low that they were probably hitting each other as we went between them. They didn’t touch us and, as a matter of fact, none of our six aircraft was so much as scratched. The ships we were after were lying at anchor-some against the quays and some moored in the harbour. We dropped our bombs on and around them and shot off towards the sea. As we looked back, we could see the smoke and flames caused by the explosions. We had an even more spectacular party over the same harbour, later, when we paid a return visit and blew up an ammunition dump. I arrived by myself, a little early for the appointment and decided to start the ball rolling. It was very early dawn and I could just pick out the little huts on the end of the quay which we knew contained ammunition. (I’d seen photographs of them before leaving, taken by another aircraft of the squadron.) ‘Two of my bombs and possibly more, scored direct hits on the dumps. We were about 2,500 feet up, but even there the force of the explosion lifted the aircraft as if it were riding a wave.
‘We went right over the hill and did a right turn and circled back round the harbour to see what damage we had done. Growing from the remains of the ammunition dump was a huge mushroom of black smoke, going up to 2,000 feet. Its base was a fiery red mass and higher up it was pierced through and through by flames and pieces of burning debris flying through the air. Other aircraft which arrived later saw the fire still burning. We all returned from that trip safely.
‘Another job was the occasion when we bombed a group of enemy warships. To give honour where it is due, I must raise my hat to the German naval gunners. We were flying at 15,000 feet, but they kept planting their heavy ack-ack so close to us that we could see the flash of the bursts before the smoke appeared (the burst has to be VERY close for you to see more than just the smoke). We could feel the aircraft vibrating from the explosions. It was continually jerking, as though it had been kicked by a giant. All six of our aircraft were hit by bits of high explosive shell, but we all got back to our base-and I might mention as a tribute to the maintenance staff that the six were all flying again the next day.
‘On one of our raids in the north of Norway, we used the Midnight Sun to light us to our objective, which was an aerodrome. We dropped numbers of high explosive and incendiary bombs on that occasion and left several fires behind us. Perhaps our most successful attack on an enemy aerodrome was when we dropped ninety bombs in less than a minute. This particular aerodrome had hardly been used and was tucked into the side of a hill. With infinite trouble, the Germans had built new wooden runways which looked as smooth as a skating rink when we arrived, but were burning merrily after our bombing. We counted forty fires when we left, some of them in the woods where the aircraft were probably hidden and others in the huts around the side of the aerodrome.’
After the collapse of France two squadrons of Hudsons moved to Northern Ireland to strengthen the anti-U-boat force and some of these aircraft took part in the hunting of the Bismarck in April 1941. 269 Squadron operated over the Western Approaches from Iceland. 9
On 30 January 1940 a Sunderland on 228 Squadron laid claim to the first U-boat kill for Coastal Command. Flight Lieutenant E. J. Brooks was flying Sunderland N9025/Y when he attacked U-55 in the North Sea after the enemy submarine had been depth-charged to the surface by the sloop HMS Fowey. The destroyer HMS Whitshed and the French destroyer Valmy escorting Convoy OA.80G arrived on the scene and as the warships opened fire the U-boat crew scuttled their boat and were all rescued except the commander, 31-year old Kapitänleutnant Werner Heidel. 10 From June 1940 Sunderlands on 228 Squadron operated against Italian shipping in the Mediterranean and in November one of these boats flying from Malta carried out a reconnaissance of Taranto prior to the celebrated Fleet Air Arm attack on the night of 11 November by Swordfish aircraft on the Italian Fleet. Preliminary reconnaissance of Taranto harbour showed that the Italians had six battleships at anchor, as well as several cruisers and destroyers. 11
In April 1940 meanwhile, Sunderland crews in Britain were tasked to monitor German naval activity off Norway and reconnoitre the coast to obtain intelligence for possible future operations. On 1 April 204 Squadron were at Sullom Voe, 201 Squadron at Pembroke Dock and 10 Squadron RAAF at Mount Batten. One writer noted that ‘the Australians seemed to be at home beside this ancient water from which Drake left to circumnavigate the world, nearly 400 years earlier. They were housed in two hangars where T. E. Lawrence worked as Aircraftman Shaw from 1929 to 1933. The Australians are not history worshippers and sometimes they treat the past as if it were a cigarette end. But the ghosts of Drake and Lawrence are treated amiably here.’12
Three days’ later 204 Squadron flew its first operation from Sullom Voe when Flight Lieutenant Frankie Phillips in N9046 took off at 1125 for a convoy escort. Phillips located the convoy in the estimated position. At 1550 while the aircraft was twenty miles away from the convoy on the starboard bow, two Ju 88s were sighted low on the water approaching from the direction of the Norwegian coast. The Sunderland and the enemy aircraft were 50-100 feet above the sea. The Ju 88s circled around the Sunderland for two minutes and then carried out a beam attack on the starboard side at a range of 800 yards, the two aircraft flying past successively on a course parallel to the flying-boat. A desultory engagement took place without any apparent damage to either aircraft. Both turrets and the starboard amidship gunner fired short bursts. The subsequent appearance of four more Ju 88 aircraft led to the belief that the enemy was employing this tactic to draw fire. After three minutes’ fighting the two aircraft began to climb turning away from our aircraft and after a three-minute pause, four more Ju 88s appeared from the same direction and immediately delivered a line astern attack on the tail of the Sunderland. The rear gunner, Corporal Little, held his fire till the leading Ju 88 was at 100 yards range. He then opened fire and shot down the leading attacker, which banked steeply and dived into the sea. The second Ju 88 was also hit and was afterwards known to have force-landed. During this attack the first two Ju 88s to arrive were attempting to bomb the Sunderland from a height of 1,500 feet. The bombs however were easily avoided by the fire control officer in the observation dome, directing the pilot away from them. The bombs could be seen falling as soon as they were released and the nearest one burst at least 100 yards from the Sunderland. As soon as the attack of the four aircraft had been broken up by our gunfire, the five remaining Ju 88s immediately made off and the Sunderland made for home, having suffered the following damage: bullets in port inner, starboard middle and starboard inner fuel tanks causing loss of 500 gallons during return flight; bullet holes in hull, fin, instrument panel; trimming gear and fuel jettison systems made unserviceable; one bomb rack damaged; the fire control officer and navigator both sustained face cuts from splinters. Two fuel tanks were hit and the control wires and certain instruments were shot through. Phillips was awarded a DFC and Corporal William Little received the award of the DFM.
Also on 4 April a reconnaissance flight over the Elbe estuary discovered German naval vessels and sixty merchant ships in the Schillig Roads moving northward in formations of five ships. The naval vessels were attacked by six Blenheims without visible result. A patrol sent to the same place on the next day had to be recalled on account of weather; but its leader got through and flying just below clouds, which were down to 200 feet, found the Roads almost empty. On Saturday 6 April a photographic reconnaissance showed that several units of the German Fleet, including the 26,000-ton battle cruisers Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, were in the harbours of North-Western Germany. It was, however, on the night of 6/7 April that the signs of an impending great event became unmistakable. British bombers engaged in the dropping of leaflets reported that a wide stream of motor transport, headlights blazing, was flowing along the autobahn from Hamburg to Lübeck, while at Eckernforde, near Kiel, there was great activity among shipping under the glare of brilliant arc lamps. The Germans made no pretence of concealment. When all is on the hazard they rarely do, believing that speed is more important than secrecy.
Although it was not until 9 April 1940 that German ships of war were seen in Norwegian harbours, they had sailed on the 7th. On 7 April bomber crews were brought to a state of readiness when it was realised that German ships sighted heading for Norway and Denmark the day before were part of an invasion force. During the afternoon twelve Blenheims in two formations of six saw an enemy cruiser and four destroyers at sea. They followed them and four minutes later caught sight of most of the German Fleet, which was then 76 miles NNW of the Horn’s Reef. The Blenheims wheeled into the sun and attacked either the Scharnhorst or the Gneisenau. The leader sent out a message giving the position and course of the German Fleet. This information never got through and only became known some hours later when the aircraft returned. ‘The German Fleet was a very grand sight,’ said the leader of the Blenheims. ‘When they shot at me it was like lightning flashing in daylight all about me.’
Detachments of Wellingtons on 9 and 115 Squadrons that had been sent to Lossiemouth and Kinloss in Scotland sought in vain to find the German ships that same afternoon when they were thwarted by bad visibility. Two of 115 Squadron’s Wellington ICs piloted by Canadian Pilot Officer Estelles Arthur Wickenkamp MBE and Pilot Officer Roy Alan Gayford, who was also Canadian, were shot down with no survivors by Bf 110s and three other Wellingtons were damaged. Another force was detailed for the same task the next day were weather-bound.
On 8 April a Sunderland on 204 Squadron flown by the CO, Wing Commander Hyde, who was on a reconnaissance of the Trondheim Fjord, was attacked by two enemy aircraft and damaged before the Sunderland was able to escape. Hyde crawled into the wings and stopped up holes in the fuel tanks, thus enabling the aircraft to make it back to base. At 1400 hours another Sunderland flying boat sighted a battleship of the Scharnhorst class accompanied by two cruisers of the Leipzig class and two destroyers. They were 130 miles from the Alsboen Light off the West coast of Norway. The ships saw the Sunderland almost at the same moment and opened antiaircraft fire which was both heavy and accurate. The Sunderland was hit almost at once; two of its tanks were holed and the hull gradually filled with petrol. When it landed at its base it had lost 300 gallons. That same day German destroyers had been seen at various times in the neighbourhood of the Horns Reef, steaming on a Northerly course. The German attack on Norway had begun.
In the small hours of 9 April the Germans crossed the Danish frontier and simultaneously German troops landed at Narvik, Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger. The same day Wellingtons made an attack on enemy cruisers in Bergen roadstead which had been employed in the invasion. It was one of the war’s earliest air attacks on German ships of war. One of those who took part was Flying Officer D. J. French, an Australian member on 50 Squadron. For his work in the Bergen attack French was awarded the DFC, first award to an Australian airman in the war. 13 For his work in the Bergen attack French was awarded the DFC, first award to an Australian airman in the war. Aircraft of Coastal Command were very busy reconnoitring the new area of battle. Before midday a London flying boat had reported the presence of a German cruiser of the Köln class in Bergen. This intelligence was confirmed later by a Blenheim and a Wellington. Sunderland L5806 flown by Flight Lieutenant E. J. Brooks having detached to 18 Group in the Shetlands flew an afternoon reconnaissance to Trondheim Fjord. Brooks made use of a cloud cover approach from the north, inland and made the reconnaissance whilst flying in a westerly direction. Landfall at Vikten Island was made at 1600 and the flying-boat proceeded inland above broken cloud at 7-9,000 feet. Through cloud gaps vessels were seen at anchor in harbour, identified as Hipper class cruiser, two destroyers and three large MVs. Northeast of the harbour was the Nürnburg and in a fjord North of the town, one destroyer. Engines were de-synchronized and the aircraft constantly retired into cloud. Considerable icing was experienced and heavy snow storms were encountered. Brooks set course due West at 1750 and landed at the Shetlands at 1955.
That afternoon twelve Wellingtons and twelve Hampdens went out to attack the enemy naval forces now in Bergen. Twelve aircraft were recalled and two of the remaining dozen dropped thirty armour-piercing 500lb bombs from between 4,000 and 6,000 feet at dusk. The Wellingtons were met by heavy fire, but thought that they had scored one direct hit on the cruiser’s stern. On the next day, 10 April, a Hudson reported that after a further attack by sixteen Skuas of the Fleet Air Arm from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious the cruiser had sunk.
The conquest of Norway gave the RAF no opportunity to its bombers in direct support of the British or Norwegian army by attacking the German troops as they advanced or fought. The RAF had no bases for bombers nearer than in Britain, a distance of 400 miles and to keep up any continuous bombing of the battlefield, where nothing but continuous bombing was of any use, would have been impossible. The Luftwaffe concentrated on the aerodrome and seaplane anchorage at Stavanger, the aerodrome at Vaernes near Trondheim and also on Fornebu, the airport of Oslo. In order to maintain the rate of landings, the Germans by 15 April were using passenger aircraft taken from their Continental passenger services. Together with the German ships at Bergen, Kristiansand, Trondheim and elsewhere the newly-occupied aerodromes formed the most obvious targets for Bomber Command. Most of the Luftwaffe aerodromes were attacked by night and usually - for in April it is still winter in Norway - in bad weather. In Norway, Stavanger aerodrome was most frequently bombed, then Bergen, Trondheim, Kristiansand and Fornebu aerodromes. In Denmark, Aalborg and Rye aerodromes were continually bombed and so was Westerland aerodrome on Sylt. Coastal Command bombed and machine-gunned Stavanger many times, beginning on 10 April. Here is the report contained in the official summary of a machine-gun attack by a long-range Blenheim. It is typical of many such.
‘Reached Norwegian coast at 1600 hours on 10th (April). At 1604 entered the clouds after seeing five Messerschmitts taking off from Stavanger. At 1610 observed 18 seaplanes (Blohm and Voss) in the harbour, also twenty Heinkels and fifteen Messerschmitts on the aerodrome. Two Heinkels and three Blohm and Voss seaplanes were raked with machine-gun fire from a height of a hundred feet. One Heinkel was destroyed by an explosion and the other damaged. A Bowser pump was set on fire whilst filling a large bomber; 2,000 rounds in all were fired. At 1620 the Blenheim aircraft set course for Bergen, but failed to locate it. At 1815 (on the way home) a Ju 88 was attacked in a position 135 miles from (North coast of Scotland); 500 rounds were fired, which put the port engine and rear gunner out of action and it is doubtful whether the enemy aircraft could have reached its base. Heavy anti-aircraft fire was encountered at Stavanger and our aircraft was hit by explosive bullets. Undercarriage partially collapsed on landing, rendering aircraft unserviceable. The pilot was slightly injured in the hand from splintered glass caused by enemy fire.’
Lack of cloud cover on 11 April prevented six Hampdens from attacking warships in Kristiansand South. Two Blenheim fighters sprayed Sola airfield near Stavanger with machine-gun fire. They were followed towards dusk by six Wellingtons on 115 Squadron operating from Kinloss which delivered a low-level attack which started a large fire. Three of the Wimpys bombed the airfield but one of the remaining three, flown by Pilot Officer F. E. Barber was shot down by German fighters and Flight Sergeant G. A. Powell’s Wellington was seriously damaged and he had to belly-land back at Kinloss without hydraulics. He was later awarded the DFM for this operation. That night 23 Whitleys and twenty Hampdens set out to attack German shipping at various locations between Kiel Bay and Oslo. Heavy darkness hampered the operation. One vessel believed to be carrying ammunition which was seen to explode with ‘great violence’ was the result of a successful attack by one of the Whitleys. One Whitley failed to return.
It was on 12 April that the largest bombing operation of the war so far was mounted when 83 Wellingtons, Hampdens and Blenheims swept a wide area in search of to bomb some of the main units of the German Fleet. These included the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau and a cruiser of the Nürnberg class which had been discovered heading south across the entrance to the Skagerrak. There was fog about and they were not seen, but two warships in Kristiansand South were bombed. The Wellingtons and Hampdens detailed for the operation presently found themselves heavily engaged by a swarm of Bf 109s and 110s which pursued them 200 miles out to sea. In this running fight the enemy pilots, again employing beam attacks to excellent advantage, shot down six Hampdens and two of the six Wellingtons on 149 Squadron from Mildenhall and Squadron Leader M. Nolan’s Wellington in 38 Squadron’s formation of six Wimpys from Marham. Twelve Wellingtons on 9 and 115 Squadrons, which were ordered to make a bombing attack on two cruisers, the Köln and the Königsberg in Bergen harbour, fared little better. None of their bombs did any lasting damage. This was the last major daylight raid for the Hampdens and Wellingtons. The Blenheim formations were not attacked by German fighters. German radio admitted the loss of five Me 109s.
Flight Lieutenant Van der Kiste on 210 Squadron was airborne in a Sunderland from Sullom Voe at 0500, tasked to look for troopships in the Hardangar Fjord. There were heavy snowstorms over the Norwegian coast and while searching for the objective, heavy anti-aircraft fire was encountered over Hagesund. The Sunderland’s starboard middle tank was hit and the hull pierced but the search continued and the flying-boat was hit again over Garvin, the port middle tank and tailplane being hit. The ships were not located. When the Sunderland landed at Sullom Voe at 1130 it had 400 gallons of petrol in the bilges.
On 12 April also, a Wellington on 215 Squadron, put at the service of Coastal by Bomber Command, was flown by a crew on 75 Squadron RNZAF from an aerodrome in Northern Scotland over a thousand miles of sea to the North of Norway for a daylight reconnaissance of Narvik. In May an account of the flight was given to the BBC by ‘a Flight Lieutenant’. By way of an introduction a Wing Commander in Public Relations said:
‘It’ll be a long time before anyone can tell the full story of the Allies’ recent expedition to Norway. But one thing can be told even now-that whatever else it has done, the Norwegian campaign has proved once again that the RAF can be relied on to do its job thoroughly under the worst possible conditions. It was no picnic this work of the RAF over Norway, you can take it from me. Behind the official reports of reconnaissance flights, patrols and heavy bombing raids, there is a remarkable story of men and machines engaged in a struggle in which the odds were with the enemy from the start and not only with the enemy but with Nature as well. To put it bluntly, the Nazis got there first and having got there by means as ruthless as they were treacherous, they seized all Norway’s available air bases. In the circumstances our fighters had only one base - and that an improvised one - from which to operate. That meant that our long distance bombers and long range fighters had to fly all the way from this country across at least 300 miles of sea before they could even get going with their job. But in spite of this our men and machines put up a fine show ... ’ He then introduced ‘a young Dominion pilot who was the captain and first pilot of the aircraft and he told listeners that the flight was even longer than those to Posen and Prague; it was certainly by far the longest over the sea carried out by land planes. During fourteen and a half hours’ flying the pilot and crew were only over land for a few minutes.’ The Flight Lieutenant began: ‘I am a New Zealander. I come from Northcote, Auckland. My second pilot, who was a sergeant observer and acted as navigator, comes from Stratford, near New Plymouth, New Zealand; my wireless operator, who was a leading aircraftman, is also from Auckland. The aircraftman who was the air gunner, is also a New Zealander. We came to England last year to collect Wellington bombers to serve in New Zealand. Before we could get back the war started and we stopped on.
‘The flight to Narvik was all kept pretty hush-hush before-hand. At our home station they simply told us to proceed to another station where we were to collect a Wellington for special reconnaissance work. We flew there and saw the Wellington that had been chosen for our flight. She wasn’t a new or special type of aircraft - just an ordinary machine they had been using for training. 14
It was an all-night job getting the aircraft ready, fitting the special tanks, loading up with ammunition, trying out the machine-guns, the wireless equipment and those hundred-and-one gadgets needed for navigation, then we flew to Scotland where we were told to be ready for a take-off the next morning at daybreak. In Scotland we made our final check up and filled up with petrol and oil. Our navigational equipment included bomb-sight and drift-sight, sextant, compasses, charts, pencils, rubbers, dividers, parallel rules, protractors and so on. The whole crew was interchangeable. Everyone had to be able to do everyone else’s job, even to piloting at a push, for there was no automatic pilot in the aircraft. We also had with us a Lieutenant Commander from the Navy to assist in identifying ships at sea.
‘We carried a collapsible rubber dinghy safely tucked away behind the engine. Then what happens is this: If we have to use it, we pull a wire which forces the dinghy out of the aircraft. It is immediately inflated automatically and ready for use, complete with its own supply of distress signals. In case we were forced down we carried mostly ‘hard tack’ - tinned beef, sardines and chocolate. Before taking off we removed the oxygen bottles from the aircraft because we didn’t intend to hit the heights. That meant a saving in weight. We had two cameras on board, one for vertical pictures and the other for oblique pictures. The next morning at dawn we were told what the job was - we were to reconnoitre the Norwegian coast to the Lofoten Islands and the Vest fjord to Narvik.
‘We took off in the early morning, flew once round the aerodrome and then out to sea in a bee-line for Narvik. We skirted the Shetland Islands at a steady speed of nearly 200 mph and we were soon out of sight of land. It was a bumpy day. We ran into some extraordinary weather with heavy rain squalls and finally, just as we were coming near the Norwegian coast we headed into a snowstorm. For quite a while our instruments were registering twenty-seven degrees of frost. As we came in sight of the Norwegian coast we got ready - ready for anything. The wireless operator manned the front gun; the second pilot took over at the astro-hatch, acting as a fire-control officer and the rear gunner took ‘his place in his turret. Norway at that moment looked all covered in deep snow, but still it was land and any sort of land was welcome.
‘Our real work had now begun, although the weather was steadily getting worse. There was a high wind by now and we were flying in and out of snow and sleet about 3,000 feet above the sea. There were such terrific bumps that the gunners bumped their heads as they were thrown upwards out of their seats. Just as we were going towards Vest fjord we met an enemy aircraft but he sheered off as soon as he saw us. We flew up the fjord through driving snow at only 200 feet. The clouds and cliffs seemed to be closing in on us and when we got to the end of the fjord we swung round, made a sharp turn and went on with our reconnaissance southward down the coast as far as Kristiansand and then we turned for home.
‘Up to this time we were too busy to bother about our rations and too excited. Now that the job was done we passed round hot coffee and sandwiches. We had six flasks of coffee with us, beef and ham sandwiches, chocolate, biscuits, chewing-gum, a packet of tea, six bottles of water, a billy-can and a ‘Tommy’ cooker.
‘Nothing very much happened on the way back. That is to say nothing worse than bad weather. We sighted British Naval units in the North Sea, circled round them and exchanged signals by lamp. We were able to give them news of a couple of British destroyers and a merchantman we had seen at the entrance to one of the fjords. All the way home we had a strong wind against us and we were glad to see the Shetland Islands again. The flight covered well over 2,000 miles and the second pilot and I before we finished had shared between us fourteen and a half hours at the controls. As soon as we landed we were given hot drinks before we began to make out our reports and had the photographs we had taken developed.’15
On the night of 13/14 April fifteen Hampdens carried out the first RAF minelaying operation of the war. Fourteen aircraft laid mines in sea lanes off Denmark between German ports and Norway. One Hampden was lost. Operating from Wick, a Wellington I on 38 Squadron flown by Pilot Officer George Lesley Crosby ditched 22 miles off Whitby while returning from a reconnaissance sortie. There were no survivors. 16 Eight Blenheims that were sent to patrol the Wilhelmshaven area abandoned the operation and another attempt by eight Blenheims the next day to the same area also ended in failure because of lack of cloud cover. By 14 April the Luftwaffe was in occupation of all the aerodromes in Norway and Denmark. On the night of 14/15 April 28 Hampdens again carried out minelaying off Denmark. Two of the Hampdens failed to return. Night after night the Hampdens went out in secret to drop their mines by parachute and build up more minefields. It had all the hazards of long-range work over the sea. One mine-layer at least got a laugh out of it, for the pilot of a Beaufort of the Coastal Command was approaching the German coast when the captain of a German ship, probably quite assured that only a German aircraft could be flying in that neighbourhood, flashed a warning: ‘You are running into danger,’ which was very kind and thoughtful of the enemy.
On 15 April eleven Blenheims set out to attack Stavanger airfield. Six bombed and two German aircraft on the ground were hit. All the Blenheims returned safely. Two further Blenheims bombed patrol boats off Wilhelmshaven. One Blenheim was shot down by one of the German boat’s defensive fire. That night twelve Whitleys were dispatched to Stavanger airfield where eight aircraft bombed and hits were seen on the airfield. All the Whitleys returned safely. Through all the early months of the war and especially during the Norwegian campaign the weather remained a factor of cardinal importance and it must not be forgotten that in April it is still winter in Norway. To illustrate the appalling weather met with, here is an account by the pilot of a Blenheim, the only one of six which made it to Stavanger on 16 April, the other five returning because of icing conditions in cloud.
‘Soon after leaving the English coast,’ he said, ‘we ran into rain which was literally tropical in its fury. After some time we climbed and then the rain turned to snow. At 13,000 feet the engines of two of the Blenheims became iced up and stopped. One of the aircraft dropped more or less out of control until only 600 feet above the sea, when they started again. The other Blenheim was even luckier. It actually struck the waves at the very moment its engines came to life. It lost its rear wheel, but both aircraft got safely back to base.’ In such conditions it is not surprising that only one of that formation of Blenheims reached Stavanger. It was flying very low and a brisk argument was in progress between the pilot and the observer as to their whereabouts. ‘Call yourself an observer,’ said the pilot. ‘Where is the-------place?’ At that moment a piece of anti-aircraft shell removed half the cowling of his cockpit. They knew they had arrived.
On 15 April also Sunderland N6133 flown by Wing Commander Nicholetts, CO 228 Squadron, took the Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in Norway, General Carton de Wiart VC, the one-eyed and one-armed soldier who suffered from the same disabilities as Nelson and possessed similar dauntless courage, to a rendezvous with a Tribal-class destroyer in Namsos Fjord. The Sunderland landed in the fjord at 1645 - just in time to see the destroyer under attack from four Ju 88s and two He 111s, a number of which then machine-gunned the flying boat. Second Lieutenant Elliott was wounded and one enemy aircraft dropped a long stick of bombs ahead of the manoeuvring Sunderland but the pilots managed to evade this attack with no significant damage being caused.
Since the German occupation of Norway, aerodromes at Kristiansand, Oslo and Trondheim had been attacked twice, nine and five times respectively up to the middle of June. In the opening month of the campaign Fornebu was attacked whenever possible. At the end of April it was bombed four times in four days. In all, Stavanger was bombed sixteen times by aircraft of Bomber Command between 11 and 24 April besides being repeatedly attacked by aircraft of Coastal Command and by the Fleet Air Arm. Operations against ports in Germany were also flown by Bomber Command aircraft. On the night of 20/21 April 23 Hampdens laid mines in the Elbe estuary and some of them patrolled seaplane bases at Borkum and Sylt. Thirty-six Whitleys were detailed to bomb various airfields and shipping and 22 bombed targets including airfields at Stavanger and Kristiansand and at Aalborg in Denmark. Shipping was not located and all the aircraft dispatched returned safely.
At dusk on 16 April twenty Whitleys led by the Commanding Officer took off from Yorkshire to attack Stavanger, Vaernes (Trondheim) and Kjeller (Oslo) airfields. Amongst the members of the CO’s crew, his navigator and second pilot were new to the work - the former making his first war flight. Clouds were low at the outset, but the pilot climbed to 11,000 feet into a moderately clear layer between upper and lower cloud masses. Setting a course for the southern promontory of Norway to establish a landfall and flying by dead reckoning, they made the sea crossing at 10,000 feet. Owing to cloud the coast-line was missed and the first sight the pilot had of land was when, shortly after 23.00, a snow-covered hill appeared in the bright moonlight through a gap in the clouds. Recognizing the rolling nature of the country, the pilot fixed his position and set a course to cut the south-east coast of Norway in order to make a landfall. Once again the coast was missed. Half an hour later, driving through a gap at 3,000 feet, a flat black surface was seen. The pilot could not determine whether it was land or water. He therefore switched on his landing light and flew down its beam until the reflection revealed the sea. Course was altered to port until the coast-line was picked up at 2,000 feet and identified by the foam of breakers. For the next half-hour the pilot, with his face pressed into the open aperture of his cockpit window, picked his way in and out of cloud, along the intricate coast to the entrance of Oslo Fjord. Continuing in this manner he reached Drammen at 1,500 feet. Great activity was observed alongside the docks on the southern banks of Drammen Fjord. At least ten cargo vessels of all sizes were seen alongside and numerous other ships were moored in the entrance to the fjord. The docks were floodlit and riding lights were displayed. Tempting though this target was, the pilot’s task was to find and attack Oslo aerodrome. So, retracing his path, he set a course for the Norwegian capital at 3,000 feet.
At the head of the Oslo Fjord a severe snowstorm was encountered. The aerodrome at Fornebu and the surrounding country were completely obscured. Several attempts were made to penetrate the gloom, the aircraft coming down to a height of 500 feet where it at once met with severe icing conditions. The pilot therefore flew back over enemy shipping in Drammen in the hope that the snowstorm would abate. In this he was disappointed and although Oslo was bathed in bright moonlight, the area of the landing grounds was still invisible. It might have been possible to judge the position of the target in relation to the town; but rather than risk the destruction of non-military objectives the pilot set a course for England, his bombs still on board. He landed safely at his base shortly after 0430, after being in the air for nine and a half hours. No wireless ‘fixes’ were asked for or received throughout the flight. Because of the weather, only four Whitleys bombed at Trondheim and two at Stavanger. There were no losses.
At dawn on the 17th Stavanger aerodrome was shelled by HMS Suffolk; a Hudson spotted for her and had to fight a Ju 88 over the target. Later in the day twelve Blenheims flew in two formations at different heights to Stavanger airfield. The high-flying formation dropped their bombs ten seconds before those flying at a lower level went in to the attack. By keeping formation they drove off repeated attacks by enemy fighters, though two, which became stragglers, were cut off and shot down. That night twenty Wellingtons and Whitleys were sent to bomb Stavanger, Trondheim (Vaernes) and Oslo airfields. Eleven Wellingtons bombed at Stavanger but other targets were not located. One Wellington was lost. Thirty-three Hampdens meanwhile, laid mines off north-west Denmark and all returned safely. On the night of 18/19 April nine Whitleys set out to attack shipping in the Oslo and Trondheim areas but because of bad weather only three bombed. One aircraft failed to return. On 19 April nine Blenheims set out to bomb Stavanger airfield but seven were forced to abandon the task because of bad weather. Only one aircraft bombed an airfield and one Blenheim was lost. That night four Whitleys carried out reconnaissance flights over Northern Germany without incident. On the night of 20/21 April 22 out of 36 Whitley crews dispatched to Norway reported bombing targets including Sola airfield and Kristiansund and at Alborg in Denmark. Twenty-three Hampdens laid mines in the Elbe estuary and some of these patrolled the enemy seaplane bases at Borkum and Sylt. There were no losses from these operations.
Airfields in Norway were attacked on four nights running, 21/22 April to 25/26 April and minelaying was carried out on two of these nights by Hampdens. The raid on 25/26 April saw twelve Wellingtons and six Whitleys attack shipping, airfields and oil-storage tanks at Stavanger and Oslo. Eight of the aircraft bombed without loss. Two Whitleys carried out reconnaissance flights to Aalborg airfield in Denmark and one aircraft failed to return. Twenty-eight Hampdens were dispatched on minelaying sorties but bad weather prevented any mines being laid and three Hampdens were lost. One of the missing Hampdens was the 49 Squadron aircraft of Pilot Officer Arthur Herbert Benson which was shot down near Sylt by Oberfeldwebel Hermann Förster of the 11th Staffel, IV/(N)JG 2 flying a Bf 109D with the cockpit hood removed as a precaution against the pilots being blinded by the glare of searchlights and was probably the first Bomber Command aircraft to be shot down at night by a German fighter. Benson, Pilot Officer Alfred Peter Burdett Hordern, Sergeant Robert Ian Leonard MacKenzie and Leading Aircraftman John Derek Openshaw - were all killed. Sergeant McKenzie’s body came ashore and is now buried in the Kiel War Cemetery but the bodies of the other crew members were never found. 17 The attack by RAF Bomber Command on Stavanger, Fornebu and Rye airfields on the night of 2/3 May by twelve Whitleys and twelve Wellingtons was probably the most successful. Twenty-two of the bombers got their bombs away without loss.
‘The sheer necessity of locating aerodromes in Norway’ wrote David Masters ‘sent the great Sunderland flying-boat commanded by Squadron Leader Robert E. [later Sir Robert] Craven roaring across the waters of a Scottish station and heading over the North Sea at 12.30 pm on 27 April 1940. On board were a squadron leader and a warrant officer charged with the difficult task of finding emergency landing grounds and it was Squadron Leader Craven’s duty to place his passengers on board the British destroyer HMS Witherington in Molde Fjord. The weather was execrable. Everything was blotted out by heavy rain and mist. Visibility was about fifty yards and the cloud was down to 100 feet, nearly at sea level. ‘It was absolutely shocking - almost the worst I’ve ever flown in,’ reported Squadron Leader Craven, which, from such an experienced captain of Sunderlands, means that it was indeed bad.
‘Directly the Sunderland was settled on her course there came a welcome call to the ward-room for lunch, which the rigger had prepared on the primus stoves in the galley. Going through to his meal, the captain handed over the controls to the second pilot; Pilot Officer Lawrence Latham Jones, a young Canadian who was born at Saskatoon on 21 June 1917. The skipper generally called him Jonah, while other flying-boat officers often referred to him as Slim Jones - a tribute to his spare figure - or Daisy. But during his Norwegian adventure he acquired another nickname, owing to the first-aid which he administered to a wounded man.
‘What did you do, Slim?’ asked his friends when he got back to the mess. ‘Did you give him a shot of morphia?’
The Canadian looked surprised. ‘Gee!’ he exclaimed. ‘I forgot all about it. I gave him a couple of aspirins!’ So for many weeks afterwards they called him ‘Aspirin’ Jones.
‘After the captain resumed his seat at the controls, Pilot Officer Jones went through to enjoy his meal in the ward-room. For a couple of hours or more the Sunderland thrashed through the murk. Then the clouds began to break and by the time they were 300 miles away from their station they emerged into brilliant sunshine with a clear sky ahead. Squadron Leader Craven, who has taught more than one captain of a Sunderland how to handle these giant aircraft, sat calmly at the controls, glancing automatically at the revolution counter and the oil temperature. The engines ran sweetly. The pointer of the altimeter remained steady as the Sunderland cruised along. Like all prudent pilots who have flown through 300 miles of bad weather to come out under clear skies, he had a word with his navigator to check their position, just to make sure that he was not off his course. The snow caps of Norway loomed ahead. Making his landfall at Ålesund, the captain flew along Sula Fjord, only to find there was no exit. As German aircraft were busy bombing a wireless station he did a sharp turn and ran out again. That run enabled him to fix his position. Setting his course to the north-east, he flew to Mia Island where he began the day’s adventures by flying under a high tension cable, just as some German bombers appeared. They did not attempt to attack with their machine guns but flew overhead and tried to bomb him. The captain promptly took the Sunderland down to within five feet of the water, using the rudder skilfully and darting from side to side to evade the dropping bombs. The enemy had the speed of him, but they found him much too elusive to hit. As he flew toward Ottero Island the bombers drew off, probably to return for more bombs. Flying round Ottero, he skirted the north of the island and turned into Molde Fjord where he came upon the destroyer Witherington with two or three merchant ships nearby.
Just as he touched down on the water he sighted twelve Junkers 88s over the town of Molde flying in sections of three. Sweeping over the houses they bombed them heavily, starting many fires and then flew toward the destroyers and flying-boat. Three of the Junkers made straight for the Sunderland whose captain at once opened the throttles and dodged about over the water in the most erratic manner as bomb after bomb came hurtling down. They burst in the sea all around him, but he was too clever for the German bombers. Coming close to the destroyer as the bombers turned away, he signalled for a boat to be sent off for his passengers. The whaler was quickly alongside. ‘I had better go over, too,’ said Squadron Leader Craven to Pilot Officer Jones. ‘It is up to you to do as you choose. If you think it necessary to go home and leave me, you must do so.’ So Pilot Officer Jones took command of the Sunderland while his captain jumped into the whaler with his passengers and was rowed over to the destroyer. A bomb dropped near them on the way. Just as they got on board another fell and the boat in which they had been sitting simply vanished in the explosion, while two of the ratings on the deck of the destroyer were wounded. It was a most astonishing escape. Then the Junkers took up the attack again, some concentrating on the destroyer and others on the flying-boat. Pilot Officer Jones in the Sunderland began taxiing and zigzagging in all directions, as his crew reported the movements of the enemy. Squadron Leader Craven, who had been invited up to the bridge of the destroyer to help to defeat the attack, watched the Junkers closely and advised the commander how to avoid them. ‘Port!’ he called; ‘Now starboard!’ As the warship slowed and a bomber made to attack he called: ‘Full speed ahead!’ and the destroyer sped swiftly out of the way.
‘For half an hour the twelve Junkers attacked the destroyer and the flying-boat, but through the skilful manoeuvring, both escaped damage. By that time Pilot Officer Jones saw that the engines of the Sunderland were beginning to overheat through taxiing about over the water, so he decided to take off in order to cool them. He was barely in the air when a Messerschmitt 110 appeared to continue the attack. Diving down on the tail of the Sunderland, the German fighter opened fire with all its guns. But the rear-gunner and the mid ships gunner of the Sunderland were quick on the mark. They met the Messerschmitt with such a heavy fire that in a few seconds it turned away smoking toward the land. After this fight with the Messerschmitt, which cooled off the engines, Pilot Officer Jones touched down once more. Meanwhile his captain was taken in the destroyer to Åandalsnes which was already a mass of ruins. The wooden houses were burned to the ground, the inhabitants had vanished by coach somewhere over the mountains and all was desolation. Up on the snow-clad hills overlooking the harbour the marines who were the first to land had set up a battery. But the German bombers mostly kept out of range. Those marines were sorely puzzled because one day they saw English fighters flying between formations of German bombers and making no attempt to attack. The men on the ground could not understand it. They did not know that those English fighters had no ammunition left, that for the short space of twenty-four hours the pilots had put up an astounding fight against enormous odds and impossible conditions.
‘So desperate was the British need for landing grounds that a squadron of Gladiators strove to function from the frozen lake of Lesjeskogen, forty miles from Åandalsnes. In all that area there was not a flat space of ground. Among the advance party sent to prepare a runway was the famous racing motorist Whitney Straight, who was naturalized some years before the war and had been flying in a fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force since the outbreak of war. His efforts in preparing the lake and his courage during the ensuing attacks won for him the Military Cross. In a blinding snowstorm, eighteen Gladiators took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier and alighted on the lake. Without delay they were refuelled and hidden round the verge; but their arrival was soon discovered by the Germans, who sent over two aircraft disguised by Norwegian markings, which were promptly intercepted and driven away by the Gladiators.
‘At three o’clock next morning the pilots and few available staff fought to get the first Gladiators in the air, a task which the intense cold made practically impossible, yet the impossible was accomplished. In an hour came the first clashes with the Germans when the Gladiators shot down a Heinkel and drove off two others. There was a brief breathing space and then the German bombers started to come over at 7.30 in the morning to smash up the surface of the lake and did not cease their attacks until 8 o’clock at night.
‘There was no cover for the pilots, no protection for the aircraft. Except where the snow had been cleared, the drifts were so deep that no one could move. The pilots were forced to crawl through the snow on their hands and knees. Their clothes froze solid as boards as they struggled in the snow to refuel and restart the engines in order to go up to fight the enemy. They shot down the enemy in the air, but it was the blast of the enemy’s bombs which destroyed the Gladiators on the ground and wounded the pilots. Not one Gladiator did the enemy shoot down from the air. The spirit of that little band of men on the frozen lake was unconquerable. They fought Nature and the enemy at the same time. As they struggled in the snow to refuel, the enemy dived and machine-gunned them. They had no respite. As one aircraft after another was destroyed and one man after another was wounded, they set up a machine-gun and attacked the bombers from the ground. Eighty German bombers had the task of wiping them out and nothing could exceed the ferocity of the German attack. Forty times the British pilots succeeded in carrying out sorties against the enemy. At the end when they had used up their ammunition and had little petrol, some of the pilots showed their ascendency over the Germans by driving them off with feint attacks. One out-manoeuvred three of the enemy by trying to crash into them. When they saw him coming at them, they could not face him and turned away, so he managed to land safely.
‘Four or five days afterwards a marine straight from Åandalsnes told me how discomfited they were by the strange actions of the British aircraft which completely baffled them. I could not explain it, but the reason is now plain. One pilot whose aircraft went up in flames as he landed tried to start another, but a bomb destroyed it before he could do so. Another pilot had sixteen fights with the enemy. ‘I then attacked another three Heinkels during the course of my patrol. How much damage I inflicted I cannot say as there was always another Heinkel to attack. I broke away because I was running short of petrol and not certain of my position. I landed on the lake and saw three Junkers approaching, so I took off again and attacked them, eventually ‘forced landing’ through lack of petrol. In all I had sixteen combats.’
‘Six Junkers were shot down by the Gladiators. Eight more fled from the British pilots with smoke pouring from them as they disappeared among the mountains. But at the end of the day the squadron of Gladiators was reduced to five. The surface of the lake was shattered and no longer usable, for there were 132 bomb craters on it. Despite the losses, the leader was unbeaten. During the night he found a sloping piece of ground on which it was possible. by the exercise of superb skill to take off and land, but the slightest vacillation or lack of judgment meant disaster. While the Germans were sleeping, he removed the surviving aircraft to this spot and fought the hordes of Junkers for a few more hours until the Gladiators dwindled to one solitary aircraft. Those magnificent men, who had nothing to fly, remain undefeated. Had they possessed properly defended bases and their usual ground staff they would have dealt with those Junkers as the Spitfires and Hurricanes dealt with the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.
‘It was with the survivors of this invincible band that Squadron Leader Craven took his evening meal amid the ruins of Veblungsnes and they shared with him all they had to offer - corned beef and Canadian whisky! Afterwards he embarked in a launch and made his way back to the Sunderland to see how Pilot Officer Jones had fared and to make things snug in her for the night. Early next day he heard from Whitney Straight that the Messerschmitt attacked by the Sunderland had definitely crashed. Unfortunately Whitney Straight himself was wounded while locating it and was unable to fly for some time. It may be recalled that Wing Commander Whitney Straight was shot down over the Channel on 1 August 1941 and was driven to make a forced landing in France, after coolly ordering his squadron to return to base.
‘Leaving her moorings, the Sunderland taxied away and in a few hours was back again in Scotland. Although bombed in turn by more than a dozen Junkers and attacked by the cannon shell and machine-gun bullets of the Messerschmitt, no one on board was touched, while the flying-boat itself had only two bullet holes in it. The brilliant way the pilots handled the Sunderland during those sustained bombing attacks brought both of them the award of the DFC.
‘Within two days Squadron Leader Craven was back with his Sunderland at Åandalsnes. Very thoughtfully he carried some food supplies for his Royal Air Force friends who had shared with him their remaining rations. It was essential for him to see General Carton de Wiart. He found the British Headquarters were just a simple little wooden hut, while General Carton de Wiart was so overwhelmed with work at the moment that all he could do was to push over a bottle of whisky and a cup to the Sunderland captain and say: ‘Help yourself!’ When the Sunderland left Norway she carried with her eleven stretcher cases straight back to the hospital in Scotland. Not one of the wounded uttered a complaint all the way across.
‘The French collapse took Squadron Leader Craven to Gibraltar, where he was stationed for some time. He helped in those reconnaissances, which enabled Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham to deal effectively with the French naval forces at Oran; and one day while flying over the Mediterranean he unexpectedly came upon the Italian fleet steaming in the direction of North Africa. Owing to the bad visibility it was difficult at first to identify the ships, so he circled round them and made sure that they were Italian. All the men on the Sunderland went to action stations and manned the machine-guns as three Italian aircraft approached in formation, but the Italians concluded it was better not to interfere with such a big adversary and discreetly flew off without making an attack.
‘Then the captain of the Sunderland brought her down on the sea and started to shadow the ships. For three hours, up till eleven o’clock that night, he kept them under observation; suddenly they changed course and steamed full speed back towards Italy. As the Sunderland did not return, the Air Ministry grew anxious about her and warned all ships to keep a sharp lookout. But she was quite all right and rode safely on the surface of, the sea at her drogues, or sea anchors, all night. Next morning there was a short swell, but by jettisoning his bombs, Squadron Leader Craven was able to take off without mishap. Three hours later he was in Gibraltar harbour.’
On the night of 30 April/1 May 24 Whitleys, sixteen Wellingtons and ten Hampdens were sent to bomb Stavanger, Fornebu and Aalborg airfields. Of these fifty that were dispatched, 35 aircraft bombed and two Wellingtons and a Whitley were lost. A further four aircraft crashed in England on the return. On 2 May, when twelve Blenheims bombed Stavanger and Rye airfields without loss, the Blenheims were completely withdrawn from Norwegian operations because a German offensive in France and the Low Countries was feared imminent. That night, twelve Whitleys and a dozen Wellingtons returned to the nightly attacks on airfields in Norway. Twenty-two of the bombers attacked Stavanger, Rye and Fornebu. Another force of 26 Hampdens carried out minelaying in Oslo Fjord and Kiel Bay and four Wellingtons patrolled enemy seaplane bases. There were no losses from any of these operations.
The last major operation on targets in Norway was on the night of 9/10 May when 23 out of 31 Hampdens dispatched laid mines off Kiel, Lübeck, Warnemünde and in the Elbe. Nine Whitleys that set out to bomb Stavanger airfield were recalled because of bad weather but one crew did not pick up the signal to return and bombed the target. Six Wellingtons patrolled seaplane bases. One of these, a Wellington on 38 Squadron at RAF Marham, was brought to readiness for a security patrol to Borkum in the German Friesian Islands. LAC G. Dick the front gunner, recalls.
‘The object was to maintain a standing patrol of three hours over the seaplane base to prevent their flare path lighting up and thus inhibit their mine-laying sea-planes from taking off. We carried a load of 250lb bombs in case a discernible target presented itself. We took off at 2130 hours. Holland was still at peace and their lights, though restricted, were clearly visible, the Terschelling lightship in particular, obliging by giving a fixed navigational fix. After three hours monotonous circling and seeing next to nothing, I heard Flying Officer Burnell, our Canadian pilot, call for course home. The words always sounded like music to a gunner in an isolated turret with no positive tasks to take up his mind, other than endless turret manipulation and endless peering into blackness. I heard the navigator remark that the lightship had gone out and the pilot’s reply, ‘Well give us a bloody course anyway’. One only had to go west to hit Britain somewhere, or return on the reciprocal of the outward course - drift notwithstanding. After an hour’s flying with the magic IFF box switched on for the past thirty minutes, I gave the welcome call, ‘Coast ahead!’ Much discussion occurred as to where our landfall really was. I told them I thought north of the Humber, which was 150 miles north of our proper landfall at the Orfordness corridor. I was told to ‘Belt up’. As a gunner, what did I know about it? (I had flown pre-war with 214 Squadron for two years up and down the East Coast night and day and was reasonably familiar with it.) Probably pride would not let them admit that they were 150 miles off course, in an hour’s flying. Eventually, a ‘chance light’ showed up and we landed on a strange aerodrome, which turned out to be Leconfield. Overnight billets were arranged at 0400 hours for the visiting crew. However, others were on an early start. They switched on the radio at 0600 hours and gave us the ‘gen’ that at around midnight Germany had invaded Holland, Belgium and France - hence the extinguished lightship. The odd thing was, we had returned with our bombs, as it wasn’t the done thing to drop them indiscriminately. We returned to base later on the tenth to be greeted with ‘We thought you’d gone for a Burton’. Good news was slow in circulating in those days.’
There were no losses from any of these operations. On 31 days/nights from 9 April to 9/10 May 1940 Bomber Command had flown a total of 93 night and day sorties, from which 36 aircraft (3.9 per cent) were lost. 18 In June and July Whitleys, Hampdens and Wellingtons of Bomber Command continued to raid German ports and sow mines in enemy waters. The Whitley would, eventually, equip four squadrons in Coastal Command. Sergeant Peter R. Donaldson, a Whitley V navigator on 10 Squadron at Dishforth in Yorkshire recalled that ‘they were all right to fly. Inadvertently, they had one advantage that saved us: German fighters couldn’t believe we were going so slowly and could not work out how to get at us and I used to sit at navigation table and see their tracer bullets going yards ahead the nose of the plane. I don’t remember being nervous - maybe I should have been - but I always had a feeling I was going to survive.
‘I did my first bombing raid on 20 April 1940. The target was Stavanger. Sometimes, as well as navigating, I was doing the bombing myself, going into the front turret, looking through a bombsight and dropping the bombs. The Whitley carried 500lb bombs, but Stavanger airbase was built on solid rock and the thought occurred to us that whatever we dropped down there wasn’t going to have much effect. All in all, I did eighteen night ops and two daylight raids and 8 July was going to be my twenty-first op. We took off at 2100 hours. The target was Kiel, but I made a navigational error and we flew in an easterly direction for longer than we should. I eventually realised my mistake, so we came back on the opposite course, but we were running short of fuel. Flight Lieutenant D. A. French-Mullins, our captain was a fantastic bloke. He said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it, so I’m giving the order now that everyone prepare to ditch.’ French-Mullins was a fantastic pilot and he made a perfect landing. As soon as we ditched I opened the main exit door and threw out the dinghy. We all got out of the aircraft and were floundering around in the water trying to right the dinghy, except French-Mullins, who used the escape hatch near his piloting position. He got on to the wing of the aircraft and stood there for a little while. ‘Donaldson,’ he said, ‘would you mind moving the dinghy a little closer to where I am?’ So I managed to push the dinghy towards him and he just stepped into the dinghy off the wing. Oh, he was cool as a cucumber, was French-Mullins. Eventually, all five of us got into the dinghy and we were all very cold and wet through and feeling a bit miserable - all, that is, except French-Mullins, he was the only one who was dry. ‘Anyone want a cigarette?’ he asked and handed them round and we all had a cigarette and watched the Whitley gradually sink beneath the waves.’19 All five crew were rescued by German fishermen and after they had been landed and interrogated, they were ultimately marched off into captivity.
In addition to bombing attacks, reconnaissance flights by all classes of bomber aircraft were made throughout the active period of the Norwegian campaign. The whereabouts of German shipping off the coasts of Germany, in the Belt, in Oslo Fjord and in the numerous fjords on the west coast of Norway were plotted and much valuable information made available for the Royal Navy. Through this period of just one month, Bomber Command was hard-worked, four squadron sorties in six days being nothing unusual. The losses were thirty bombers. More might, perhaps, have been accomplished, but the task was from the outset of the most formidable kind. There was no more than a small force of bombers available and it had to operate at extreme range in thick weather, without fighter support and with information always inadequate and sometimes altogether lacking. Bomber Command did its utmost. All flights were carried out in the spirit of the crew of the Wellington who flew at 300 feet through fierce snow-storms from the north to the south of Norway and back to Scotland in fourteen and a half hours. The spirit of pilots and crews was, indeed, as high at the end of those thirty days as it had been at the beginning. Though they did not know it at the time, for most of them the campaign was a dress rehearsal for what they were about to be called upon to do over Holland, Belgium and France.
Ships were attacked both by day and by night, but mostly by day; aerodromes were attacked by night and by day, but mostly by night. At 400-miles range and with the number of bombers then in service, bombing even of crucial and carefully chosen targets could never be really continuous, but Bomber Command did everything possible to make it so. Bombers were over Stavanger, in a blinding snowstorm, one afternoon and over Stavanger again that night. Convoys creeping across by night were not immune and even in pitch-darkness the bomber’s aim was good. On one of the darkest nights a bomber was flying off the coast of Denmark; the crew saw nothing at all and thought no shipping was out. Then someone saw a very faint light below and the bomber dropped a flare. Ten grey ships were steaming north together at about ten knots. From 1,000 feet the bombs were dropped, four in a stick and it was the last bomb that hit. The bomber was thrown thirty feet upwards by an explosion; an ammunition ship was lost to the Germans. But nine ships got through and so it was with the aerodromes and the fighters, bombers and, transport aeroplanes using them. The rate of casualties may have sometimes been higher, sometimes lower, but the invasion went on; our bombers had to come from too far; our fighters, for lack of a base, could not come at all, except that one squadron of Hurricanes fought at Narvik, using an improvised base, hastily cleared of snow and ice, at Bardufoss. The Fleet Air Arm could work from closer at hand, but aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm are not, of course, built for army co-operation, though the Gladiator Squadron from the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, the squadron also used the base at Bardufoss - worked with astonishing persistence and heroism at Narvik in defence of our troops against the German bombers.
Flight Lieutenant Patrick Geraint Jameson, born at Wellington, New Zealand in 1912 and who joined the Royal Air Force in 1936 as a Pilot Officer, was a Hurricane I pilot on 46 Squadron who had flown daily from the Glorious to patrol over Narvik since the battle began was to learn how cruel and cold the sea can be, for he was one of the few survivors from the Glorious which the Germans sank in those northern waters to add the culminating touch to the Norwegian tragedy. Becoming an assistant clerk after leaving school, Jameson learned to fly privately at Rongotai in 1933. In January 1936 he travelled to England on the SS Aorangi at his own expense, joining the RAF on a short service commission. After training he was posted to 46 Squadron in January 1937, becoming a flight commander in March 1939. The squadron was dispatched to Northern Norway on Glorious, arriving on 26 May 1940.
During the land battle of Narvik, when the Allies were closing in on the isolated German forces in order to capture the town, from which millions of tons of Swedish iron ore a year have been conveyed to Germany by sea, the information reached the Allied staff that the Germans were landing troops from Dornier Do 26 four-engined flying-boats south of the port. The Germans holding the town were resisting strongly. They had made the most of the natural defences and to overcome their resistance in the shortest time it was essential to prevent reinforcements and supplies from reaching them. Accordingly, on 28 May Jameson was instructed with two other members of his squadron to see if they could locate the flying-boats. Taking off in their Hurricane fighters, they climbed to look round before flying to the coast. In the most systematic way they began their search. The fjords were so winding, the declivities of many so steep, that it was not easy to sight a small object such as a camouflaged flying-boat from any great height. The top of an overhanging cliff could easily conceal from a fast-moving aircraft an enemy aircraft moored at the base. Jameson pushed the control column gently forward to skim the sea in order to scan both sides of the fjords. Easing it back as the fjords narrowed, he climbed to examine them to the innermost end. Fjord after fjord was searched by the three pilots, but no sign of a flying-boat met their eyes.
Eventually a glance at the clock and the fuel indicator told Jameson that in about fifty minutes he would have to return to his base; there was not too much time left for finding the flying-boats - if they existed. ‘So I thought I’d go down Romsbachs Fjord where the German headquarters were and have a look there,’ he stated afterwards. They flew up the fjord, looking down on the wrecks of the German vessels in Narvik Bay which were the visible sign of the triumph of the Royal Navy on the evening of 13 April. Flying past the port into the further arm of the fjord, exactly as the British destroyers swept on to find and destroy other enemy warships that layout of sight round the corner, Jameson came upon two of the Dornier flying-boats concealed in a little cove. Not only had the Germans chosen their hiding place with care, but they had moored the aircraft in a position which made them difficult to attack. They were tucked close in under the edge of a cliff, with a gun mounted nearby to protect them and augment their own armament. On the opposite side of the fjord the cliff was 800 feet high and any aircraft making a direct attack could do so only by diving over the edge of the cliff and running the risk of colliding with the opposite cliff, for the fjord here was narrow. The risks were accepted by the pilots without a second thought. Circling round, Jameson examined the position to determine the exact spot from which to attack. Calling up his fellow pilots to tell them to concentrate on the first flying-boat and follow him in to the attack, he dived over the top of the cliff and the roar of his guns reverberated through the fjord. A gun on the flying-boat fired back, but the fire soon ceased. He had barely dived over the cliff and fired a short burst when the opposite cliff confronted him and forced him to do a rapid right-hand turn to avoid it, as he climbed to take up position for continuing the attack. The pom-pom ashore strove to drive off the Hurricanes, but one of the other pilots gave it a burst which quickly silenced it.
Soon tongues of flame enveloped the flying-boat as the petrol tank was pierced. Looking down, Jameson saw three men tumble into a dinghy and go ashore, just as he opened his attack on the second flying-boat. This, too, was eventually set on fire and the pilots returned to base to report their success. ‘It was my first action,’ Jameson has since revealed, ‘and I’ve never been so thrilled in my life. I’ve done a good deal of deer stalking and wild pig hunting in New Zealand, but they seem tame after that.’
About 3 o’clock next morning, just as he and the other pilots were about to start on their normal patrol, they were told that enemy aircraft were over Narvik. Taking off, they arrived over the town at a height of 4,000 feet. In a few moments one of the pilots called up Jameson. ‘I’ve sighted enemy aircraft,’ he said. ‘Lead me on to them,’ replied the leader, who pulled back the stick to climb quickly after the other pilot. ‘He went ahead and shortly afterwards I sighted them and called him back to rejoin formation, but he did not hear. There were three enemy aircraft flying in line astern at 10,000 feet with half a mile between each. The leader was a Heinkel 111 and the others were Junkers 88. He drifted out to attack the leader and I went up to attack the rear Junkers,’ said Jameson in describing the action. ‘I closed to 150 yards and at my very first burst there was a terrific flash and my windscreen was obscured with oil and glycol. I broke away and circled above for a few seconds and saw that his starboard propeller was stopping and his engine smoking. I went in again to give him another long burst and as I was about to open fire he dropped his bombs and turned away south. I saw his starboard petrol tank between the engine and fuselage burst into flames and followed him down. Just before he crashed on top of a cliff, one of the crew bailed out and alighted in the fjord - I don’t know what happened to him.’20
On the evening of 7 June Jameson led 46 Squadron in making the first successful Hurricane deck landings on Glorious in order that the unit might be evacuated to Britain. In October 1956 RAF Flying Review featured an article called Deck Landing - by Hurricane! which described Jameson’s fantastic feat.
‘High, grey cloud covered the sky and a good strong wind was blowing as Flight Lieutenant ‘Pat’ Jameson began his approach to the smallest airfield he had ever encountered. A little below and a few hundred yards ahead of his aircraft he could see the carrier Glorious churning her way through heavy seas in a valiant attempt to give him as much wind over the deck as possible for the landing which awaited him. A Hawker Hurricane had never before landed on an aircraft carrier and was not fitted with an arrester hook. What is more, Jameson had never in his flying career landed on a carrier. If it failed, as naval experts had predicted it would, he and his aircraft would plunge into the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Norway well inside the Arctic Circle, or crash into the stern of the carrier ... Back at Bardufoss airfield in northern Norway, the man responsible for planning the exploit, Squadron Leader Kenneth Brian Boyd ‘Bing’ Cross, CO of 46 Squadron, waited in vain for news of its success. When, at the end of the brief, abortive Norwegian Campaign the order for evacuation was given in early June, two alternatives were offered Cross. He was told that after his last sorties had been flown, he could burn his aircraft at Bardufoss to prevent them falling into enemy hands, or he could fly them further north to Lakselv. There was a possibility that they could be loaded on to a Norwegian tramp steamer. Squadron Leader Cross, well aware that every available aircraft was needed at home after Dunkirk, looked for another way out. He found it when he heard that the Glorious which had carried his squadron to Norway was still deployed not far from the Norwegian coast. He immediately asked Group Captain M. Moore, commander of the RAF Component of the North Western Expeditionary Force, for permission to fly his Hurricanes on to Glorious so that both pilots and aircraft could be saved to fight again. ‘I hoped you’d say that,’ Moore replied when asked, ‘but I didn’t want to suggest it because the Fleet Air Arm has already decided that such a feat is impossible!’
From that moment, things happened quickly. While still waging an air war against the Germans, Cross found time to fly out to Glorious in a Walrus, where he and Captain Guy D’Oyly-Hughes, a former submariner who had been executive officer of Courageous for ten months, made detailed plans for the deck landing. The Glorious was in company with the Ark Royal and it was arranged that, if the Glorious’s deck should prove too short, the Hurricanes would come down on Ark Royal which had a slightly longer deck. The drawback to the Ark Royal was that her lifts could not accommodate the Hurricanes which would have to have their wings sawn off before the deck could be cleared for the next aircraft to land. The Glorious was the better choice. By early morning on 7 June plans were complete and the evacuation was timed for that day. The battle against the Germans, however, continued. Soon after dawn, Squadron Leader Cross and one other pilot engaged four He 111Ks over Bardufoss. The Squadron Leader nursed his aircraft back with a shattered windscreen and a punctured oil tank.
Only ten Hurricanes were serviceable after the bitter campaign and the most experienced pilots of the Squadron were selected for the operation. Jameson, one of those chosen, carried out special flying tests in his Hurricane for one hour during the morning. The tail had been loaded with a sandbag in an attempt, which proved successful, to keep the tail down during violent braking. At six o’clock in the evening, Jameson took off for the Glorious with two other Hurricanes piloted by Flying Officer Knight and Sergeant Taylor. They were led out by a Swordfish aircraft or the Fleet Air Arm. Jameson was the first to go down. The deck loomed large to meet him as he came in on a steep approach. ‘Watch out for the down-draught,’ the Navy pilots had said, ‘it’ll suck you into the stern before you know where you are.’ If he kept his approach steep, Jameson knew that he should escape the worst of the turbulence. The boiling waters in the wake of the great ship flashed under his wing and he concentrated every nerve on keeping his aircraft steady. The stern now rushed up to meet him and a gentle surge of power from the engine foiled the down-draught which snatched at his aircraft. He was now over the deck. The down-draught had been overcome, but one question remained to be answered - without an arrester hook, could his aircraft stop before it reached the end of the deck, which must have seemed all too short to the pilot in his fast moving aircraft? The Navy were not using barrier nets as they do today. Jameson was confident, however. His aircraft was weighted with a 14lb sandbag in the tail and he knew that he could brake violently if necessary without tipping the aircraft on to its nose. But violent braking was unnecessary. The experts were proved wrong as the aircraft rolled to a halt with a third of the flying deck still in front of it. Jameson had landed successfully. Within a few minutes the two other pilots had made landings just as successful.
It had been arranged that Jameson should signal back the results as soon as he had landed, but the Navy were keeping strict radio silence and so Cross remained ignorant of the success of the landings until some time later. Because Bardufoss was so far north it was still daylight when, at midnight a lone Swordfish landed on the airfield. The pilot jumped down and handed a message to Cross. Then, for the first time he knew of Jameson’s success. Three-quarters of an hour after midnight Cross and the six other chosen pilots flew their Hurricanes behind the Swordfish out to Glorious. It was not an easy flight. The biplane plodded along at a steady 90 mph and to fly at this speed the Hurricanes had to put their props into fine pitch and keep twenty degrees of flap down. The pilots sent up a cheer when at last the flashing beacon of the carrier was seen. A Marine who was on the carrier has left this description of the next few minutes. ‘The Glorious began to get up tremendous speed into wind to help the Hurriboxes land. Round they’d come at about 200 feet so we could see they were OK and then they’d circuit again and line up for the landing, coming in with a mighty gust and lather of spray. One by one the pilots dragged themselves out and vaulted down to the deck for the official de-briefing.’
The vicious down-draught trapped two pilots, but still they managed to make the deck. The only damage caused to any of the ten aircraft which landed was to two tail wheels which were broken. The operation had been entirely successful. Cross and his men went to bed in the early hours of 8 June after nearly twenty-four hours of continuous action, satisfied that they had saved their aircraft which would later add valuable weight to ‘The Few’ who were fighting in England. Perhaps the most delighted men on the Glorious that night however, were the Fleet Air Arm pilots. ‘Now we shall be getting Hurricanes,’ they said. The Fleet Air Arm did get the Hurricane before the war was over.’
The Glorious was short of fuel and steaming at twenty-eight knots, proceeding independently21 of the main convoy with only two destroyers, Acasta and Ardent, as escort, when, at about 3:46 pm, in a choppy sea, with good visibility and no cloud, the funnel smoke from Glorious and her two escorting destroyers was sighted by the German battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on the way through the Norwegian Sea. The German ships were not spotted until shortly after 4:00 and Ardent was dispatched to investigate. Glorious did not alter course or increase speed. Five Swordfish were ordered to the flight deck but Action Stations was not ordered until 4:20. Unfortunately, the Swordfish were loaded with anti-submarine bombs, with a view to taking off at a moment’s notice to attack any submarines that were sighted and time was necessary to unload the bombs and reload with torpedoes which would have made an effective attack on the cruisers possible. No combat air patrol was being flown, no aircraft were ready on the deck for quick take off and there was no lookout in Glorious’s crow’s nest. She was easy prey for the powerful enemy ships.
The German battle-cruisers fired a ranging salvo, which missed. Scharnhorst switched her fire to Glorious at 4:32 and scored her first hit six minutes later on her third salvo, at an approximate range of 26,000 yards, when one 11.1 inch hit the forward flight deck and burst in the upper hangar, starting a large fire. This hit destroyed two Swordfish being prepared for flight and the hole in the flight deck prevented any other aircraft from taking off. Splinters penetrated a boiler casing and caused a temporary drop in steam pressure.
Scharnhorst opened fire on Ardent at 4:27 at a range about 16,000 yards, causing the destroyer to withdraw, firing torpedoes and making a smoke screen. Ardent scored one hit with her 4.7-inch guns on Scharnhorst but was hit several times by the German ships’ secondary armament and sank about 5:25. While this tragedy was happening, Acasta steamed at speed to lay a smoke screen round the Glorious to hide her from the enemy cruisers and obscure their target. Even as the smoke screen was being laid, orders were given on the Glorious to take up stations and prepare to abandon ship. The aircraft carrier was still moving at full speed. The laying of the smoke screen brought a lull in the firing and the captain, no doubt thinking there might still be a chance of escaping, ordered the men back to action stations. At 4:58 a second shell hit the homing beacon above the bridge of the Glorious and killed or wounded the captain and most of the personnel stationed there. The smokescreen became effective enough to impair the visibility until 5:20 when Scharnhorst hit the centre engine room on Glorious and this caused her to lose speed and commence a slow circle to port. The carrier also developed a list to starboard. The German ships closed to within 16,000 yards and continued to fire at her until about 5:40.
Acasta broke through her own smoke and fired two volleys of torpedoes at Scharnhorst. One of these hit the battleship at 5:34 abreast her rear turret and badly damaged her. Acasta also managed one hit from her 4.7-inch guns on Scharnhorst, but was riddled by German gunfire and sank around 6:20. Without hesitation, the commander of the destroyer sacrificed his ship in his attempt to save the Glorious. Estimates were that about 900 men abandoned Glorious.
‘The thing which struck me most was the way the ordinary seamen carried out orders - absolutely no sign of panic or anything,’ a survivor remarked. Then the salvoes of six-inch and eight-inch shells started again, hitting all the time. They shattered the bridge, wrecked the forward part of the ship, started up fires everywhere. The German cruisers had the Glorious at their mercy and it was impossible for her to escape. Once more orders were given to prepare to abandon ship. This time she was burning so fiercely that those on board knew she could not last. Without the slightest fuss and without waste of time they began to prepare to save themselves. Carley floats and rafts and planks were got up on the quarter-deck and thrown over to support survivors until they were picked up. The only boat that got away was a little dinghy which was pushed over the stern from the quarter-deck. Men quickly jumped over and clambered into it.
When the Glorious began sinking ‘Pat’ Jameson remembered that his life-jacket was in his cabin down below along with his log book, which contained the notes of all his flying operations and flying times. A pilot’s log book is his most precious possession, as it is to the captain of a ship. At that moment of jeopardy he was apparently determined to save his log book, if he lost everything else. He was seen to go down to his cabin, while ‘Bing’ Cross and two other members of his squadron were on the quarter-deck. Moving rapidly, he attempted to reach his cabin, only to find that he was shut off from it by a water-tight door. Running up to the quarter-deck again, he found that his companions had all disappeared over the side. He took off his flying boots and was just about to jump over when he saw a raft, which was being towed by the Glorious, strike a rating, who was swimming in the water, a terrific blow on the head and lay open his brow. He moved along to avoid a similar danger and then jumped over. For a quarter of a mile he swam to a Carley float on which he saw his Commanding Officer. ‘Hallo, sir, can I come on your raft?’ asked the New Zealand pilot.
There was still one destroyer floating and they were not worrying at all. They thought they would be picked up either by the destroyer or the Germans. A couple of ratings soon reached down and helped him on the raft. By that time there were about twenty-seven on it. But there were no oars. A rating pointed to one floating about ten yards away and the young New Zealand pilot was seen to dive in and recover it. That oar helped quite a lot, for they were able later to rig it with a sail made out of a pull-over and a shirt. Then the man who was injured by the raft swam along hanging to a plank. He must have been as tough as nails, for it was a great feat of his to get to the Carley float.
Lots of men were floating in their life-jackets; many were hanging to planks of wood; the sea was dotted with them. The German cruisers came to within a mile and a half of them, still firing at the remaining destroyer which fired back as hard as it could. It continued firing right up to the time it sank. The men on the float saw it disappear; they were watching it very intently, hoping when the Germans went that it would pick them up. So the second destroyer went down with colours flying, firing to the end. The Royal Navy on that black day lived up to its finest traditions. By now the Glorious was stopped. She was absolutely obscured by smoke. From the Carley float they could see no portion of the ship at all, only those great clouds of smoke on the surface of the sea, so they did not actually see her sink. Amid that shroud of smoke from her burning debris, she vanished beneath the waters, unseen by any human eye.
In those northern latitudes it was light all night. The Carley float was crowded and the waves continually washed right over the men. So cold was the sea that within four hours men started to die from exposure. The strongest among them did what they could to help and comfort the others. They held the heads of the dying men out of the water and when they died the bodies were committed to the sea. Some of the survivors had on so few clothes that it was necessary to remove some of the clothes from the dead to clothe the living in order to keep the spark of life in their frozen bodies.
When the men first got on the Carley float some of them started to sing cheery and popular songs. As the hours went by, they sang a hymn or two. Then as the cold gripped them they fell into silence. They were drenched to the skin and lacked water and food. By next morning ten men were left on the float, among them three members of the RAF; Jameson, his Commanding Officer and an aircraftsman. Eighteen succumbed during that first night. On another float which provided about sixty men with a refuge directly the Glorious went down, only five men came through that terrible ordeal. One or two officers of the Fleet Air Arm who flew the Swordfish on the Glorious were also among the thirty-six men who were picked up, while five more men were saved and imprisoned by the enemy.
In the afternoon of the next day it became calm and one survivor remarked that it would have been quite pleasant if they had possessed something to eat and drink and a few more clothes. One man went to sleep and fell overboard, but they were too weak to pull him back. Two others died from exposure. They spoke very little and there were no complaints at all. They just endured and hoped. On the second day the ‘Bing’ Cross made a suggestion which did much to aid their ultimate survival. ‘If we cut the bottom out of the float and put it across the top, we may be able to get a little sleep,’ he said. Without delay they set about this task and they found that it was a big improvement. It not only enabled them to snatch a little sleep, but to a certain extent it kept their legs out of the water. That day there was talk of reaching the Shetlands, although the officers knew it was impossible, for they were at least 600 miles away and drifting in the wrong direction. But it was something to talk about and it gave the others something to think about. ‘Do you think we’ll make the Shetlands tonight?’ a rating asked.
‘Not tonight, but we’ll probably make them tomorrow,’ was the encouraging reply. Several times the same question evoked the same answer. It gave hope and helped the weakening men to endure a little longer.
‘One of the things which got us down was the fact that we saw a British cruiser squadron of three or four ships searching for us. They put up an aircraft and we saw it taking off and landing, but it did not come in our direction,’ one of the survivors stated. ‘We saw several of our own aircraft as well as those of the enemy, but they never spotted us.’ Who can plumb their agony of mind as they saw those searching ships turn and vanish from sight?
The rating with the injured head clung grimly to life. He grew weaker under the exposure, but he was still alive next day, although he began to wander in his mind. No one could help him. Some were weaker than others, but all were suffering from the exposure and strain. Then a corporal of marines dropped asleep, lost his balance and fell over into the sea. Weak as they were, they managed to grab him before he floated away and after a big struggle dragged him out of the sea to safety. A couple of hours afterwards one of the ratings sighted a trawler. ‘There’s a ship!’ he said.
‘We’d been seeing ships before,’ said one of the survivors. ‘We looked round and saw the ship about two miles away. It was coming towards us. We could see the masts in line. When it got to within one mile of us it turned off - it was an awful moment - but the trawler [the Norwegian tramp steamer the Borgund on passage to the Faeroe Islands, arrived late on 10 June and picked up survivors] only stopped to pick up people off another Carley float and then it came on towards us. By this time one of the officers was waving his yellow Mae West and we all shouted as much as we could. They soon came alongside and one of the Norwegians got down the ladder on to the float and made a loop of rope in which he hoisted the worst cases up on board. Those who were not so weak were helped up the ladder. No one could have been kinder to us than those Norwegians - their kindness was beyond praise! They gave up their bunks for the worst cases - there were thirty-six survivors in all. They gave us cigarettes, shared out their only half bottle of whisky among us and made tea and coffee for us. Then they pointed out the best and warmest places in which to sleep, while they slept on deck or anywhere else they could find.’
After picking up the survivors of the Glorious, the fishermen set their course for the Faroes, while the cook in the galley made some Scotch broth for them which was the finest food they had ever tasted in their lives. It was rather sad that the injured seaman who had clung so desperately to life should die after being taken on board. The trawler was not equipped with wireless, so her skipper could not inform the British authorities that he had picked up the survivors of the Glorious, thus for nearly a week it was feared that there were no survivors at all. So the trawler plugged along in fairly heavy seas at about eight knots, while the Norwegian fishermen lavished all the care and attention in their power upon the men they had rescued, nursing them and feeding them and making them as comfortable as they could in the circumstances. All on board had a bad moment when they heard the sound of an aeroplane. Presently a Heinkel 115 appeared and circled low over them. But it dropped no bombs and they breathed freely again as it turned away. Five hours later they saw it returning and this time they felt sure that it had come to bomb them. But again it merely circled over them and flew away, much to their relief. After a tough passage lasting three days, the Borgund arrived at Thorshavn in the Faroe Islands, where British army officers met the 37 survivors of whom two died. Svalbard II, also making for the Faeroes, picked up five survivors but was sighted by a German aircraft and forced to return to Norway, where the four still alive became prisoners of war for the next five years. It is also believed that one more survivor from Glorious was rescued by a German seaplane. 22
British and French troops had to withdraw at Åandalsnes and Namsos and Narvik was besieged and finally captured on 8 June. On 10 June, two days after the evacuation of Narvik a Blenheim, one of three on reconnaissance over Trondheim Fjord, sighted the Scharnhorst and two cruisers, one of which they thought might not be a cruiser but a pocket-battleship of the Deutschland class. The warships were back from their successful encounter with the Glorious two days before. It was decided to assault them where they lay at anchor near a supply ship and twelve Hudsons carried out a pattern bombing attack from 15,000 feet. They dropped 36 250lb armour-piercing bombs, losing one of their number to antiaircraft fire and another to an enemy fighter. The Scharnhorst was probably missed, but both the cruisers and the supply ship received direct hits. This was on 11 June.
On the night of 13/14 June naval aircraft took a hand. The Ark Royal, escorted by the Nelson and other units of the Home Fleet, arrived at a position 170 miles off Trondheim. At midnight fifteen Skuas took off for the attack. Long-range Coastal Command Blenheims provided fighter cover over the objective, while Beauforts of the same Command created a diversion by attacking the nearby aerodrome at Vaernes in order to prevent, if they could, German fighters from taking off to engage the Skuas. At that time of the year and in that latitude, daylight is perpetual. It was not possible, therefore, to effect surprise. The enemy were prepared and waiting. The Skuas pressed their attack with the greatest determination. Eight of them - more than half - were shot down, but two hits were scored on the Scharnhorst.
Two days later a reconnaissance showed that she was still at Trondheim. On 16 and 17 June two attempts by Coastal Command were made to attack her, but clouds, lower than the hill-tops, obscured the harbour. It was not until 21 June that the Scharnhorst was again sighted. This time she was at sea - eight miles West of the Utyoer lighthouse - steaming South at 25 knots, with an escort of destroyers. Flight Lieutenant Phillips on 204 Squadron piloting Sunderland N9028 took off from Sullom Voe at 1237 initially escorted by three Blenheims from Sumburgh. A Do 18 flying boat was sighted and was attacked by the Blenheims to no effect; gunner was killed in a Blenheim and all three returned to base, abandoning the Sunderland. While circling to await the Blenheims, five Fairey Swordfish were sighted by the Sunderland. Continuing alone, Phillips altered course and at 1435 sighted an unidentified submarine, submerging fast. At 1445 the Sunderland sighted the Scharnhorst accompanied by seven destroyers and their position was reported to base. The flying boat was at once attacked by heavy fire which endured for an hour. During this time its crew watched a torpedo attack on the battle cruiser by the five naval Swordfish which began at 1510. One of the Swordfish was seen to crash into the sea. At 1610 the Sunderland was being shadowed by an He 60, which dropped a bomb falling about 50 yards away. Between 1520 and 1620 Phillips was under heavy and continuous AA fire. At 1625 first three and then one more Me 109 appeared and carried out attacks on both quarters. The Sunderland captain was the same officer who had piloted the Sunderland which had fought six Ju 88s when protecting a convoy on 3 April. The combat with the Me 109s lasted about half an hour. All the Messerschmitts were hit and at 1640 one of these was shot down into the sea in flames. Meanwhile, in the Sunderland, the rear turret had been put out of action very early in the engagement and tanks were punctured. Phillips broke off the engagement and made off for its base shortly before the arrival soon after 1430 of nine Coastal Command Beauforts from a squadron which had been grounded because of trouble with their engines. On hearing that the Scharnhorst was at sea every pilot volunteered to take up his aircraft. They were allowed to make the attack.
When they saw these Beauforts, it is probable that the Germans thought that, like the Swordfish, they were carrying torpedoes and that another torpedo attack was imminent. The destroyer escort was seen to deploy so as to intercept, if they could, the torpedoes launched against the capital ship. The Beauforts, however, were loaded with armour-piercing bombs and, flying in a crescent formation, made a dive-bombing attack. At least three bombs hit the Scharnhorst, one on its stern, another nearly amidships and the third forward on the port side. The Beauforts were forthwith attacked by Me 109s in number from 45 to 50. Three were shot down; the rest got back to their base. There were no cases of engine failure. Hudsons, one of which was lost, renewed the attack, but encountered fierce opposition from an enemy now fully ready to meet them, for the warships were by then only 25 miles from Stavanger. In this action five aircraft were lost altogether, but the Scharnhorst had received sufficient damage to cause her to retire to a floating dock at Kiel. She remained out of action for the rest of the year and did not put to sea again until early in 1941.