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The Altmark Incident (Norwegian: Altmark-affæren) was a naval skirmish of World War II between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany, which happened on 16 February 1940. It took place in what were, at that time, neutral Norwegian waters.[2] It has the unique distinction of being the last major boarding action fought by the Royal Navy.[3]
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Background
In February 1940 the German supply ship Altmark was returning to Germany with 299 British merchant sailors on board;[4] prisoners of war who had been picked up from ships sunk by the pocket battleship Graf Spee. On its way from the southern Atlantic to Germany, the Altmark passed through Norwegian waters. It was investigated three times on 15 February by officers from Norwegian vessels, who boarded the ship and carried out cursory searches, taking the Germans' word that the vessel was conducting purely commercial business. First the tanker was boarded by the torpedo boat HNoMS Trygg off Linesøy Island, then by the torpedo boat HNoMS Snøgg in the Sognefjord, and finally personally by Admiral Carsten Tank-Nielsen and the destroyer HNoMS Garm in the Hjeltefjord. After the third boarding, Altmark was escorted southwards by torpedo boats HNoMS Skarv and HNoMS Kjell and the guard boat HNoMS Firern. The British prisoners held in the ship's hold reportedly made strenuous efforts to signal their presence, such as shouting loudly and banging on the sides of the hull, to the point where the German crew had to drown out the noise by running winches. However, the Norwegian search parties did not inspect the hold, and allowed the ship to continue on its way.
Interception and boarding
Altmark was then spotted off Egersund later the same day by a British aircraft, which raised the alarm in the Royal Navy. The aircraft were stationed at RAF Thornaby, in the North East of England. After being intercepted by the destroyer HMS Cossack, captained by Philip Vian, the Altmark sought refuge in the Jøssingfjord, but Cossack followed her in the next day. After initial attempts to board the Altmark by the crew of the Cossack were blocked by Norwegian naval forces, Captain Vian received the following orders directly from the then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill:
Unless Norwegian torpedo-boat undertakes to convoy Altmark to Bergen with a joint Anglo-Norwegian guard on board, and a joint escort, you should board Altmark, liberate the prisoners, and take possession of the ship pending further instructions. If Norwegian torpedo-boat interferes, you should warn her to stand off. If she fires upon you, you should not reply unless attack is serious, in which case you should defend yourself, using no more force than is necessary, and ceasing fire when she desists."[5]
The Norwegian forces refused to take part in a joint escort reiterating that their earlier searches of the Altmark had found nothing. Vian then stated that he intended to board the Altmark and invited the Norwegians to take part, but this was also refused. In the ensuing action, the Altmark ran aground. The British then boarded the Altmark at 2220 hrs, 16 February, and after some hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, overwhelmed the ship's crew and then went down to the hold. One of the released prisoners stated that the first they knew of the operation was when they heard the shout "Any Englishmen here?" from the boarding party. When the prisoners shouted back, the response was "Well, the Navy's here!" which brought cheers.[6]
HMS Cossack left the Jøssingfjord just after midnight on 17 February. The Norwegian escorts protested, but did not intervene. The official explanation later given by the Norwegian government was that, according to international treaty, a neutral country was not obliged to resist a vastly superior force.
Impact
The Norwegians were angered that their neutrality had been infringed, but they did not want to be dragged into a European war. Nonetheless the Altmark incident sowed doubts about the Norwegian neutrality among the Allies, as well as in Germany. Both sides had contingency plans for military action against Norway, primarily to control the traffic of Swedish iron ore, on which the German armaments industry depended in the early stages of the war. The Altmark incident convinced Adolf Hitler that the Allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and on 19 February he decided to intensify the planning for Operation Weserübung, the occupation of Denmark and Norway, which eventually took place on 9 April 1940.
The Altmark incident gave the British a short-lived but sorely needed morale boost during the Phoney War. The incident also had a lasting propaganda effect in German-occupied Norway during the war, when the Norwegian collaborationist government tried to neutralize their nickname 'Quislings' by using the location of the skirmish, Jøssingfjord, to coin the derogatory term 'jøssing', referring to pro-Allies and anti-Nazis. Their efforts backfired, as 'jøssing' was immediately adopted as a positive term by the general public, and the word was finally banned from official use by 1943.[citation needed]
The phrase "The Navy's Here" became well-known, being used as the title of a book about the incident published shortly after; the publisher referred to "the simple statement which stirred the imagination of the world".[7] A popular song was written by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles which saluted the incident by comparing it with those of Drake, Nelson, Beatty and Fisher.[8] When news of HMS Cossack's sinking was received in November 1941, The Times leader article said that "the whole English-speaking world thrilled to the hail 'The Navy's here'".[9]
References
- Frischauer, Willi; & Jackson, Robert, The Navy's Here! The Altmark Affair
- Janusz Piekałkiewicz: Der Zweite Weltkrieg mit Vorwort von Sebastian Haffner. Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-89350-544-X
- ^ The Times (London), Monday, 19 February 1940, p.10
- ^ Lunde, H.O. (Colonel) (2009), The Altmark Incident, Hitler's Pre-Emptive War, The Battle for Norway, 1940, Philadelphia & Newbury : Casemate, pp. 26-32, ISBN 978-1-932033-92-2
- ^ [1]BBC Home. The Last Boarding Action of the Royal Navyby WatTyler
- ^ "The Rule of Law in International Affairs" (Brian Simpson 2003), page 215
- ^ name="The Gathering Storm", Winston Churchill
- ^ "Hardships Of The Prisoners", The Times, 19 February 1940, p. 8.
- ^ The Navy's Here, National Library of Australia, accessed 1 June 2009.
- ^ "Ave Atque Vale" (leader), The Times, 11 November 1941, p. 5.
External links
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