Pod Insights WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk Naval Battle of Narvik: Plans & Schemes (Part 1) About this episode Why did Hitler launch his conquest of Norway and Denmark in April 1940? How did WW1 influence the Kriegsmarine hierarchy? What was the British naval response to the invasions?
Join Al Murray and James Holland for part 1 of this gripping new series on Britain's naval fight at Narvik, and the Royal Navy's response to the German invasion of Norway
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Transcript 13,208 words · 6 speakers
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2:00 Speaker 02 Darling, I've been telling you repeatedly that you won't hear from me for a bit. I think now that it is really so. Today, we had a really lovely day, the sort that one gets in the extreme north just now and then. We had a paper chase and ran up the local mountain, which was lovely, after it was over. I wrote to Bertram today, said he could have my boat for £150 if he said so quickly. I don't suppose he will. If war should spread to these parts, I feel sure that boats will become as valuable as gold and more so. Nowadays, there is always an extreme shortage of boats wherever operations are going on. Lewis went to explore the local metropolis today, but didn't find much. Not even fish, which is funny.
2:45 Speaker 02 Not any signs of ADIE, though he must be about somewhere. Would you please order me a dozen £2 pots of Cooper's marmalade to be delivered to Greening and addressed to me, see care of him. Hawley's or anybody will deliver it on board if you telephone order. Good night, darling one. I love you. Bernard. And that was a letter by Captain Bernard Warburton Lee, Officer Commanding of the Second Destroyer for Tiddler.
3:12 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, he's got everything in order there, hasn't he? His marmalade order sorted. That, that's, um, the 5th of April though, Jim.
3:18 Speaker 02 5th of April, 1940.
3:19 Speaker 03 Right, okay.
3:20 Speaker 02 Just before the balloon goes up.
3:21 Speaker 03 Right, okay, so, and that's what we're here to talk about.
3:24 Speaker 02 That's what we're here to talk about.
3:25 Speaker 03 The rising balloon in Norway. Welcome to We Have Ways of Making Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, your Second World War podcast of choice. Thanks for joining us. Now, we're looking at a part of the war that we've not actually talked about at all on the podcast. In seven years of War Waffle, we haven't, we haven't gone anywhere near this.
3:45 Speaker 02 No, it is the Battle of Norway. But it's the naval battle. We're not doing land. We'll do that another time.
3:50 Speaker 03 It's too depressing.
3:51 Speaker 02 It's too depressing. You know how I feel about depressing British failures.
3:56 Speaker 02 So I'm not doing it.
3:57 Speaker 03 So we're basically just going to ignore it.
3:59 Speaker 02 Jerry picked the best bits.
4:02 Speaker 03 Fair enough. I completely understand. You know, I can barely keep it together when things are going wobbly, Jim. This is one of the great, actually, one of the great naval encounters of the Second World War, isn't it?
4:13 Speaker 02 It is, and consequential.
4:14 Speaker 03 And consequential and defining.
4:17 Speaker 03 And for those who've listened to recent podcasts where we've talked about the Battle of the Atlantic in 1940, 41, 42, and then the hunt for the Bismarck, and then the Channel Dash. Actually, this is the battle that sets the scene for all of those events.
4:34 Speaker 02 Yep.
4:34 Speaker 03 Certainly in terms of, well, let's be blunt, the Royal Navy's dominance.
4:40 Speaker 02 But also lessons learned for the Royal.
4:42 Speaker 03 Well, exactly, in that theatre. Let's, let's look at.
4:45 Speaker 02 Well, we're going to kick off with what's called, in journalistic terms, a drop colour intro.
4:49 Speaker 03 Okay.
4:49 Speaker 02 Straight into the action and then we'll recap.
4:51 Speaker 03 Don't, don't show your workings. Go on. A bit postmodern, dross that.
4:56 Speaker 02 Well, so the German invasion of Scandinavia, of Denmark and Norway, is known as Operation Vezur Grubung. And it's launched in the early hours of the 9th of April, 1940, just as the Royal Navy is heading to the Leeds to begin their planned mining operation. So the Leeds are these network of channels that run down the edge of Norway. So you have the North Sea, then you have little outlying islands, then you have the little kind of channels, then you have the fjords going in. And the leads that they're particularly interested in are the ones around the Vest fjord, north of Bodo, between the North Sea and the entrance to the Ofutt fjord,
5:36 Speaker 02 which is the narrow inlet that leads to the iron ore port of Narvik.
5:42 Speaker 03 Because what this is about is iron ore.
5:45 Speaker 02 All about supplies.
5:46 Speaker 03 It's all about supplies. And that's what's being fought for here.
5:49 Speaker 02 Yes.
5:50 Speaker 03 The British aren't.
5:50 Speaker 02 At Narvik, yeah.
5:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, at Narvik. The British aren't doing this out of the kindness of their heart on this occasion.
5:55 Speaker 02 No.
5:56 Speaker 03 No. Because Denmark's been invaded and occupied pretty much in pretty short order. Um, uh, at the same time as German troops are steaming up the Oslo Fjord, um, in the south of, um, Norway, towards the capital, and you've got Falsheim Jäger being dropped in to capture key positions with
6:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
6:14 Speaker 03 With extremely mixed results.
6:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:16 Speaker 03 Um, meanwhile, there's another invasion force is sent to the North Seaport of Trondheim, while you have 2,000 Gebergs Jäger, who are mountain troops.
6:24 Speaker 02 Yep.
6:24 Speaker 03 Exactly, with their little Edelweiss, landed at Narvik, um, uh, uh, deep in the Offert, now you've just been to
6:31 Speaker 02 Offert Fjord.
6:32 Speaker 03 Okay, I'm gonna defer to you.
6:35 Speaker 02 Offert Fjord.
6:35 Speaker 03 For all the pronunciation.
6:37 Speaker 02 Offert Fjord.
6:37 Speaker 03 The Offert Fjord.
6:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:39 Speaker 03 Um, uh, and there's with them, 10 German destroyers, count them, 10.
6:44 Speaker 02 Half.
6:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly, this is the, this is the thing, and a handful of supply ships. This is half, as you say, of the, the Kriegsmarine's entire destroyer capability.
6:56 Speaker 02 Compared to the 184 that the Royal Navy has.
6:59 Speaker 03 Okay, okay, but we're looking at a fair fight here.
7:03 Speaker 02 Wow.
7:03 Speaker 03 Well, well, 184 aren't all in Narvik, are they?
7:06 Speaker 02 Of course not, no.
7:07 Speaker 03 Meanwhile, the, the second destroyer, uh, flotilla, which is, which is, as we, as we've learned, led by Captain Bernard Warburton Lee, um, they're coming, approaching the leads as part of this mining operation, and they're supporting, there's some heavy metal is showing up, Admiral William Whitworth's large battle cruisers, the Renown and the Repulse.
7:28 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
7:29 Speaker 03 As well as destroyers, this is already, already the Royal Navy sounds like it's arriving mob handed, let's put it that way, as well as destroyers of the 20th destroyer flotilla. And the thing is, is that, that, that, these parts are all moving really, really quickly, aren't they? And the Admiralty's discovering things, uh, uh, kind of in, as a kind of real time response, happening at once, but by both sides, actually, they're both reacting to each other.
7:52 Speaker 02 The 9th of April is a, a day of confusion for the Royal Navy, which we will get into in some depth later on in the series, but, but, but suffice to say that on the afternoon of the 9th of April, it is reported to the Admiralty back in London that a single German warship has entered the Offert Fjord. And so Captain Bernard Warburton Lee, the commander of the second flotilla, has been ordered to head to Narvik and ensure that no German troops land there, and his orders come directly from the Admiralty, rather than from Admiral Whitworth, who is his immediate superior commander.
8:25 Speaker 03 Right.
8:26 Speaker 02 In this scene. And that intelligence turns out to have been seriously underestimating the reality. Because it's pretty obvious to them it's already too late. And Commodore Friedrich Bontes ten-ship destroyer force has already entered the Ophir fjord in the afternoon of the ninth of April. So there's nine more than have been reported.
8:48 Speaker 03 Whoops.
8:49 Speaker 02 Yep. And the first three Kriegs mariner destroyers had parleyed with the Norwegian defence ships, which are the Idesfold and the Norga, who are in the harbour at Narvik. But on the return from the parley, the lead German destroyer fires a salvo of torpedoes at Idesfold before the returning officers have reported what the parley was.
9:13 Speaker 03 Just dastardly behaviour.
9:14 Speaker 02 The Schwein.
9:15 Speaker 03 That's absolute, that's full-on Schweinhunt behaviour.
9:18 Speaker 02 Proper Schweinhunt. And they set off these torpedoes at just a hundred yards.
9:24 Speaker 03 Really? This is, I, okay, you know, the more I hear about the Germans in the Second World War, the less I like them.
9:33 Speaker 03 That's not my gag, but you know.
9:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's only one way to respond to this, and that's instant destruction of this ten-ship force myself.
9:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, absolutely.
9:40 Speaker 02 Anyway, so the other one is the Norga. So the Norga is moored at the quayside. He's just thinking, oh my god. Discover it. We've got three destroyers firing at us. There's another seven kind of waiting out in the Ophir fjord. You know, what are we going to do? But bravely, courageously fires seventeen rounds at the Germans. And then is similarly dispatched right on the quayside. And these are the only seaborne Norwegian defences.
10:07 Speaker 03 Right.
10:07 Speaker 02 Despite reports of there being defences at the Vest fjord, at the mouth of the Ophir fjord, they're not there.
10:15 Speaker 03 Right.
10:15 Speaker 02 So three hundred Norwegian sailors are killed, entirely unprovoked. It's quite bad, actually.
10:21 Speaker 03 It's quite bad, although, you know, Royal Navy on occasion has done.
10:24 Speaker 02 Ah, not that. You don't go and do a parley and then.
10:29 Speaker 02 Send it while they're not.
10:30 Speaker 03 Yes, Mezal Kabeer, at least.
10:32 Speaker 02 There were parleys with lots of warnings, please surrender, don't do it.
10:36 Speaker 03 Please don't do it. Yeah, yeah, okay.
10:39 Speaker 02 But in Narvik itself, in Narvik itself, the Norwegian army commander is Colonel Sundlu, who has 450 men, and he's one of the very, very few army officers to follow Vidkum Quisling, who is the pro-German leader of the fascist National Unity Party.
10:58 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:58 Speaker 02 The National Zammlung in Norway. And he quickly surrenders the town and the German troops hastily disembark. So suddenly the Gaborjeggs are on. They've got, they've got Narvik.
11:07 Speaker 03 That's a stroke of luck for the Germans there, isn't it? That they know, that they know that, well, that Sundlu is going to do that.
11:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
11:13 Speaker 03 This is all off to a bad start, Jim, for the good guys. Let's put it that way. However, by this time, I mean, obviously, and obviously, I think it's quite funny this, that the local Norwegian divisional commander then sacks Sundlu and orders resistance, but, you know.
11:27 Speaker 02 Bit late.
11:28 Speaker 03 Bit late for that.
11:29 Speaker 02 You know, you're fired.
11:30 Speaker 03 Shutting the stable door, almost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. However, Bonters destroyers, now wicked, dastardly, evil destroyers, now need to refuel.
11:39 Speaker 02 Well, they've come a long way.
11:40 Speaker 03 They've come a long way.
11:40 Speaker 02 They've come from, you know, they've come from Wilhelmshaven or wherever they've come from.
11:43 Speaker 03 But they don't have the supply ships for the job.
11:47 Speaker 02 Well, there was this big plan, you see, to have these Trojan Horse ships already there.
11:51 Speaker 03 Hmm. And they're not there?
11:53 Speaker 02 No, there's only one.
11:54 Speaker 03 Right, okay.
11:55 Speaker 02 There should be more, but they haven't reached it.
11:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:58 Speaker 02 And, and so there's only one, and they can only fuel one at a time, and it takes, or two at a time, and it takes six hours to refuel each one.
12:05 Speaker 03 That they're immediately, they're, they're.
12:07 Speaker 02 Between six and eight hours.
12:08 Speaker 03 They're, they're in treacle then, they're.
12:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:10 Speaker 03 So, I mean, half the force then remains in the narrow confines of Narvik Harbour. Now, I'm not a naval fellow, I'm, you know, everyone knows this, I'm very much landlubber in my sort of warfare appreciation, but half a force remaining in the narrow confines of a harbour, hmm.
12:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, so they split their, their, you know, Bontec, Commodore Bontec has split his force. So he's got some at Narvik, he's got a couple in Ballen and he's got a couple up in the harbor.
12:38 Speaker 03 It's just the words narrow confines, Jim.
12:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is, it is narrow confined, you know, compared to the North Sea, compared to the Atlantic.
12:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:45 Speaker 02 Compared to even the narrows of the English Channel, it's narrow.
12:47 Speaker 03 It's very narrow.
12:48 Speaker 02 Yes.
12:49 Speaker 03 Um, and, uh, uh, he, so half the force remain in the narrow confines of Narvik Harbour and the rest go after the Herjangs fjord.
12:57 Speaker 02 Yep.
12:57 Speaker 03 Have you got that right?
12:58 Speaker 02 Yep.
12:59 Speaker 03 Okay, um, uh, that runs off the main Ufford fjord. Um, and on to the inland, on to the inland at Ballen.
13:06 Speaker 02 Yep. And, and picture the scene. It's kind of, it's, it's a monochrome landscape. It's a dark sea. There's mountains, there's snow on the mountains. Um, it, it's, it's very monochrome, the whole kind of vibe. It's sort of bleak. It's still quite wintery there. Um, there's lots of rain about, it's stormy.
13:23 Speaker 03 Yep.
13:24 Speaker 02 Um, there, there's, there's white horses on the, uh, even on the fjord.
13:28 Speaker 03 Yep.
13:29 Speaker 02 Despite the sheltered nature of its narrow confines.
13:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:32 Speaker 02 Um, it, this is, this is a kind of harsh, bleak, kind of Odin hovering above, kind of atmosphere.
13:40 Speaker 03 Got it. Um, and there are U-boats patrolling the mouth of the Ufford fjord. So, um, so, uh, Andy sends out a destroyer or sends out destroyers in shifts to keep guard because, you know, what if, what if the Royal Navy turns up?
13:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:54 Speaker 03 Um, and despite all these precautions, Captain Warburton Lee's force of four destroyers are not spotted as they sweep into the fjord under cover of darkness and dense snow flurries on the, in the early hours of the 10th of April.
14:07 Speaker 02 Yep.
14:08 Speaker 03 This is, this is, this, I mean, I, I, I'm getting a little bit, getting Obi-Wan Kenobi Nelson on my shoulder here.
14:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:14 Speaker 03 A little bit of this.
14:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, massively.
14:16 Speaker 03 Warburton Lee, God bless him, had not believed that it was just one ship.
14:20 Speaker 02 Not for one minute.
14:20 Speaker 03 Not for one second. He thought that there would be a much larger force.
14:24 Speaker 02 Which is why he's going in with his four destroyers.
14:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, but also.
14:26 Speaker 02 For Hardy and four others.
14:27 Speaker 03 Well, it's also, he's up for the scrap, isn't he? And this is confirmed, um, when he sends some of his men ashore to talk to the Norwegians. There's a pilot station at Tannoy.
14:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, which is right on the southern side of the mouth of, of.
14:40 Speaker 03 The Ufford fjord.
14:41 Speaker 02 Ufford fjord.
14:42 Speaker 03 And, uh, and the, the pilots go, oh, yeah, yeah, six, six destroyers, only U-boat.
14:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, at least.
14:48 Speaker 03 At least that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is Warburton Lee though?
14:53 Speaker 02 Well, he's a career naval officer, he's a thoroughly good egg. He's hugely experienced, he's known for his discipline. But also, you know, he's empathetic. And he's definitely imbued with a Nelsonian aggressiveness.
15:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:07 Speaker 02 That's very much hardwired into many such officers at that time. So obviously, he decides to trust to surprise an initiative and deal any German force already at Narvik a mortal blow. Why wouldn't you? Of course you're going to do that. He's British. And he's in the Royal Navy. He's Warburton Lee RN.
15:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, absolutely.
15:25 Speaker 02 So having signaled this new information about the six destroyers, German destroyers, to the Admiralty, he added, intend attacking at dawn, high water. And the reason he wants to attack at high water, of course, is because then there's less chance of going over mines, hitting mines.
15:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:39 Speaker 02 And a reply has reached him at eight, at nine PM on the ninth of April. Attack at dawn, all good luck. And by then, a fifth destroyer, HMS Hostile, has already joined him.
15:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, they're all H, they're all a Hunter class destroyer.
15:55 Speaker 03 You know, normative determinism here. I mean, I'd want to sail on Hostile.
15:59 Speaker 02 Which is why he is going in amongst, with his five destroyers, he's going into the Ophot Fjord amidst the snow flurries in the early hours of the 10th of April, 1940. And so the stage is now set for a naval struggle such as had never before wakened the echoes in those lonely fjords.
16:21 Speaker 03 Crikey.
16:22 Speaker 02 It's not my words.
16:23 Speaker 03 Oh, oh, all right, you let us all down there, Jim.
16:26 Speaker 02 No, no, no, I came across it in one of the accounts, I just thought, that's so funny. And over the top, I've got to use it.
16:35 Speaker 03 It's not every day that you get glittering prose like that on We're Boring, Mickey.
16:39 Speaker 02 No, I think, you know, for such a dramatic.
16:43 Speaker 03 Um. Episode is this.
16:45 Speaker 02 Hmm.
16:45 Speaker 03 We need to uh set the scene properly because we've got a tiny bit of that, but let's set the scene properly. Because this naval battle for Norway, um a- a- as we said, as we said earlier on, is hugely, hugely consequential.
16:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:56 Speaker 03 The Royal Navy in the intervening war years, the Admiralty's basically decided, well, we can cope with one global emergency at a time. Two is biting off more than we can chew, but strategically we can handle, we can deal with the Germans if it comes to it. We can deal with that.
17:10 Speaker 02 From a naval point of view.
17:11 Speaker 03 From a naval point of view, expect to fight them in the North Sea.
17:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:14 Speaker 03 You know, and, and uh those other naval episodes we've done recently have been after the fall of France, when the Germans have control of the Atlantic coast. And the, the Admiralty's best laid plans have completely, um have been completely overturned.
17:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:28 Speaker 03 By, by, by the German army in effect.
17:30 Speaker 02 Uh, uh, and one of the key things is to outgun the enemy.
17:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:33 Speaker 02 It is to out experience the enemy.
17:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
17:36 Speaker 02 So, so outgun them, but, but with better gunnery.
17:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:39 Speaker 02 Outmaneuver them.
17:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:41 Speaker 02 And be more aggressive than the enemy.
17:43 Speaker 03 But also, but also deny, denying the Germans manoeuvre is as important as actually fighting them.
17:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:50 Speaker 03 And taking them to battle is, is, i- is, is less important than denying them freedom of the seas. So if you can bottle them up.
17:56 Speaker 02 Yep.
17:56 Speaker 03 If you can, if you can make them decide not to come to you and fight, that's what you do.
18:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
18:01 Speaker 03 Uh, but what, what's quite interesting about that is you have an awful lot of very Nelsonian officers who don't want to bottle people up.
18:08 Speaker 02 No.
18:08 Speaker 03 Who aren't interested in a standoff with the Kriegsmarine, a sort of attritional tick, tick, tick of war. They want to fight them.
18:14 Speaker 02 Well, they absolutely do, but one of the, one of the issues of the um, of, of the Norwegian naval battle is the missed opportunities to, to, to fight. They're itching to fight, but they keep making the wrong calls and it's largely to do with intelligence and stuff and misappreciations. So, so it's a, it's a tale of, of incredible blunders, um and not a little stupidity, it has to be said. Also absolutely insane courage and bravery, terrible weapon failures at times.
18:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:42 Speaker 02 A- and some dodgy strategy on both sides at various times.
18:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:47 Speaker 02 But I think it is important to kind of stress why are they there in the first place?
18:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:51 Speaker 02 And just what are the Germans doing invading Norway? I mean, what, what, what's the point of it?
18:55 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, I think if you're a regular listener to this, German strategy doesn't always make sense.
19:00 Speaker 02 It's not a straight line.
19:01 Speaker 03 It's not a straight line. Sometimes it doesn't even appear to be a strategy.
19:07 Speaker 02 No, it's more a reflection of one man's megalomania and narcissism.
19:10 Speaker 03 Well, you give a twelve year old a global atlas, basically.
19:15 Speaker 02 I wanna go there.
19:16 Speaker 03 I think we should send my blokes there.
19:18 Speaker 02 No, it looks nice.
19:19 Speaker 03 It's nice in the winter.
19:20 Speaker 02 Anyway, it's slightly more nuanced than that.
19:23 Speaker 03 Well, let's look at the Kriegsmarine and look.
19:25 Speaker 02 Admiral Raider.
19:26 Speaker 03 The fellow in charge.
19:27 Speaker 02 A man, actually, we've not mentioned an awful lot has to be said.
19:32 Speaker 03 No.
19:32 Speaker 02 So, so a little bit of sort of background bio on Raider. He's, he's, he takes over the Reichsmarine, as it then is, in the Weimar Republic age. In October 1928, when he's 52, he joined the Navy in 1894. And he became Admiral Hipper's Chief of Staff, you know, because there was a real Admiral Hipper before there was a.
19:54 Speaker 03 Yes, of course.
19:54 Speaker 02 A cruiser. And before the First World War, commands the Kaiser's yacht. So he's, he's meeting, you know, he's hanging out with all the right people at an early stage of his career comparatively.
20:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:03 Speaker 02 And he remains Hipper's Chief of Staff in the First World War. And he's also a fluent Russian speaker, which helps him. And he ends the war as Deputy to Admiral Paul Benker, who is State Secretary for the Navy.
20:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:17 Speaker 02 Raider is not a big advocate of U-boat warfare.
20:22 Speaker 03 Oh.
20:23 Speaker 02 No. So he's at odds with, I would say, prevailing evidence.
20:28 Speaker 03 Yes.
20:29 Speaker 02 Which suggests that that's a very good way for Germany to protract a naval war. But anyway, so he's, he's not a big, he's not totally against it, but he's not a massive advocate. He is working to increase the submarine fleet at the end of the war, but he doesn't think it's a pansier. He thinks it's, it's, it's an add-on. He thinks it's a, it's, it's part and parcel, but, but you have to, your fleet has to revolve around a surface fleet.
20:50 Speaker 03 That's fascinating, isn't it? Because, because that's not particularly realistic.
20:55 Speaker 02 From Germany?
20:55 Speaker 03 No, from a German perspective, given who you're up against.
20:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I think it's also worth pointing out that Germany doesn't really have a navy until the kind of 1890s.
21:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:03 Speaker 02 You know, it has no naval tradition.
21:05 Speaker 03 Yes.
21:06 Speaker 02 You know, so this is, this is all sort of, it is, it is all, all new. He also plays a, a key part in trying to crush the naval mutiny at the end of the war. So he's exempt from the kind of finger of accusation in, in that.
21:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
21:18 Speaker 02 Um, he's very, very bright, very, very hardworking, incredibly puritanical. He has a divorce from his wife, from which he's completely traumatised.
21:26 Speaker 03 Right.
21:27 Speaker 02 Um, a- and finds it incredibly embarrassing and no one's ever allowed to mention it or mention his wife ever again.
21:32 Speaker 03 Goodness.
21:32 Speaker 02 And he gets remarried. Um, he's not a barrel of laughs.
21:36 Speaker 03 Oh.
21:37 Speaker 02 No, he's, there's no kind of fire slapping and, and schnapps for him.
21:41 Speaker 03 Oh, well, although having, you know, I mean, you having said that, Jim, all the, the fellows who do like the barrel of schnapps are slapping their thighs. In the German setup are all awful. So, you know.
21:51 Speaker 02 So maybe, yeah, he, he's, he's pretty awful.
21:53 Speaker 03 That, I mean, he's, it, see, Raider's one of these people, isn't it? Because, because he seems to prevaricate at various stages in the war about how he thinks things are going and, and, and he certainly thinks Germany's losing, but long before most other people do.
22:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:06 Speaker 03 He, he, he kind of gets, I think he sometimes gets a bit of a softer ride for that, doesn't he?
22:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, definitely.
22:11 Speaker 03 But he's, he's head of the Kriegsmarine.
22:13 Speaker 02 He's head of the Kriegsmarine and he, and he's right up to it. And, and, you know, he's got his neck in it.
22:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, of course, yeah.
22:19 Speaker 02 He, interestingly, he takes part in the Kapputz, which is one of the most of the kind of naval staff are involved in this. This is anti Weimar, anti, anti-democracy.
22:26 Speaker 03 Well, what do you, what do you want to know about the guy? And that, because this is the thing, because the big chunk of the Kriegsmarine's reputation, because of the mutiny and stuff, they're, they're, they're people extremely proactive in showing how, um, uh, uh, loyal they are to the, to the status quo ante, that they, they want, they want things the way they were before the First World War.
22:44 Speaker 02 He's a deep conservative.
22:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, after all, in the, in the politics in Germany, it's the, it's the super deep conservatives who think, well, we can, Hitler's not that bad, we can let him through, we can control him, he wants basically the same stuff as us.
22:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:58 Speaker 03 So, so these are distinctions drawn between a man like Raider and a, and a full paid up Nazi.
23:05 Speaker 02 Yep.
23:06 Speaker 03 They're subtle.
23:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:07 Speaker 03 Certainly, certainly this stage of the war, when, when, you know, things seem.
23:11 Speaker 02 He, he's absolutely, you know, he's a classic. Of that kind of German militaristic elite that is conservative, doesn't really is suspicious of democracy.
23:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:19 Speaker 02 Wants strong leadership.
23:21 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:21 Speaker 02 Um. But doesn't want any bullshit anyway.
23:23 Speaker 03 Well, and has taken action is the point.
23:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
23:25 Speaker 03 Has taken action to to to see that through by his involvement in the in the in the cat push. So you've got to take your roasted spectacles off about Raider.
23:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:33 Speaker 03 Um. But but it's interesting, isn't he, that he he he he is clever and he is super involved in the Navy, but he doesn't.
23:40 Speaker 02 Political judgment questionable.
23:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. And he's and is actually tactical judgment, which leads to strategic judgment, not brilliant either.
23:48 Speaker 02 Anyway, after the cat put, she gets marginalized a little bit, um and but it but he is given the job of writing the official history of the of the German Navy in the First World War, which he does, which is a useful exercise.
23:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:58 Speaker 02 Um. And and after that, it's it's very well received and he he resumes his ascent and it becomes the commander in chief in a in nineteen twenty eight. There are arguments that are emerging in the nineteen twenties and one of the big ones is a guy called Wegner. And and Wegner is is is very keen on kind of making sure that in future, any naval operations that Germany does should be all about commerce commerce raiding.
24:20 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:20 Speaker 02 Uh. And for that, you need a combination of surface ships like cruisers, which are heavily armed but and rapid.
24:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:27 Speaker 02 And have big fuel tanks um uh supported by U-boats. Uh. While Raider does understand the importance of waging commerce warfare and and did kind of, you know, accept that the U-boats per- performed a task in the First World War. He he still thinks that you need a surface fleet as well.
24:47 Speaker 03 Well, because of.
24:48 Speaker 02 A proper, a proper big surface.
24:50 Speaker 03 Because of course he does. He wants some big toys to play with. I mean, let's just.
24:54 Speaker 02 Of course, of course.
24:54 Speaker 03 Let's just be honest here. This is what this is. This is how this. This is a tale as old as time. I want the biggest, snazziest ships I can possibly have under my command. Or I'm no kind of admiral. Status and fleets, national status, imperial status, and the size of your fleet, the size of your ships. Uh, uh, completely inextricably linked.
25:12 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, and he completely believes this.
25:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
25:14 Speaker 02 He totally believes it. So he he's.
25:16 Speaker 03 Extricating the one from the other.
25:17 Speaker 02 And so he is all for the uh um the double pole strategy. That is known, and this means having a fleet that can wage gross krieg, i.e. a major naval action at sea against enemy fleets, but which can also protect vital sea lanes of their own, i.e. iron ore coming down the Norwegian coast, and also at the same time wage commerce war. And of course, in the mid 1930s, this is all total pie in the sky. This is la la land stuff.
25:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:48 Speaker 02 But the reason he advocates this is partly because he believes that he's conservative and he's absolutely imbued with this militaristic Prussian kind of we're the daddies at warfare kind of vibe.
25:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:59 Speaker 02 You know, he's a massive advocate of Von Tulpitz. He was, you know, he was behind the Dreadnought strategy and the large, you know, Imperial fleet and all the rest of it, that led to the kind of, you know, the battleship war and a build up war in the, before the First World War. So he's absolutely all in on all that.
26:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:16 Speaker 02 But he, but he thinks he's got time to do this because Hitler has told him that Germany won't be going to war with Britain and won't go to war with anyone until 1944. So he goes, oh, that's fine then. But obviously by 1938, it's absolutely clear that those promises are looking very hollow. But, but it's also 1938 that the Z Plan, which we talked about in our Atlantic War series, is, is implemented, which is all about creating battleships and aircraft carriers and heavy cruisers and, and all the rest of it. But of course, by that point, it's too late to change tack. But, but Germany simply does not have the infrastructure at all.
26:49 Speaker 03 No.
26:49 Speaker 02 To, to enact this vision in, in, in any way.
26:53 Speaker 03 Nor, in contrast to, say, America, the slack labour in its economy. That you can, you, you can have the vision all you like, but you don't have the, you know, the Americans.
27:03 Speaker 02 You can have a dream.
27:04 Speaker 03 Exactly. The Americans are able to chuck up shipping yards just like that because they've slack labour, because they're such an, you know, an enormous labour force. Whereas the, whereas the Germans are shorthanded right from the get go.
27:16 Speaker 02 Yeah. So, so, you know, by 1939, the Kriegsmarine is very undercooked. It's got the wrong ships, they're under trained, all the, all the crews. And the pool of experienced sailors is way too small for what they want to do. Only one battleship has been laid down, which we know is the, as the Bismarck, of course. And there's no carriers, there's only three Deutschland-class heavy cruisers. And these are known as Panzer schiffe by the Germans, but also known to everyone else as.
27:45 Speaker 03 Pocket battleships. Yes, we've got pocket battleships.
27:47 Speaker 02 So we're now going to explain what a pocket battleship is.
27:49 Speaker 03 Well, but to no one's satisfaction, Jim.
27:52 Speaker 02 No. No, we will this time. So these are the same sort of size as HMS Belfast.
27:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:58 Speaker 02 They're fourteen thousand tonnes, which means they're kind of, you know, quite a bit over the naval agreement of nineteen thirty five. They're fast warships. Each are fitted with six twenty eight centimetre, which is approximately eleven inch guns and eight fifteen centimetre, approximately five point nine inch guns, as well as three eight point eight centimetre guns, well, we all know about eighty eight millimetres.
28:18 Speaker 03 Mills.
28:19 Speaker 02 And eight torpedo tubes. They can do twenty six knots, but they are massively overgunned as commerce raiders.
28:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:28 Speaker 02 And they cost twice as much in terms of time and cost as light cruisers.
28:35 Speaker 03 Because really.
28:35 Speaker 02 Which are absolutely ideal.
28:37 Speaker 03 Because a commerce raider, you don't need eleven inch guns. Those are for encountering battleships.
28:41 Speaker 02 No, you want a light cruiser.
28:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:43 Speaker 02 Nine thousand tonnes, known as the Leipzig class.
28:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:47 Speaker 02 And the KMS Nürnberg is one that would actually survive the entire war. They're long range, they're light, they're armed to the gunwales, but with smaller guns, so nine fifteen centimetre guns, eight eighty eight millimetres, eight three point seven centimetres. And that is, that is what the Germans should be, they should be building a, you know, like twelve of those and two hundred U-boats.
29:09 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:10 Speaker 02 But they don't.
29:10 Speaker 03 They don't, fortunately.
29:12 Speaker 02 Unfortunately, they don't.
29:12 Speaker 03 Although, although, you know, had the German, the cruisers had done something different, the Royal Navy would have responded accordingly.
29:18 Speaker 02 Yes.
29:19 Speaker 03 So that's not, that's not, uh, uh, the, the over egg the counterfactual there.
29:23 Speaker 02 No.
29:23 Speaker 03 Because they're, they're, they really are, they're so far behind. They are so, so playing catch up so hard.
29:29 Speaker 02 And what that means is, is what they have got in terms of heavy cruisers and light cruisers and everything else, they're gonna have to use in the invasion. Because they haven't got landing craft.
29:38 Speaker 03 No, of course they haven't.
29:40 Speaker 02 They haven't got a landing craft, so, so.
29:41 Speaker 03 But then no one has, really.
29:42 Speaker 02 No one has, really, but, but of all the places to kind of go and invade, Norway's quite a tricky one. So you're gonna need your key sites, you're gonna have to bludgeon your way through it, and you're gonna have to go down some narrow fjords. And hope that the Germans are gonna play ball. And the. I mean, the Norwegians are gonna play.
29:55 Speaker 03 But, but, I mean, the, no one has landing craft, it's, you know, if you want to explain that in, in. The British don't because their strategy is defensive.
30:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:04 Speaker 03 The Germans aren't, have no strategy.
30:08 Speaker 02 It's because their strategy is mad.
30:09 Speaker 03 As they go as along. So if they're suddenly invading somewhere where they might need landing craft, well, they hadn't thought of that, you know. There is a reason the British don't have landing craft. That's a sensible reason. The reason the Germans don't is a silly one. Now let's talk about the Royal Navy because.
30:23 Speaker 02 Just very briefly.
30:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, because, you know, let's be honest now, Jim.
30:26 Speaker 02 Two sentences.
30:27 Speaker 03 You're quite in love with the Royal Navy and I think.
30:29 Speaker 02 I'm still thinking about that model of HMS Hood.
30:34 Speaker 03 I am. At the start of the war, the Admiralty and the Royal Navy, they're not really set up to counteract commerce warfare, are they? They're not.
30:43 Speaker 02 No, because they know that the Germans haven't got any U boats.
30:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:46 Speaker 02 You know, they've got, what have they got, 49?
30:49 Speaker 03 A handful, yeah, relatively.
30:51 Speaker 02 And they know that they've been building these warships, which are not designed for, you know, even the Panzer ship, the pocket battleships, they're not designed for commerce raiding.
30:58 Speaker 03 Well, what are they designed for? They're designed for political.
31:00 Speaker 02 Something and nothing.
31:00 Speaker 03 Well, no, they're designed for.
31:02 Speaker 02 They're the halfway house.
31:02 Speaker 03 Political conspicuous consumption is what they're designed for.
31:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:05 Speaker 03 They're designed for the newspapers.
31:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:07 Speaker 03 For propaganda purposes, for the Nazi government. And the cruiser force is spread around the world because that's what the cruiser force is for, after all, is to project the illusion of British imperial power over the world and spread prestige across the planet.
31:22 Speaker 02 It does a pretty good job of that.
31:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, and the destroyers are a little bit old.
31:26 Speaker 02 But there are new ones coming in, but of the kind of, you know, whatever it is, 172, 180, 180 tries, you know, you know, I think only kind of, you know, two dozen are.
31:35 Speaker 03 Brand new.
31:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
31:37 Speaker 02 There's still more than the Germans.
31:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, of course, yes. And they've not that many subs, although they have more submarines. I mean, this is the thing.
31:44 Speaker 02 They've got 57.
31:45 Speaker 03 They've still got more than the Kriegsmarine. So all these, even the things where they're, you know, a bit.
31:51 Speaker 02 Commsy, commsy.
31:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, but then.
31:53 Speaker 02 And they do have aircraft carriers.
31:54 Speaker 03 But then the Royal Navy isn't looking to prosecute.
31:57 Speaker 02 But do you know where the aircraft carriers are at this point?
31:59 Speaker 03 Well, the keels have been laid down.
32:01 Speaker 02 No, no, no, they're in the Mediterranean.
32:02 Speaker 03 Well, yeah, well, there we are, right. Well, then there's new ones coming.
32:05 Speaker 02 Says it all, doesn't it?
32:06 Speaker 03 But there's also new ones coming is the point is the fact that the Germans have not got. Round to building any, the British have turned the taps on with with carriers in the in the last few years, years before the war begins. That's the Excel spreadsheet. Yeah. Of relative strengths. We'll take a break. We'll come back with what Britain's plans and assumptions are and why on earth we're in Norway. We'll see you in a tick.
33:09 Speaker 03 Well, hello there, my leavings. Important news, Father's Day. That's right. Fata Tag is coming up on the 21st of June. And the one thing we know unites dads all around the world is just how much they love the Second World War, World War Two. I mean, come on. So this year, why not buy your dad, yes, an annual membership to the We Have Ways Club. Treat your dad this Father's Day, Fata's Tag, to early access to full series, ad-free listening, bonus episodes, discounted merch, exclusive live streams with me and James Holland, and much, much more. So just head to the We Have Ways of Making You Talk Patreon,
33:50 Speaker 03 on Patreon. So head to We Have Ways of Making You Talk on Patreon and click on Gift Membership. And that gift will land straight in your dad's inbox on the day. Yes, Fata's Tag. Do your bit. Fill your boots and sign your father up right now for World War Two. Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, and the first episode here of the Norway naval battle. Not doing the army battle, too depressing.
34:18 Speaker 02 If you want to hear about the Norway battle, just read the first Jack Tanner.
34:23 Speaker 03 Okay.
34:23 Speaker 02 The Ordnance Mission.
34:24 Speaker 03 There we are. See, we never do the hard sell on this podcast, but.
34:27 Speaker 02 Well, just occasionally.
34:28 Speaker 03 Occasionally.
34:29 Speaker 02 And then I think it carries more weight.
34:30 Speaker 03 So, British assumptions about that take that take Britain into this campaign are to do, you know, the British viewing thinks they're a strategic and economic prism.
34:42 Speaker 02 Yes, very much so. It's about it's about it's about material strength.
34:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, because because if you have great material strength, that's how you that's how you.
34:51 Speaker 02 Well, from a British point of view, you know, Germany can do what it likes in the continent to a degree because it can't get to Britain across the seas.
34:58 Speaker 03 Yes. The pressure points are seen as oil and iron ore.
35:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:02 Speaker 03 Um, uh, and Britain can't do anything about the oils, the German oil supply. But, um, but iron ore is something that you can you can intervene in quite directly.
35:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:13 Speaker 03 Um, because because there's, uh, in Scandinavia, there's a great deal of it.
35:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I think it's really worth just pointing out that because of Germany's geographical situation at the heart of Europe, and because it's been stripped bare by the first, you know, the terms of the First World War, the ending of the First World War, it doesn't have a merchant fleet. It does have a merchant fleet, but it's kind of tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. And of course, its access to the world's oceans comes purely from the Baltic, with its narrow channels and it has to feed into the English Channel or the North Sea, which is dominated by the Royal Navy.
35:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
35:47 Speaker 02 So it's stuffed, it can't, you know, so Britain quite rightly assumes that Germany is going to be really struggling for the kind of resources you need to to protract a long drawn out war.
35:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
35:59 Speaker 02 Which is correct, which is why Germany's trying to protract its war in very quick order. This iron ore supply. Is so crucial for Germany.
36:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
36:07 Speaker 02 Because it can't get it from anywhere else.
36:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it comes from Galevar and Kiruna, the mines in northern Sweden mainly, which is up in the Arctic Circle.
36:18 Speaker 02 Yes, it is.
36:19 Speaker 03 In summer, it's shipped between Sweden and Finland from Lulea, but in winter, this freezes over.
36:25 Speaker 02 Yep. The ship's going nowhere.
36:27 Speaker 03 Yeah. So it comes to Germany along a railway line that's finished in 1982 to Narvik. Narvik is an incredibly important railhead.
36:36 Speaker 02 Yes, and it only emerges as a town really of any significance after this is completed.
36:41 Speaker 03 Norway, of course, is neutral. Norway is not involved in the Second World War at this stage. Because of the leads, it means that German shipping could could stick to the leads, stay in this area and keep out of harm's way, almost the very southern tip of Norway, which the Lufthansa was cover over.
36:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
36:59 Speaker 03 So basically, this further makes Narvik even more important. If the British can get into Narvik and block it off.
37:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:06 Speaker 03 Then that kills.
37:07 Speaker 02 Well, and of all the places where you can have a northern redoubt.
37:10 Speaker 03 Yeah. And this means, though, if the British can can can hold Norway, block it off, then this this will deny the Germans a million tonnes of iron ore a year.
37:21 Speaker 02 Yeah. Well, it's a big thing because obviously during the summer months, they can sort of bring it down through the
37:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:25 Speaker 02 through, you know, they can just
37:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:28 Speaker 02 bring down more, but it's an embrogence.
37:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. And the thing is, this has been on British minds right from the start of the war. Because this is this is how this is how British strategy operates on many levels. It's like, you know, because Britain's a trading nation with that huge attitude, it thinks in those terms. It thinks, you know, where are they vulnerable? Well, iron ore. So and they're making all sorts of overtures and there's a waggle dance going on with the Norwegians on the 11th of
37:54 Speaker 02 Well, and also I think the other thing is, is, you know, the The lessons of the First World War is don't get yourself embroiled in a massive great fight where you're going to get bogged down in trenches and everyone whacking each other like whack a mole, you know, try and defeat Germany through the peripheries and the peripheries is supply. So if you can, if you can sort of strangle the supply chains, it's kind of job done.
38:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. And when you have a navy's powerful, it's easy for you to to fight the periphery than it is for him.
38:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:23 Speaker 03 So on the 11th of November 39, there's an agreement with the Norwegian Shipper's Association that charters the largest merchant vessels in the Norwegian merchant fleet to Britain. And then Norway does do a deal with the Germans on the 23rd of February 1940, agreeing exports from Norway to Germany, which means, so there's a, it's a, it's a bit of a to and fro, isn't it? There's one character involved in this, who is very, very keen on doing what he can to embugger the German effort, and that's Winston Churchill.
38:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:56 Speaker 03 Who's back at the Admiralty, of course, and he wants to mine the leads right at the start of the war.
39:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, in September.
39:01 Speaker 03 Terrible violation of Norwegian neutrality.
39:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he's sort of going to give a what are they going to do about it?
39:08 Speaker 02 He's got a point. Well, they probably might not sign that Shipper's Association.
39:12 Speaker 03 Well, but they may, they may not.
39:14 Speaker 02 November 1939.
39:15 Speaker 03 They may not, and you obviously don't want to force them into the bosom of the Germans. But he's, he right from the start of the war is very like front foot about this and
39:23 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:24 Speaker 03 Essentially.
39:24 Speaker 02 Chamin is not, not, you know, he's worried about betraying neutrality. But also the real problem is is they can't get any consensus with France.
39:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:33 Speaker 02 Who is a formal ally. So, you know, decisions like this have to be made together.
39:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:36 Speaker 02 And this is where Raeder comes into it. He is the big advocate. He is the guy who, who kickstarts the whole kind of Scandinavia project from a German point of view. And on the 10th of October 1939, in a, in a, in a private meeting with Hitler, he suggests, you know, says it would be very advantageous for Germany to take over Norway, you know, could use U-boat bases in the fjords, but it could also protect iron ore trade during the winter months. And also if they do occupy Norway, then Britain can't occupy Norway, which would cause major problems for Germany if Britain did do that. So, you know, it's a kind of sort of plus one minus one thing. So Wegler has written this book in 1929, The Sea Strategy of the, of the World War.
40:17 Speaker 02 Arguing that Germany had made this terrible mistake in not occupying Norway.
40:22 Speaker 03 Right.
40:23 Speaker 02 In nineteen fourteen, nineteen eighteen. And pointed out the prime function of navy is to protect shipping routes and maritime trade. And Wegner argued that by not taking Norway, Britain had been able to impose more thorough economic blockade. Yeah, which is true.
40:38 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:39 Speaker 02 So Wegner is also wedded very much to the theory of of of creating a commerce raiding force. Rather than a battle fleet. So Ra- Raider rather sort of cherry picks Wegner's. You know, theories about naval warfare.
40:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:54 Speaker 02 So he takes the kind of. Yeah, I'm all for taking Norway, but I'm not keen on just having a commerce raiding force. I want to have my double pole strategy instead.
41:03 Speaker 03 Raider keeps chipping away at Hitler and of course the the Germans aren't answerable to any allies either, so they can make a decision on this.
41:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:11 Speaker 03 And on the eighth of December, he again says to says, you know, we should occupy Norway. He says this to Hitler. Directly. And this coincides with the report that Vidkan Quisling. Who is the leader of the tiny National Summling, the National Union Fascist Party.
41:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a minority party.
41:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, exactly. They're they're ready and they will they they're ready to help out with the peaceful occupation of.
41:37 Speaker 02 Yep.
41:38 Speaker 03 Of Norway by the Germans. However, Raider talks to Quisling and.
41:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, they have a meeting and then it gets.
41:45 Speaker 03 Penny drops.
41:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, you're a total loser.
41:48 Speaker 03 Yeah. And Quisling though, in that that meeting says, you know, the Brits have got designs on Norway. But he thinks it's in order to help out the Finns, because one of the other things that's going on, of course, is the Soviet Finnish War. The Winter War, which the British and the French. At the same time as all this are prevaricating about, the French at one point are quite keen on helping, sending soldiers to help the Finns.
42:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:09 Speaker 03 And the British, I don't know about that. And you just imagine if. Slightly different diplomatic course of events.
42:16 Speaker 02 Yes, they've sent they've sent the Scots Battalion down to the Alps.
42:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:19 Speaker 02 To train.
42:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, the the quisling should bring Finland in is interesting because that is the other thing that's going on.
42:24 Speaker 02 But but also, you know, once you start planting a seed of a bold, crazy, madcap idea to to to Hitler, it very soon takes hold.
42:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:33 Speaker 02 So on the twenty seventh of January nineteen forty, a new Sonderstab, a special staff, is being set up at the OKW, which is Oberkommandant de Vermont, the general general staff, in high secrecy to begin detailed planning, and this is the point where it's given its operational code name.
42:48 Speaker 03 Weizel Ruben.
42:50 Speaker 02 Weizel Ruben.
42:51 Speaker 03 Weizel Ruben. And of course, by this stage, it's Hitler's idea.
42:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:54 Speaker 03 And it's on, it's gonna happen, mate. Because that's how it works.
42:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, there's no U-turn now.
42:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's how it works around here. The Fuhrer has a brilliant idea. Oh, has he?
43:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, and by the way, if you think his planning for for for Norway is is la la land, you know, just wait till we get to Barbarossa.
43:10 Speaker 03 So British plans are to land at Narvik and three other points that are given, and that's given approval on the fifth of February.
43:16 Speaker 02 So it's working pretty much in tandem with the German plans.
43:20 Speaker 03 It is interesting, isn't it? They they both draw the same conclusion and they're heading in the same direction.
43:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:24 Speaker 03 British, of course, they're well, they think that the Norwegians loathe Germany and they wouldn't mind at all if Britain lands.
43:29 Speaker 02 No, I mean, there's a sort of terrible arrogance to the British planning.
43:33 Speaker 03 Well, but isn't this, that's the Iraq War, isn't it? That's that's Afghanistan. They're going to welcome us as as their chums and liberators. And then there's the Altmark incident on the sixteenth of February.
43:44 Speaker 02 Which we talked about in our Atlantic War series.
43:46 Speaker 03 We did, when HMS Cossack enters the fjord and comes along the German ship despite protests from the Norwegians.
43:54 Speaker 02 Oh, you can't do that.
43:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:55 Speaker 02 I think I can, old man.
43:56 Speaker 03 And they're jolly well doing it.
43:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:58 Speaker 03 I've done it.
44:00 Speaker 02 And what are you going to do about it?
44:02 Speaker 03 Exactly.
44:03 Speaker 02 Cut along and leave us to it.
44:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, absolutely. As a result, though, this means this means the Germans have got to speed things up. Hitler's now saying we need to speed up and the radar starts to go.
44:13 Speaker 02 Oh, that means my fleet.
44:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly.
44:17 Speaker 02 Maybe I'm not so sure.
44:18 Speaker 03 Can we do it in nineteen forty four?
44:19 Speaker 02 Exactly. Five years too soon. Four years too early. What are you talking?
44:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:25 Speaker 02 What do you what do you mean, boss?
44:26 Speaker 03 The British, do they take two hundred and ninety nine prisoners of war? And this is a firm signal to to the Germans that Britain is interested in Norway.
44:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
44:37 Speaker 03 And for the Germans, it it makes Quisling look like a better bet, doesn't it?
44:42 Speaker 02 Well, it does if you hear that.
44:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. Um, and he wants, he wants to speed things up and make sure that whatever the British are planning, because they must be planning something. So on the twenty first of February, Vezo, Vezoobing plans are accelerated. And General von Falconhorst is appointed as commander.
44:58 Speaker 02 It's so brilliant. So so because all the planning is going ahead for the, you know, for Case Yellow.
45:02 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:03 Speaker 02 The, the, the planned attack in the, in the West, which is sort of, you know, going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth about what they're actually going to do. This is all pre kind of, you know, sweep through the Arden stuff. And, um, and so, so Hitler likes the cut of General von Falconhorst Jim, and so calls about him. Falcon has no idea what he's about to be asked. And Hitler says, says, right, we're going to invade, invade Norway, and I want you to be in charge. He's sort of spluttering, barely knows anything about Norway at all, has to rush out and buy a Beidecker guide. To kind of get a little bit of a briefing on it.
45:37 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:37 Speaker 02 I mean, what, how ridiculous.
45:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:40 Speaker 02 And while he's doing this, Raeder is even more so pulling back on the plans, you know, because he's, he's worried that any invasion is going to bring them up against the Royal Navy. And that, that even if they're successful, he's not convinced that defending the long Weijt, Norwegian coastline is going to be easy or practical. It's over a thousand miles, by the way.
45:58 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you might end up like dumping three hundred thousand soldiers there to defend.
46:03 Speaker 02 Well, even more, maybe four hundred and fifty thousand. I'm getting some really, really big guns. It's quite an investment.
46:10 Speaker 03 Although his staff are saying, well, are we sure the British have got enough people to, to occupy Norway themselves, actually? Um, which is, which is a question worth asking, isn't it? Um, then at the Fuhrer Conference on the twenty third of February, um, so two days after von Falconhurst has been given the gig. Um, Raeder now says that, um, actually, if we maintain neutrality, then we've got a better chance of keeping the iron ore.
46:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:35 Speaker 03 Clear.
46:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:37 Speaker 03 Um, stirring things up is a bad idea. Um, and he says, well, obviously we need to be ready to counter anything the British might do, but, but let's not, let's not over commit here.
46:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:47 Speaker 03 Careful chaps.
46:48 Speaker 02 I've had air on the side of caution.
46:51 Speaker 03 He's right, isn't he?
46:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, but then why did he mention it in the first place?
46:55 Speaker 03 Well, you know, because, because, well, well, this is it. This is part of the problem, isn't it? Is that if Hitler, if Hitler decides he's had a brilliant idea, thanks to your advice.
47:05 Speaker 02 Thanks for your brilliant idea.
47:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:07 Speaker 02 This is brilliant idea.
47:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's his brilliant idea. And so by early March, um, uh, you, you've, again, with the Finn, the Finns are in the picture.
47:14 Speaker 02 Well, the Finns are desperate for help.
47:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:16 Speaker 02 So they're saying, how are we going to, because the only way the British and French can help is by going through Norway and Sweden to Finland.
47:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:22 Speaker 02 So the Finns are going, well, you know, you can get around that. You're not going to be breaking their neutrality. Because Article sixteen of the Covenant of the League of Nations allows the right of transit for troops helping member nations if they're under attack. So it's fine. I mean, yeah. So he's now planning for Ved Ruben to be further accelerated. And by tenth of March, the invasion force is on four days' notice. Which is organised and planned and prepped entirely separate to the planning for Case Yellow.
47:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:55 Speaker 02 And completely separate from the staff, the general staff of the Hira, the, you know, the OKH, the, the army.
48:01 Speaker 03 It's crazy, isn't it?
48:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
48:03 Speaker 03 Um, uh, on the ninth of March, the, um, at the, the Führer Conference, uh, tha- that day, Raider falls into line.
48:10 Speaker 02 Course he does.
48:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, because they always do, don't they? He did, he did warn Hitler of, um, risks the Kriegsmarine in some detail.
48:18 Speaker 02 He can be raider.
48:19 Speaker 03 He says, the operation in itself is contrary to all principles in the theory of naval warfare. According to this, say, it could be carried out by us only if we had naval supremacy. We do not have this. On the contrary, we are carrying out the operation in the face of the vastly superior British fleet. In spite of this, provided the prize is complete, our troops cannon will successfully be transported in Norway.
48:40 Speaker 02 We're gonna get shot on, but it'll all be fine.
48:42 Speaker 03 I, I.
48:42 Speaker 02 I mean, what is it?
48:43 Speaker 03 I, the, we, you know, we've been doing this a long time now, Jim. So often we'll read a thing where the, where. The hedging.
48:51 Speaker 02 That well, also they're saying two completely diversionary things, which in their mind, they seem to have sort of, what's the word? They've kind of sort of worked, they've kind of accepted in their mind that there is this, this, this complete paradox.
49:04 Speaker 03 Cognitive dissonance, isn't it?
49:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
49:06 Speaker 03 I believe this, I believe that, um, at the same time. It is quite extraordinary.
49:10 Speaker 02 Yeah. And you also want that even if they do get there, which it'll be fine, they will get there. The return journey is likely to be very, very fraught because of course they'd have stirred up the hornet's nest and everyone will be off them and blah, blah, blah. But it says the absolute key to the whole thing is operational surprise.
49:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
49:25 Speaker 02 Has to be kept, you know, but how can you keep operational surprise when you've got to travel the sort of length from Brentford, the North Sea and the Baltic?
49:36 Speaker 03 Well, great difficulty.
49:37 Speaker 02 Yeah. But he hasn't bargained on the faffing of the Allies.
49:41 Speaker 03 Ah, yes. Cause this is, this is really.
49:45 Speaker 02 Yeah. I don't want to do down the French.
49:46 Speaker 03 This is the.
49:47 Speaker 02 But.
49:49 Speaker 03 Why not?
49:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, I do.
49:50 Speaker 03 Honestly, this is the faff stage of the war.
49:52 Speaker 02 I was being disingenuous.
49:53 Speaker 03 This is very much the faff stage of the war. You know, the Sitzkrieg, the phony war. It's not called that for no reason.
49:59 Speaker 02 Amazing. And we're going to do a little series on this because that, that, that period, particularly from sort of December, 1939. So post the whole Poland thing and the Tsar offensive, Tsar inoffensive to the Norwegian campaign is an amazing period. There's so much going on, which is so interesting, even though it's not properly sort of kinetic at that point.
50:18 Speaker 03 Yeah. By the beginning of March, as we've seen, the Germans are, they're, they're reaching their point of no return. Um, and the, but the British and the French just can't, they can't.
50:28 Speaker 02 Can't agree.
50:28 Speaker 03 They can't pin the tail on the donkey, can they?
50:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:31 Speaker 03 What it comes down to. Um, uh, they've appointed some, uh, force commanders. So the 59 year old Admiral Teddy Evans.
50:37 Speaker 02 He's quite, he's quite the chap.
50:39 Speaker 03 And he's a former Antarctic explorer.
50:41 Speaker 02 Hello, Teddy Evans, yeah.
50:42 Speaker 03 He, he was on Scott's expedition.
50:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
50:44 Speaker 03 This is.
50:45 Speaker 02 He wasn't in the forward bit, but he was, he was on it.
50:47 Speaker 03 I don't care.
50:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:48 Speaker 03 This is another world, isn't it? We're talking.
50:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, he did a great line in Pulovers.
50:53 Speaker 03 And he's the naval force commander while general, um, and the, the army commander is General Kenneth Maxie.
50:59 Speaker 02 So it's all, it's all. Planned without being greenlit.
51:03 Speaker 03 Yeah. Evans on the 12th of March tells the War Cabinet that he reckons a bold landing in and around Narvik would would at best be welcomed by Norwegians and at worst prompt token resistance.
51:14 Speaker 02 I think he's right about that.
51:15 Speaker 03 Yeah, but it's a bold, it's bold. There's your navy word.
51:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:20 Speaker 03 Get it done.
51:22 Speaker 02 So a bold landing means go there with overwhelming force so that no one's going to actually kick up a sting. And don't forget, it's so far north.
51:29 Speaker 03 There is someone who doesn't like this plan though, and that's the Prime Minister.
51:33 Speaker 02 It is the intention of HM government that your force should land, provided it can do so without serious fighting. Well, I can't guarantee that.
51:40 Speaker 03 Well, so again.
51:41 Speaker 02 You pretty much can guarantee that.
51:43 Speaker 03 But he's doing, he's doing it too. He's going, yes, we'll go ahead as long as.
51:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but.
51:47 Speaker 03 Yes. However, one thing that's definitely changed is by this time that the Finns, it's clear that the Finns, that they can't carry on and they're negotiating with the Russians.
51:56 Speaker 02 They can only wait so long for the French and the British to intervene.
51:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly.
52:00 Speaker 02 You know, if it's not going to happen.
52:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, it isn't going to happen.
52:02 Speaker 02 I mean, you know, it's very much, we stand shoulder to shoulder to the brave Finns, but we're not actually going to do anything.
52:07 Speaker 03 Oh.
52:08 Speaker 02 I know.
52:09 Speaker 03 I know.
52:10 Speaker 02 I know.
52:10 Speaker 03 You know.
52:11 Speaker 02 That's the point.
52:12 Speaker 03 It's a tale as old as time, Jim.
52:13 Speaker 02 Yes, exactly.
52:14 Speaker 03 And the Cabinet have just approved the plans for Norway when news comes in of the armistice between the Soviet Union and the Finns.
52:22 Speaker 02 That's what comes of your FAF.
52:23 Speaker 03 So they can't do the pretext version of this.
52:27 Speaker 02 Of sort of League Covenant of the League of Nations.
52:29 Speaker 03 Yes, we're here, we're here.
52:30 Speaker 02 Article 16.
52:31 Speaker 03 Hello, we're here with Article 16. I'd like to nail it to the town hall.
52:34 Speaker 02 Well, no one told me the Finns has surrendered.
52:38 Speaker 03 Um, so the government then, uh, uh, does what governments do and changes its mind, says, oh, we don't approve of this plan anymore.
52:45 Speaker 02 Well, we have a massive U-turn.
52:47 Speaker 03 Yeah. So, so Norway is off.
52:49 Speaker 02 Yeah. And the, and the fifth battalion of the Scots Guard, he'd been training at Chamonix, are told to come back. Bad show.
52:56 Speaker 03 Of all the people to send to a ski resort. Loads of guardsmen.
53:01 Speaker 02 So farewell to the skis and hello to the train ticket.
53:04 Speaker 03 However, in the meantime, the one person interested in actually fighting the Germans, Winston Churchill.
53:08 Speaker 02 I have an idea.
53:09 Speaker 03 Um, he's really, he starts up again with a mind laying.
53:12 Speaker 02 Pray I might return to this oft-mentioned policy.
53:19 Speaker 03 None but a fool could see that mining the Leeds, the Norwegian Leeds should lead to through their own way by some stroke of fortune as ordained by the almighty.
53:31 Speaker 02 In the dark depths of the mouth of these fjords.
53:37 Speaker 03 And so what? There are so many moving parts here, aren't there? Because the French government then.
53:42 Speaker 02 Collapses again.
53:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
53:43 Speaker 02 So they have their, their um, uh, 19th Prime Minister.
53:48 Speaker 03 Paul Reynaud.
53:49 Speaker 02 Um, yeah, since 1930.
53:51 Speaker 03 But interestingly, he's being a bit more decisive. So he comes in on the.
53:54 Speaker 02 He's quite gung ho.
53:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, he comes on the 21st of March and he approves French cooperation in an operation in Norway. Um, and this is codenamed uh, uh, with a mining in fact. So um, Churchill calls this operation Wilfried. And he thinks that they're better do the mining and make it look innocent.
54:12 Speaker 02 Well, that's why I call it Wilfred, because it's a sort of innocent name. It's really funny.
54:16 Speaker 03 Obviously, the Germans are going to be provoked into action because they're, they're looking for a fight. And the Norwegians would, would just have to suck it up. Um, but this does mean all these sort of.
54:27 Speaker 02 So, so, so, so hang on a minute. So, so we do the lead, we'll mine the leads.
54:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
54:31 Speaker 02 And but it'll be a miner operation.
54:32 Speaker 03 Miner operation.
54:33 Speaker 02 Uh, but that's going to provoke the Germans. So the Germans are going to provoke to do something.
54:38 Speaker 03 Maybe expecting from Herr Hitler. And his Nazi horns. Nazi navy.
54:44 Speaker 02 So that means you then got to think, okay, well, how do we, how do we respond to that? We can't just leave the, the Norwegians to their own devices. So we need to mount an expeditionary force as well. But that's okay, because we're closer to the, to northern Norway than the Germans are and we can, and we've got the Royal Navy. So that'd be fine. So they have a plan, which is excitingly called R4.
55:03 Speaker 03 Disappointing, this.
55:04 Speaker 02 A very disappointing name.
55:05 Speaker 03 Yeah. Troops will land at Stavanger and Bergen.
55:08 Speaker 02 Yep. Which is in the sort of central southern half of, of, of the west coast of Norway.
55:13 Speaker 03 That's two battalions each, um, to sail in four cruisers. There are no assault craft at this time.
55:18 Speaker 02 No, no, sir.
55:20 Speaker 03 No. Um, uh, another battalion will sail for Trondheim.
55:22 Speaker 02 I think an LCA has been trialled at this point.
55:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, but, but, but it's not on the, you know, we're going to fight the war.
55:27 Speaker 02 It's in the Solent and it's kind of not going anywhere.
55:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, we're going to fight the war defensively in Europe. For, um, and here we are fighting offensively in. One battalion is also going to, um, uh, uh, go to Trondheim. Um, they're going to land a couple of days later in transport. And then another battalion, um, in transport, protected by two cruisers, will go to Narvik. And the Narvik force will then, once it's taken the town, will be reinforced.
55:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, it feels like your, your plans for Stavanger and Bergen, which are quite a long way down the coast. I mean, they're kind of, you know how sort of Norway bulges, they're kind of. That feels insufficient to me.
56:03 Speaker 03 Yes.
56:04 Speaker 02 In quite a big way.
56:05 Speaker 03 Yes, well, it'd be like occupying Cardiff and Landedno and thinking that they're.
56:09 Speaker 02 With 130 men.
56:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
56:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:11 Speaker 03 Thinking you've done.
56:12 Speaker 02 Okay.
56:13 Speaker 03 And that their next door.
56:14 Speaker 02 That's what it is then.
56:15 Speaker 03 Well, they're both in, I mean, you know, there's someone with a map going, well, they're all in Norway, aren't they? How far can they be from.
56:21 Speaker 02 Well, the big problem with Stavanger is there is a massive airfield nearby.
56:23 Speaker 03 The second cruiser squadron is going to support this under Vice Admiral Frederick Edward Collins. And their orders are to deal with any seaborne expedition the Germans may send against Norway. But they're only to sail when it's clear that the Germans have set foot on Norwegian soil.
56:41 Speaker 02 This is not great, is it? Let's face it.
56:42 Speaker 03 That's very Chamberlainian, isn't it?
56:43 Speaker 02 Yes. Hedge your bets, do something or nothing, end up kind of just.
56:47 Speaker 03 Worse to both.
56:48 Speaker 02 Worse to both worlds.
56:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, and it's also agreed that they're war Norway and Sweden first and. Point, to point out that the Norwegian Swedish stance is neutral. It's actually helping the Germans.
57:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:02 Speaker 03 And this is obviously.
57:04 Speaker 02 You must see that your neutrality is helping Herr Hitler. Oh, right, okay, yeah, no, actually, when you put it like that, you've got a point. Okay, well, come on then.
57:14 Speaker 03 But and the logic there is that is that Germany stands against independence of the rights of small powers, whereas the British are.
57:20 Speaker 02 Sort of bullying and hexing, isn't it? But kind of without any substance.
57:25 Speaker 03 Well, or not bullying and entering enough.
57:27 Speaker 02 No, this is the point. It's just, it's just not ruthless, is it? It's not, it's just, it's faffing.
57:32 Speaker 03 It's faffing.
57:33 Speaker 02 There's one thing I hate in life, is faffing about.
57:36 Speaker 03 He doesn't like faffing about.
57:37 Speaker 02 I don't like faffing about.
57:38 Speaker 03 No.
57:39 Speaker 02 Come on.
57:39 Speaker 03 Do it with faffing about right now, anyway. But the truth is, is that the German, the German planning doesn't rely on the Norwegians playing ball.
57:48 Speaker 02 No.
57:48 Speaker 03 But the Allied planning does.
57:52 Speaker 02 Yes, there's a sort of disconnect. And this is the moment where Göring's private listening service, the Forschungshand, which we've mentioned before, so for those of you who haven't heard about this, Hermann Göring, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe and president of Prussia, has his own private listening service, his own intelligence service, which is entirely for him and which is sanctioned by Hitler. And occasionally he passes stuff off and primarily it's to kind of keep tabs on his own enemies within Germany and the Nazi hierarchy. But occasionally, when there's something juicy, he passes it on. And he picks up a Finnish diplomatic telegram in March, revealing Allied plans for Norway, which he passes on to Hitler, who then decides to act.
58:37 Speaker 02 So the German plan is ready by the 20th of March. And it's then delayed because of persistent ice in the Baltic, which makes those naval operations impossible. So Hitler is, you know, absolutely cursing and spitting and ranting and raving. But on the 2nd of April, Hitler decides on the 9th of April. And this is as the launch date of Operation Visser Grubung, because this is based on moon and melting of ice and so on. So the operation is going to begin at 5:15 German time and would be One of the richest undertakings in the history of modern warfare. Which is why he likes it.
59:15 Speaker 03 Which is why he likes it, you know. You know, this is a stage of the war where he's gambling and there are possible winnings.
59:21 Speaker 02 But, you know, high risk military gambles with minimal consultation or coordinated planning in any way are very much Hitler's style.
59:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, what we have here is decisive, decisive, insane, uncoordinated action versus
59:35 Speaker 02 Quite well coordinated, but indecisiveness.
59:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. So it's dash or dither. That's your Your choice here, because the Allies are signing off.
59:46 Speaker 02 That feels like a T-shirt, too.
59:47 Speaker 03 That's Dashiell Diver. Yeah, they're signing off their plans at a supreme war council. And the British, they have tons of intel suggesting that the Germans are planning an attack on Norway. Even a report from a neutral minister in Copenhagen on the 6th of April, that a German division has transported in 10 ships and it's due to land in Narvik on the 8th of April. They basically.
1:00:10 Speaker 02 They nailed it.
1:00:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, they've got it nailed, nailed on. But the British don't believe it, who don't believe the Germans have never tried to land so far in order.
1:00:17 Speaker 02 They don't have the navy.
1:00:18 Speaker 03 Absolutely not. They don't have the naval legs for it, do they? Do they, Admiral?
1:00:22 Speaker 04 No, they don't. No, it's an absurd, absurd notion.
1:00:27 Speaker 02 Narvik is ours.
1:00:28 Speaker 04 Narvik is ours for the taking. Should we decide to do so, we will still have decided on it yet in the privates to understand the side of war.
1:00:36 Speaker 02 Dismissed.
1:00:38 Speaker 03 I mean, what's interesting, there is another distraction here, is that the French.
1:00:43 Speaker 02 Finally.
1:00:43 Speaker 03 Paul Reynaud has said, all right, we will mine the River Rhine.
1:00:48 Speaker 02 Because this is, the whole idea is to not just do the leads, it's also do a series of operations. And one of the big ones that they're very keen on is to, the British have been very keen on is to mine the River Rhine, this great farce air of German commerce. But the French have been very nervous about this because they don't want to prompt a reaction against the French. Because they're still, they're still struggling with this belief.
1:01:08 Speaker 03 Why declare war on Germany if you're not going to fight them?
1:01:12 Speaker 02 Well, yes, I know, but you're, you're, you're forgetting General Verlman.
1:01:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:01:18 Speaker 02 You know, the commander of the army of the air.
1:01:21 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:01:22 Speaker 02 And his trip to see Erhard Milk.
1:01:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, I know, I know, I know. They're, they're basically the.
1:01:27 Speaker 02 They're shitting themselves.
1:01:28 Speaker 03 There you are, thank you. That's the historic analysis that you come to this podcast for. They've been on at this for months. De Laddier, Reynaud's predecessor, isn't interested.
1:01:37 Speaker 02 So, so it's all agreed that Operation Wilfred is set for the 5th of April, with concurrently some mining operations on the River Rhine.
1:01:44 Speaker 03 Okay.
1:01:44 Speaker 02 But, but De Laddier, the former prime minister, is now the minister of, or still the minister of national defence. And he and the French Comité de Guerre refused to authorise the mining of the Rhine. There's an impasse. And so Churchill flies over to Paris, he's not Prime Minister, he's just the Admiralty, with Edward Spears, General Edward Spears, who's a great French speaker, been a liaison officer with the French in the First World War, and is a diplomat and was born and brought up in France, he's British. And they go over there to try and change Deladier's mind. And it becomes absolutely crystal clear that Deladier's stance has got nothing to do with the fear of France and everything to do with getting at Renault, who he absolutely loathes.
1:02:25 Speaker 02 And Spear says, the two men detested each other, and Deladier was determined to exert his utmost power to humiliate Renault in every possible way.
1:02:33 Speaker 03 Oh, good.
1:02:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, so it doesn't happen. So Churchill tries to persuade Deladier to change his mind. But the latter tells him that France didn't have an air force to retaliate should the Luftwaffe bomb French cities. Completely wrong about this. France has got plenty of aircraft and as many as the Luftwaffe. Churchill returns to London and advises the cabinet, just go ahead with the Leeds anyway and forget about the Rhine bit. But in all this faffing around, three days have been lost. So the new date is now dawn on Monday, the 8th of April.
1:03:01 Speaker 03 Which is the, of course, as we know from the intelligence they've received.
1:03:05 Speaker 02 Twenty-four hours before the Germans start going around.
1:03:07 Speaker 03 Then fate intervenes.
1:03:10 Speaker 02 Yep.
1:03:10 Speaker 03 Because the Germans are due to land in Denmark or Norway at 5:15 in the morning on the 9th of April. And the British are going to mine the Leeds the day before. So this is it. We're stages set for this great encounter, Jim.
1:03:25 Speaker 02 Well, it is. But obviously, for Wehrmacht to begin on the 9th means you've got to have your troops and see at least by the 7th.
1:03:32 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:03:33 Speaker 02 The task force for this grand invasion is placed into six Marineengruppen, sea groups.
1:03:40 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:03:41 Speaker 02 Naval groups, which requires pretty much the entire Kriegsmarina, including 31 U-boats, which is the entire operational force at that time, and including landings all along the Norwegian coast. It's ambitious, to put it mildly. The Luftwaffe is also to seize by airborne assault key airfields of Fornabu, which is near Oslo, which is now the international airport at Oslo, and Sola near Stavanger on the southwest coast.
1:04:08 Speaker 02 And much of the Kriegsmariner is simply not ready for war in any shape or form. You know, the vessels aren't properly worked up, they're largely untested, the crews are completely green, et cetera. So very, very quickly, Marine Group A, or Eins, is for Narvik with ten destroyers, the aforementioned ten destroyers under Commodore Bontec.
1:04:28 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:04:28 Speaker 02 With two thousand Bergjäger, and supported out at sea by the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and the Knizernow.
1:04:35 Speaker 03 Ah.
1:04:36 Speaker 02 Remember them?
1:04:37 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
1:04:38 Speaker 02 And then there's Marine Group A II, which is for Trondheim, which is a little bit further down the coast, it's a heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, plus four destroyers and seventeen hundred troops, it's commanded by Admiral Gunther Lutze. Oh no, this operation will not work. It will not work, oh dear. Oh dear. And then there is Marine Group A III.
1:04:57 Speaker 03 Yep, which is going to Bergen.
1:04:58 Speaker 02 Aye.
1:04:58 Speaker 03 Um, which is light, the light cruisers Kern and Koenigsberg.
1:05:02 Speaker 02 This is what you want, it's just light cruisers.
1:05:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, and an old cruiser Bremser and some training craft, nineteen hundred soldiers.
1:05:08 Speaker 02 Yep.
1:05:08 Speaker 03 I mean, th- these are, these are bigger deployments than the single battalions that the British are sending as well, is the other thing.
1:05:14 Speaker 02 Just a little bit, yeah.
1:05:14 Speaker 03 Marine Group A IV is going to Christiansen and Arundel, and, um, that's a light cruiser Carlsberg and three torpedo boats and a flotilla of MTBs, they're beginning to scrape the barrel there.
1:05:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you started to spin out, aren't you?
1:05:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, you started off with, you started off with ten destroyers and Scharnhorst and Knizernow, now we're down to basically blokes, um, i- in ribs. Um, uh, the Marine Group A V is going to Oslo, that's the heavy cruiser Bukha.
1:05:36 Speaker 02 Yep, brand new, brand new, not worked up at all.
1:05:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, and the, and the pocket battleship, the Panzerchefel Lutzev, um, the light cruiser Emden and smaller craft with two thousand troops. And then Marine Group A VI, which is going to Eggersund, is four minesweepers and a hundred and fifty men to occupy the caves.
1:05:53 Speaker 02 Uh, Eggersund is just a little outpost, so that's a kind of, you know. But then there are these Trojan Horse supply ships, and this is key to the whole thing. So the idea is it's supposed to look like they're heading back to, they're heading to Murmansk.
1:06:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:03 Speaker 02 You know, these are just, eh, we're just, you know, going to support, I'll get some stuff from the Russians, our allies, our friends.
1:06:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
1:06:09 Speaker 02 Um, but actually, the seven ships are going to pause, a- and they're waiting at Narvik, and another fifteen merchant vessels are carrying three thousand seven hundred sixty-one troops. Six hundred and seventy horses, still need their horses, the Germans. One thousand three hundred and seventy seven vehicles and five thousand nine hundred and thirty five tonnes of supplies. Two tankers, the Katagat and the Jan Velen are sent ahead to Narvik. And the Skaggarak to Trondheim.
1:06:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:36 Speaker 02 And this is essential because obviously Trondheim is further up the coast, Narvik even further up the coast. By the time the destroyers and that force get up there, they're going to be running low and they're going to need to oil. And so these Trojan horses are going to be lying there, ready for them to just refill so they can turn around quick, quick time.
1:06:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:53 Speaker 02 Zip back before the Royal Navy can catch them.
1:06:56 Speaker 03 But Jim, this still sounds pretty good. This is bigger than the current Royal Navy.
1:07:02 Speaker 02 Yes, it is substantially so.
1:07:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, but I mean, nevertheless, compared to, compared to their, their opponent, this is, this is hardly peer to peer warfare because I mean, they, they're much, much, much, much weaker than the Royal Navy.
1:07:17 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:07:17 Speaker 03 They have no carriers, so they can't bring any air with them.
1:07:20 Speaker 02 No.
1:07:20 Speaker 03 Um, they have no actual battleships.
1:07:23 Speaker 02 No.
1:07:24 Speaker 03 Um, it's all a bit, it's all a bit threadbare and that's, and that's everything. That's the whole inventory. Yeah, I mean, if it is a gamble, it's all the chips.
1:07:33 Speaker 02 Yeah. I mean, ready and waiting to go across in stages are a hundred and twenty thousand troops in all, in all, which is not a small amount, but it's not a huge amount either. Um, and all of Fliegerkorps ten, which is twelve hundred aircraft, you know, of which the Allies absolutely cannot compete at all.
1:07:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
1:07:50 Speaker 02 Um, and at the very same time, the British troops ready for Narvik and Trondheim are boarding transports in the Clyde. And Admiral Evans, Teddy Evans, he is hoisting his flag on the cruiser Aurora. And the first cruiser squadron of four cruisers at sea, also destroyers, heading through the heavy snowstorms towards the Vestfiord for the mining of the leads. So do you think the fates are converging for a head on clash?
1:08:15 Speaker 03 I think we've got, what we've got here is a fjordhanger.
1:08:21 Speaker 02 That's good, isn't it?
1:08:23 Speaker 03 Join us on our next episode to find out what happens in this epic naval encounter in the Norwegian waters of World War Two in 1940. If you want to listen to this all in one go, your best bet is to join our We Have Ways Patreon. Go to Patreon, We Have Ways, I'll make you talk, and there we are. Become a member for less than the price of... I mean, when we first put the Patreon up, we talked about how it's less than the price of a pint. It's more like less than the price of half a pint now, the way things are going. We will see you for our next episode. Cheerio.
1:08:52 Speaker 02 Cheerio.
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