Pod Insights WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk Naval Battle Of Narvik: Confusion (Part 2) About this episode Why did the British Admiralty miss a crucial opportunity to attack the Kriesgmarine in Norway? How did HMS Glowworm fire the first shots of the Norwegian campaign? What role did the Polish submarine Orzel play in this spectacular showdown?
Join Al Murray and James Holland for part 2 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 0:02 Speaker 00 Thank you for listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well, plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com/WeHaveWays.
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1:31 Speaker 00 Suddenly, the duty signal came in. Henry took the pad and I could tell by the way his brows puckered that the news was bad. "It's from the sea in sea", he said. "We're to prepare to leave immediately after oiling." "I wonder what the flap is this time", said number one and went up to the bridge to find out. We didn't have to wait long to hear what the flap was. That night, as we formed up in line ahead and steamed out of harbour, we learned that the Germans had invaded Norway and that a large part of their fleet was at sea. The scene when I came on watch the next morning was impressive. We had joined the rest of the fleet. Ahead and on either beam were destroyers, line upon line of destroyers, each keeping perfect station on its next ahead. A stern of us was the main body of the fleet, battleships, cruisers and an aircraft carrier.
2:12 Speaker 00 Flanking the fleet, on the other hand, but stationed six or seven miles away were the scouting cruisers, ready to give warning of the approach of the enemy. That's Ludovic Kennedy, writing in, sub-leutenant of his experiences in the Royal Navy.
2:29 Speaker 00 I mean, the Royal Navy.
2:30 Speaker 02 It makes your chest swell, doesn't it? Line upon line of destroyers.
2:33 Speaker 00 Makes your chest swell. I mean, you're, you're, you're, you've gone fully navy this year.
2:37 Speaker 02 I have, I'm all in.
2:38 Speaker 00 And here's the navy, bounteous in its riches, carving its ways.
2:42 Speaker 02 What was?
2:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, and what shall never be again. Anyway, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk.
2:48 Speaker 02 Don't repress it, repress it.
2:49 Speaker 00 Oh, Jim, we've just got to live with the fact that we don't have a navy anymore.
2:52 Speaker 02 I can't.
2:55 Speaker 02 I just can't.
2:57 Speaker 00 By the way, to all of our Royal Navy listeners out there, we just want you more toys to play with. That's all it is.
3:02 Speaker 02 That's all it is.
3:02 Speaker 00 Simple as that.
3:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:03 Speaker 00 Um, anyway, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland. As you probably realised, this is a naval ex, um, operational, uh, episode, part two of the naval battle for Norway.
3:14 Speaker 02 Which we've tentatively called confusion.
3:16 Speaker 00 Yes.
3:17 Speaker 02 And it is, I think, amazing that after so much allied faffing around and vacillating over Norway, both sides are beginning their offensives at the same moment and both ignorant of the other's plans.
3:29 Speaker 00 It's incredible, isn't it? And, and also.
3:31 Speaker 02 Bonkers.
3:31 Speaker 00 And that, that, that, um, ill-conceived dash, um, uh.
3:35 Speaker 02 Dash and dither.
3:36 Speaker 00 Versus sort of very ponderous, uh, thought through dither have, have arrived in exactly the same place at the same time. It reminds me, I once went sailing a very long time ago.
3:47 Speaker 02 I did.
3:47 Speaker 00 Uh, to, we sailed to Alderney in my uncle's boat and my dad did the navigation by absolute slide rule perfection, charts and all that.
3:56 Speaker 02 Of course he did.
3:57 Speaker 00 Uh, yeah, yeah, cause he went to night school and he'd learned how to navigate properly. And my uncle was very much like, well, that way a bit, one of those, one of those people. And, uh, and we sailed overnight over to Alderney and we ended up exactly halfway between where the two of them had plotted.
4:15 Speaker 02 Did you all have a good laugh about it?
4:17 Speaker 00 We had a great laugh about it, yeah. Well, at least my mum thought it was funny. But yes, so it's dash versus dither.
4:23 Speaker 02 But we should start off, shouldn't we, by, by looking at the not very secret secret operation?
4:26 Speaker 00 Yes, which is what we've got here.
4:28 Speaker 02 So don't forget, Abba Raider has insisted.
4:30 Speaker 00 I insist.
4:31 Speaker 02 The only chance of success is secrecy.
4:34 Speaker 00 Exactly. Although he also thinks it's going to go badly, but.
4:37 Speaker 02 But really well.
4:38 Speaker 00 But really well.
4:41 Speaker 00 But they've not managed, they've not been able to achieve that. There's lots of reports and intelligence reaching the Admiralty of the build up of German shipping is very hard to hide. Build up a shipping, isn't it?
4:51 Speaker 02 Even a bomber going over with leaflets can look down.
4:54 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. And also, you steam past a neutral country that you're going to get reports. There's no two ways about it.
5:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, of course.
5:02 Speaker 00 But of course, if you've got lots of intelligence coming to you, one of the problems is
5:06 Speaker 02 What's real, what's fake?
5:07 Speaker 00 Weighing it, what's important, what's less important.
5:10 Speaker 02 They can't be going to Narvik. No, we're going to Narvik. We're going to Narvik, they can't be going to Narvik. Oh, be quiet, I'm sure we'll be fine. And now if you were to say they're going to Tromso, wow.
5:21 Speaker 00 That's a different matter. But the report about Narvik is, there's information from the Norwegian government that says the Germans are planning to land in Narvik.
5:30 Speaker 02 Yes, there is. And there are also air reconnaissance missions going on the 4th of April, which has spotted Scharnhorst and Neuzer at anchor in Wilhelmshavn. Yeah, I mean, you know, the report is about Narvik is passed on to Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, who is the commander in chief of the home fleet on the 7th of April, but accompanied by the comment, "All these reports are of doubtful value and may well be only a further move in the war of nerves."
5:56 Speaker 00 Well, there we are.
5:57 Speaker 02 Which is basically code for euphemism for, I'd discount it if I were you.
6:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
6:02 Speaker 02 Isn't it? Take it with a pinch of salt.
6:04 Speaker 00 It's of doubtful value and, and if it is anything, it's, it's something we needn't worry about. So, I mean, they really are playing that down. They then get sightings of Marine Gruppen 1 und 2
6:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:15 Speaker 00 Heading northwards up the coast of Norway on the next day, on the 7th. And of course, if, if the Admiralty had gone, right, okay, this is it.
6:23 Speaker 02 Let's act with Nelsonian vigor.
6:25 Speaker 00 They'd have caught them in the open.
6:26 Speaker 02 Yep.
6:27 Speaker 00 And we'd be telling a different story, probably.
6:30 Speaker 02 Yes.
6:32 Speaker 00 Because actually, the Royal Naval Cruiser Squadron at Rosyth would have been able to dash across the North Sea in plenty of time.
6:39 Speaker 02 It is so frustrating because these, these first three Marine Gruppen should have been blasted out of, you know, they should have been sent to the bottom in very quick order.
6:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, but they're not.
6:50 Speaker 02 They're not. You know, what's the point of having an economic blockade and having a superior navy if you're not bringing it to bear? It is, it is terrible. And you know, isn't it better to kind of assume that they are real and be there, ready, waiting for action, rather than to assume they're not and not be ready?
7:06 Speaker 00 Look, Jim, I'm not going to argue. It's compelling logic.
7:10 Speaker 00 I'm not going to agree with that.
7:11 Speaker 02 It's quite frustrating.
7:13 Speaker 00 It is quite frustrating, all of this. There's more mixed reports that German destroyers are heading south.
7:18 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
7:18 Speaker 00 And this means that Forbes brings the fleet to one hour notice, but then stands at the back.
7:23 Speaker 02 The big worry that his worry is that they're not all convinced about the invasion of Norway. What they really think is this might be a major force going out into, breaking out into the Atlantic. And the whole thing is a ruse to get out and attack British shipping, which is obviously vital importance, particularly in the spring of 1940.
7:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:38 Speaker 02 So from Forbes' point of view, he's been given a pretty hard steer by the Admiralty. And the danger is if you dash off over to the Norwegian coastline, then they're going to come around the back and break out into the Atlantic. That's the concern.
7:51 Speaker 00 But that's always, that's always the concern, isn't it? If you're in charge of the home fleet, that is your number one, I don't want to be chasing on a wild goose chase and they get round and out to the Atlantic.
8:01 Speaker 02 Yes, it is. And, and, and reports of going all the way up to kind of Trondheim and Narvik seem ridiculous because why on earth would the Germans be doing that? Because that's so far out of their comfort zone, going that far north.
8:14 Speaker 00 Yeah.
8:14 Speaker 02 Which is why they're disinclined to believe the kind of whole Narvik thing.
8:18 Speaker 00 Right.
8:19 Speaker 02 Even so, it's still.
8:21 Speaker 00 Come on, Jim, say it.
8:23 Speaker 02 I think it's a mistake.
8:24 Speaker 00 It's a mistake. Oh, I thought you were going to go a bit, going a bit hard on that. It's crap. Um, uh, and obviously what, what Forbes is thinking, if I can, if I can have a great big lovely fleet battle, I can wipe out the Kriegsmarine in one go and then.
8:36 Speaker 02 Job done.
8:37 Speaker 00 Job done for, for the rest of the war.
8:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:39 Speaker 00 Then we can get on with our blockade.
8:41 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:41 Speaker 00 Um, the Royal Air Force, as, as you said, they are sending bombers, um, uh, over and they spot enemy ships sailing 70 miles north off Skaggarak.
8:50 Speaker 02 And Skaggarak's right down the south.
8:52 Speaker 00 Yeah. And this persuades Forbes to issue orders to sail at 5:27 PM on the 7th of April, although he doesn't know what the Germans do. So he's, he's, all right, okay. Um, uh, there's some, there's some ships to go fight.
9:04 Speaker 02 It, it's also not helped by the weather, which is truly, truly dreadful.
9:08 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:08 Speaker 02 Even if it's spring.
9:09 Speaker 00 Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, I mean.
9:12 Speaker 02 But that does make that that makes coordinated attacks very difficult because you're pitching and rolling and all the rest of it. And, and, you know, you can't see much and blah, blah, blah.
9:21 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:21 Speaker 02 So.
9:22 Speaker 00 Yeah, and it's it's it's wind, rain and snow flurries. And this is, but this, the thing is, is the weather holds everyone up. It doesn't just, um, uh, make things difficult for you. It makes things difficult for your opponent.
9:32 Speaker 02 Yes.
9:33 Speaker 00 Um, and the big problem for the Germans is their, is their.
9:36 Speaker 02 Trojan horse ruse.
9:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:39 Speaker 02 Of sending these supply ships early into ahead of the assault forces into these ports and harbors. Um, is coming awry. So at Narvik, we mentioned right at the very beginning of episode one, when we had our drop color intro. Only one of the three tankers has arrived, the Jan Vellen, which is why they're taking such a long time to.
9:59 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:00 Speaker 02 Refuel these, um, these ships.
10:02 Speaker 00 Yeah. Meanwhile, though, I mean, okay, for fans of, for fans of battleships of the Second World War. Get your ears around this.
10:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:10 Speaker 00 Forbes is in the Rodney, with the second battleship, the Valiant, the battle cruiser, um, Repulse. There's the cruisers Sheffield and Penelope and ten destroyers.
10:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:20 Speaker 00 Off Shetland, standing to, uh, block any breakout into the Atlantic. So that, that, there you go, the, now we're, now we're rolling. Uh, second cruiser squadron, um, with eleven destroyers is heading towards Stavanger. First cruiser squadron is still at Rysyth with troops aboard, waiting for orders to sail to Stavanger and Bergen. Also off the Shetlands is the eighteenth cruiser squadron with Manchester Southampton accompanying a convoy headed to Norway. But they, they'd been, um, they'd already been turned back. So, but you've got, what you've got here.
10:50 Speaker 02 Is a shitload of.
10:53 Speaker 02 Shitload of warships that can really cause some serious damage.
10:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, and also, um, Admiral.
11:00 Speaker 02 Not forget Whitworth.
11:01 Speaker 00 Whitworth in renown.
11:02 Speaker 02 Yep.
11:03 Speaker 00 Um, who's, um, who's now at the Leeds, um, uh, mind laning, mind laning.
11:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he's got a dozen destroyers because he's got, got Warburton, Lee's five, and then he's got a further six at least, I think, round him. He's got the fourth and the twentieth.
11:16 Speaker 00 Okay, but it's on one ship we must focus.
11:19 Speaker 02 HMS Glowworm.
11:20 Speaker 00 HMS Glowworm, I mean, I.
11:22 Speaker 02 What a story this is.
11:23 Speaker 00 Well, I'm, uh, you know, first things first, I'd rather be on hostile.
11:29 Speaker 02 You'd be the same.
11:31 Speaker 00 But Glowworm is one of Admiral Whitworth's force. And interestingly, they've been, they've been held up because they've been looking for a man who's been swept overboard. They don't, oh, darn no. But it's that strange serendipity of that delay because of that fellow falling overboard that results in, on the dawn on the 8th of April, Glowworm is west of Trondheim, heading north at speed to catch up with Whitworth's force. And first light comes. It's an empty Stormtoss Sea with a visibility end to a few miles.
12:08 Speaker 00 Right.
12:08 Speaker 02 Glowworm's crew, they're stood down from dawn action stations because no one's expecting anything at this point. It's filthy weather, expecting empty seas, but no sooner in the lurching wetness of mess decks when there's a cry from the lookout. Ships ahoi! And the dim shape of a destroyer looms in the squall and then disappears again. I mean, it's all very master and commander, isn't it?
12:31 Speaker 00 Yeah.
12:33 Speaker 02 But identified in that brief glimpse as German.
12:38 Speaker 00 It's Jerry, sir.
12:39 Speaker 02 I'm sorry, sir, but I've just spotted a Jerry destroyer.
12:42 Speaker 00 Then, then another one.
12:43 Speaker 02 Very well. Then another one. And immediately, because Glowworm has got the shadow of Nelson on his shoulders.
12:51 Speaker 00 Of course, yes.
12:52 Speaker 02 What does he do? There's two, two German destroyers, which are bigger than you, because all German destroyers are bigger, because they're trying to overcompensate for something. And he turns straight into them, takes them on. And Glowworm is commanded by Lieutenant Commander Gerard Rup, who's 35 years old. He's a veteran of the Royal Navy, he's a proper old sea dog, doesn't hesitate, does he? Just goes straight for it.
13:15 Speaker 00 No, but his nickname is Ardover, because he has a habit of issuing quick and dramatic alterations, of course.
13:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, of course he does.
13:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:24 Speaker 02 Ardover! Go on.
13:26 Speaker 00 So as a result, Glowworm, HMS Glowworm, which is not a good name, fires the first shots of the Norwegian campaign against Yakovin.
13:35 Speaker 02 It's good that it's us.
13:36 Speaker 00 Yeah, it is. Of course, of course it is. Hits her at least once.
13:41 Speaker 02 Get in there.
13:47 Speaker 02 Doctor Ramsay.
13:49 Speaker 00 And then, um, uh, the German destroyer, of course, thinks, oh shit, it's the Royal Navy and does what it ought to do, disappears into the mist.
13:57 Speaker 02 Yes.
13:58 Speaker 00 As the first two salvos from the 4.7 inch guns scream across the open sea.
14:03 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:03 Speaker 00 Then the second destroyer appears again and glow worm fires again.
14:08 Speaker 02 Of course he does.
14:08 Speaker 00 Oh God, I love it.
14:10 Speaker 02 The destroyer's running all over the place, there's incredibly high swell, but shots from glow worm are accurate enough to make the German destroyer's manoeuvre frantically at high speed. I mean, they've got, they've got troops on.
14:20 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:20 Speaker 02 They don't want to be macking around with this. So the second German destroyer is a burned von Arnim, much bigger, much more heavily armed, and it plunges and rolls so dramatically and so, um, so quickly that she nearly capsizes.
14:32 Speaker 00 Bloody hell.
14:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, but that's what happens when you've got shit crew. So they're, but, but they're clearly, they just, they don't want to engage at all. They just want to get to their destination. But not far away is the heavy cruiser, the Admiral Hipper.
14:46 Speaker 00 Oh, here we go.
14:47 Speaker 02 So Roop senses that the enemy is trying to lead them on to something more powerful. He doesn't have any idea that the Hipper is nearby, but he also knows that the Admiralty needs to know exactly what German units are there. So he's got, he's got to get eyes on them, even if he's not going to take them on. I mean, he could have just disappeared into the sea, couldn't he?
15:06 Speaker 00 Well, he could have done, he could have, I'm sorry, you're breaking up, um, uh. He could have done all that, didn't he?
15:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, he could have done all of that.
15:14 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:14 Speaker 02 But no, he's got Nelson on his shoulder.
15:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:16 Speaker 02 And five miles away to the northwest, through the gloom, spray and mist, the glow worm suddenly spots a huge shape. And this is the heavy cruiser, the Hipper, with her eight big guns and a very thick armour.
15:29 Speaker 00 Yep.
15:31 Speaker 02 And normally you'd think that Roop would just try and shadow the big German, but these are not normal times, of course.
15:37 Speaker 00 No.
15:37 Speaker 02 And he's got Nelson on his shoulder.
15:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:39 Speaker 02 Engage enemy more closely.
15:41 Speaker 00 Yeah. So he decides, what with the bad weather.
15:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:44 Speaker 00 The best thing to do is to, um.
15:46 Speaker 02 Fight.
15:47 Speaker 00 Fight.
15:48 Speaker 02 One against three, giving one a cruiser.
15:50 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's very strong. And the Hipper is a heavy cruiser.
15:54 Speaker 02 It's a big boy.
15:55 Speaker 00 Obviously they've lied about what she weighs. It's the tale as old as time, isn't it?
15:59 Speaker 02 Six, 16 plus thousand pounds.
16:03 Speaker 02 Breathing in.
16:04 Speaker 00 Um, but she's sixteen thousand tons, she's got eight eight inch guns, twelve hundred five mil guns, twelve torpedo tubes. Interesting, isn't it, the the the Germans, these ships have to sort of do everything, they've got two torpedo tubes as well.
16:18 Speaker 02 And thirty two anti-aircraft guns.
16:23 Speaker 00 Expecting trouble.
16:25 Speaker 02 She's bristling with weaponry.
16:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, she's literally bristling, bristling with weaponry. And she's from Marine Grippe Zwei, who's headed to Trondheim. And she's got troops on board.
16:34 Speaker 02 Yep.
16:34 Speaker 00 Because the Germans have to double everything up. And so she opens fire on the glowworm. And hits her first go with an eight inch shell.
16:44 Speaker 02 But does that pull off, does that pull off Rup?
16:46 Speaker 00 No.
16:48 Speaker 02 No, in the glowworm, little glowworm.
16:50 Speaker 00 No.
16:52 Speaker 02 If he's right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have you.
16:54 Speaker 00 Okay, lay smoke. Yes, sir.
16:58 Speaker 00 All right, sir.
16:58 Speaker 02 Laying smoke.
16:59 Speaker 00 Laying smoke. Torpedoes, bow. And so he decides to put in a torpedo attack.
17:05 Speaker 02 Carry on, number one.
17:08 Speaker 00 Um, uh, uh, but she keeps being hit, the the hippos gunner is pretty good. And even to the point where there's a shell.
17:14 Speaker 02 Annoyingly so.
17:15 Speaker 00 Yeah, the shell that wipes out the ship's surgeon's sickbay party.
17:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:19 Speaker 00 I mean, and then, and this is like, this is, again, this is like something for, this is a bit on the nose, the writing here is a bit on the nose. She's hit again and her radio antennas are, um, smashed. And the ship's steam siren is jammed on.
17:33 Speaker 02 So it's just screaming.
17:35 Speaker 00 Throughout the rest of the action.
17:36 Speaker 02 Hmm.
17:37 Speaker 00 We're sorry to report the loss of the first dog of the Second World War.
17:41 Speaker 02 Yep, yep.
17:42 Speaker 00 Rup's, uh, uh, uh, dog, who was sitting between his legs on the bridge. Killed by shrapnel, but the captain is untouched.
17:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's awful, isn't it?
17:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's awful. It's too, it's too on the nose that, though. I mean, if people quit the podcast as a result of a dead dog, I'd understand. Um, uh, the British public. Luckily, finally, the Admiralty draw the right conclusion.
18:04 Speaker 00 That the Germans are going for Norway, it's on. And then, oh god, you do this bit because it's too depressing.
18:10 Speaker 02 Yep. So Glowworm's finished the vital work and now she's got a, you know, but she's in the middle of it, you know, there's no escape. So she might as well make the best of it. So in two attacks on the Wild Seas, all 10 of the destroyer's torpedoes missed. And I should hasten to add that this is no reflection on poor gunnery.
18:28 Speaker 00 No.
18:28 Speaker 02 On the part of the crew of HMS Glowworm. He's just incredibly difficult when it's the swell is as high as you really want. You don't have to have flat seas, but it makes it very, very difficult. His little ship's hit again. There's a large fire raging in the engine room and this is where he has Yoda Nelson speaking in his ear and saying, ram her, ram her.
18:51 Speaker 00 Oh god.
18:53 Speaker 02 And so, so, you know, clearly Glowworm's fate is sealed. There's no escape from this.
18:59 Speaker 00 No.
18:59 Speaker 02 But he just thinks, right, I'm going to ram it. So burning and ripped by eight inch shells, the Glowworm painfully alters course towards the hipper. And Roop turns to his helmsman on the battered bridge and calmly says, ram her. And Roop's little ship was still capable of 20 knots and he sent her straight into the side of the hipper. And in the violent seas, the Germans, the German helmsman can't answer quickly enough to avoid the Glowworm's charge. And the collision jams Glowworm's prow deep into the cruiser's starboard flank, just behind her anchor, ripping away some 130 feet of her armoured side.
19:37 Speaker 00 Yes.
19:38 Speaker 02 And the big cruiser survives, but she's listing and has more than 500 tonnes of icy North Sea waters weighing her down on a massive hull. So Glowworm drifts away from the wounded enemy, listing badly. A massive pall of black smoke pouring from her guts. A torrent of German shells hammered the sinking destroyer. Glowworm begins to settle by the bow as the fire in her engine grows increasingly worse and even with his ship sinking beneath him, Petty Officer WTW Scott, commanding the ship's last serviceable gun, is still firing and still hitting the hipper. And Roop is calmly smoking a cigarette on his bridge, knowing that the time has come to save as many of his crew as possible, so he gives the order to abandon ship.
20:22 Speaker 02 "All right then, men, abandon ship." And his crew begin to seek the dubious safety of the icy water.
20:29 Speaker 00 Well, and then she explodes and capsizes in the, um, there and then, I mean, and those of her 145 man crew who are not already dead or badly wounded, they, they do what they can in the cold water and obviously there's fuel oil on the, on the surface of the sea. And Roop is now on the ship's keel.
20:51 Speaker 02 And he turns to the petty officer and he goes, "Wow, we're not going to be playing cricket again for a while." I mean, yeah. How marvellous.
21:02 Speaker 00 Then Captain Helmut Heyer of the hipper, he does, he does a decent and in fact the right thing, doesn't he? Heaves two and he picks up as many of the survivors as he possibly can, even holding the ship downwind so that, so that he can get the job done. And Roop was one of those who pulled himself onto the ropes and he, it's awful, this isn't he? And he's obviously shattered, he's exhausted and he's halfway up and a raging wave sweeps up and plucks him off the ropes.
21:30 Speaker 02 That's it.
21:31 Speaker 00 And he's gone. 31 of Glowworm's crew survive. One survivor says, "Next thing I remember, I woke up in a bunk in the German sick bay and there were a couple of German sailors rubbing me down with towels, getting all the oil off me. They congratulate us on a good fight. We must have injured a lot of them in battle as I looked to another part of the sick bay, which was full of German sailors."
21:48 Speaker 02 And Heyer later sends a message to the Admiralty via the International Red Cross, singling out Roop's gallantry. And it takes a while, but Roop is given a posthumous VC in July 1945.
22:00 Speaker 00 My incredible story.
22:02 Speaker 02 Amazing.
22:03 Speaker 00 Well, we'll take a break while you all, um.
22:06 Speaker 02 Digest the tragic story of HMS Bellman. The heroic story of HMS Bellman.
22:11 Speaker 00 Recalibrate yourselves emotionally and we'll see you in a tick after these announcements.
22:22 Speaker 03 Here we are getting a statement from Number Ten. On that flight, with 350 passengers on board.
22:31 Speaker 04 The Great Game: Strategic Struggle Between Britain and Russia.
22:39 Speaker 05 We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian.
22:45 Speaker 06 Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.
22:50 Speaker 04 Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, you want to play, or not?
22:56 Speaker 01 You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing!
23:03 Speaker 00 We would need to understand the policy context.
23:06 Speaker 04 All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, disseminated into an operation order, or FRAGO. A FRAGO that says to kill the President of Russia.
23:19 Speaker 00 Yes.
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24:06 Speaker 00 Well, hello there, mine lieblings! Important news, Father's Day, that's right! Fatataag 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 II, 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
24:47 Speaker 00 Patreon 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 II.
25:07 Speaker 00 Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, I'm Marion James Holland. I'm feeling very manful, Jim.
25:11 Speaker 02 Manful and moved.
25:12 Speaker 00 Manful and moved. I've been moved in a manful way.
25:17 Speaker 02 It's an extraordinary, I mean, that is insanely courageous, isn't it?
25:20 Speaker 00 It's got literally everything in it you could possibly want. Why would you?
25:23 Speaker 02 Why would you ever make anything up?
25:24 Speaker 00 And why are you not interested in the Second World War? Is, you know, look someone in the eye and tell them this story. Incredible. Anyway, so as confusion is the title of this episode, so it is all, the picture's unclear, but at least.
25:38 Speaker 02 Most unclear.
25:39 Speaker 00 At least, at least Glowworm has let the Admiralty know.
25:43 Speaker 02 What is going on?
25:44 Speaker 00 What seems to be going on.
25:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:45 Speaker 00 And although the hippos, she's not out of action, but she's sort of limping along.
25:50 Speaker 02 She's in big trouble, but, but, but she can still go.
25:53 Speaker 00 Yeah. And at this point, the two Marina Gruppe break up. Eins goes to Narvik, Zwei goes to Trondheim. And Admiral Forbes, in the meantime, has picked up Glowworm's signals and so sends off Repulse and Penelope, cruisers, and four destroyers to try and make contact with the enemy, while Whitworth takes the Renown south to join with Evans and the rest of the cruiser force. So, I mean, basically, he's, he's, he's doing what he can, basically, to, to meet this German threat now.
26:28 Speaker 02 Um, so the weather is still absolutely filthy and that, that is making any kind of offensive operations really, really difficult. And the Admiralty takes the unusual step of countermanding Forbes. This is Dudley Pound.
26:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:41 Speaker 02 You know, this is not good and ordering eight destroyers that have been mind-laying to rejoin Renown. Also, Whitworth is told that the previous day's intelligence about Narvik might have been true after all.
26:54 Speaker 02 So Whitworth then decides to break off his search and head back to Vestfjord.
26:59 Speaker 00 Okay. So Forbes is now absolutely convinced that the German invasion of Norway is underway.
27:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, but you still got, what are you gonna do?
27:06 Speaker 00 I mean, this business of the Admiralty countermanding and issuing fresh orders.
27:11 Speaker 02 Well, from London, they're not there.
27:13 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, it's quite strange.
27:14 Speaker 02 Anyway, but, but you know how no one ever mentions the Poles?
27:18 Speaker 00 No one ever mentions the Poles.
27:20 Speaker 02 Never talk about the Poles.
27:20 Speaker 00 They never get talked about.
27:22 Speaker 02 First blood is to them, though.
27:23 Speaker 00 Oh, oh, well, we're gonna have to talk about the Poles then. Keep it brief, though, right?
27:28 Speaker 02 They get really, really close and then they shoot them. Um, because they've got visceral hatred.
27:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:34 Speaker 02 So, um, Command and Chief of the submarine service is Vice Admiral Max Horton.
27:38 Speaker 00 Right.
27:39 Speaker 02 Later western approaches, of course, but this time he's, um, he's a, he's a submarine man.
27:43 Speaker 00 Am I right in thinking he's the only Jewish admiral in the ranks of the Royal Navy?
27:47 Speaker 02 You may well be, I don't know. I've never thought about it.
27:49 Speaker 00 I think he is.
27:49 Speaker 02 Maybe. Anyway, he's a good egg.
27:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
27:51 Speaker 02 He is one who has absolutely anticipated the German invasion, so he's been waiting and ready. Because they've, you know, they're all right at sea, they're his subs, and they're out in the North Sea and out in the narrows of, um, of, um, Skaggarak and all the rest of it. And he's got three subs in those narrows, which is a bit between, you know, Denmark, straight to Denmark and, um, and Norway. And he's got a further six on order, have been ordered to, to come and, um, lie and wait at Oslo and Stavanger. But the Admiralty again has interfered and sent them to the Heligun land bite. You get, what are they doing? You know? This is micromanagement of a very, very bad order.
28:30 Speaker 00 Yeah.
28:30 Speaker 02 And also, the British submarines are still at this time held by restricted warfare on shipping. I mean, this is absolutely bonkers because the Germans aren't.
28:39 Speaker 00 Hmm.
28:40 Speaker 02 And proof, so, on day one when they sunk the Athena.
28:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, but we're the good guys, is what's going on here.
28:45 Speaker 02 So, so what, what restricted warfare means is they've got to surface, challenge, give warning, let the crew abandon ship, and then you fire and sink it.
28:55 Speaker 02 What?
28:57 Speaker 00 Oh, well, we win in the end.
28:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'll also drop leaflets. I mean, come on, guys.
29:05 Speaker 00 Throw leaflets into the sea from the submarine. So on the 8th of April, midday.
29:10 Speaker 02 Yep.
29:11 Speaker 00 The Polish submarine Orzel surfaces near Skagarak to challenge a large steamer in the Skag... I mean, it's amazing they persuaded the Poles that they need to do this as well.
29:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
29:21 Speaker 02 You're amazing, isn't it?
29:22 Speaker 00 Isn't that incredible?
29:23 Speaker 02 You're on our side and it's our rules.
29:24 Speaker 00 Yeah, if you want us to refuel your submarine, old boy.
29:27 Speaker 02 Play ball.
29:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, play ball. It challenges a large steamer in the Skagarak, heading north. And this is identified as a German transport ship, the Rio de Janeiro.
29:36 Speaker 02 Very German, is it?
29:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, clearly that. And Orzel orders it to evacuate the crew and passengers. And then torpedoes and sinks it.
29:44 Speaker 02 Yep. Good night, Charlie.
29:46 Speaker 00 Yeah. Norwegian fishing boats and the destroyer help rescue the crowded lifeboats, which are on there, which are full of German troops who are on their way to...
29:55 Speaker 02 Protect Bergen.
29:56 Speaker 00 Protect Bergen.
29:59 Speaker 00 I think this is amazing as well. This is announced by Reuters. But still, the British and Norwegian governments don't take this for what it is. And the...
30:08 Speaker 02 I mean, you've got to say, what the heck, haven't you?
30:10 Speaker 00 You really do. You really, really do. Well, you could say, you could...
30:12 Speaker 02 You could say worse.
30:13 Speaker 00 You could say worse, Jim, but we're not going to. This is a family podcast. There might be people with their children in the car right now. What the heck? So, but the, so the German government don't alert their coastal defenses, nor do they signal mobilisation.
30:28 Speaker 02 Why not?
30:30 Speaker 00 Well...
30:30 Speaker 02 I mean, I want to, you know, I just want to shout codename Cromwell at them.
30:34 Speaker 00 Yeah.
30:35 Speaker 02 I mean, you know, what the heck? I mean, what are they thinking?
30:38 Speaker 00 Well, they're not, they're not thinking, are they? They don't want to believe it's true.
30:41 Speaker 02 It can't be true.
30:42 Speaker 00 Can't be true. Around the same time, HMS Trident is on patrol in the northern Skagarak and intercepts a German tanker Posidonia with 8,000 tonnes of fuel on board for the U-boats at Stalingrad. They do the same thing. They challenge the ship. They let the crew get the lifeboats and manage ship, and then they sink it.
30:58 Speaker 02 Bye-bye.
30:59 Speaker 00 Eight thousand tonnes of U-boat fuel.
31:01 Speaker 02 But this Admiralty, yeah, yeah, which they're not going to get anywhere else. So the Admiralty micro management is, is, is really hard to justify, I think, or excuse. But, but the reason they are micro managing is because of their paranoia about a breakout into the Atlantic.
31:18 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:19 Speaker 02 Because however important Norway is, it's not as important as, as you know, going across the Atlantic.
31:24 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:24 Speaker 02 It's the theory.
31:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:26 Speaker 02 So at this moment, Forbes is still in, in the dark about the incident, about this, this
31:33 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:34 Speaker 02 attack, when a patrol flying boat reports an enemy battle cruiser, two smaller cruisers and two destroyers briefly in a gap in the cloud around two P M, west, north west of Trondheim and steering out to sea. This is the hipper force. And it's obvious just manoeuvring at the time. So this is before
31:52 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:53 Speaker 02 The glowworm incident.
31:54 Speaker 00 Glowworm.
31:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And incredibly, the news of the Rio de Janeiro sinking is not passed on to Forbes either. So he doesn't get that news until ten fifty five P M. Zulu.
32:05 Speaker 00 Zulu.
32:06 Speaker 02 Yeah. So there's a massive opportunity for Forbes to head directly towards Trondheim is missed, largely due to the slow processing of intelligence.
32:14 Speaker 00 Yeah.
32:15 Speaker 02 And Admiralty, the Admiralty stuck in their bunkers in London, not drawing the right conclusions. And on the flimsy detail of a brief sighting of German warships by a Sunderland. I mean, it's just not good enough, is it?
32:27 Speaker 00 No, but the second, second cruiser squadron, um, uh, I mean, if they'd been dispatched at the right moment, they'd have, they'd have got to.
32:34 Speaker 02 Intercept the force.
32:34 Speaker 00 Intercept the force.
32:35 Speaker 02 A massive great ding dong. And, and just think how, how, you, you know, the Germans would have been fighting with a hand behind their back because they're covered with troops.
32:42 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:43 Speaker 02 Because they're thinking, oh, we can't kill all these troops, so we have to kind of dodge all these shells, kind of manoeuvre out of the way, which is then going to make them more vulnerable.
32:48 Speaker 00 Yeah.
32:49 Speaker 02 They'd be out, they would have been slaughtered, I'm sure.
32:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Forbes is also, he's, he's not got any, um, carriers. Because Courageous had been sunk the previous year. Um, Art Royal and Glorious are both in the Med. The only one, uh, at all local is Furious, but she's in the Clyde and she's not, not operational, fully operational. And even with their walruses, they're shag bats.
33:14 Speaker 02 Well, they can't see much because it's, you know, it's ten, ten cloud.
33:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, because the weather's too bad. And, uh, on the afternoon of the eighth. I mean, the eighth of April is a vastly consequential day, isn't it? Forbes is still steering north west.
33:28 Speaker 02 So just to just to just to reiterate, that is away from Norway.
33:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, he's doing north west. He's doing away from Norway. During the Bismarck chase, we had a lot of steering in the wrong direction, didn't we? Steaming, steaming off that way. We're going this way now. Um, uh.
33:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:43 Speaker 00 And then in the afternoon, the Admiralty.
33:45 Speaker 02 It's sort of just started to feel a bit habitual, isn't it?
33:47 Speaker 00 Yeah, or, or, you know.
33:50 Speaker 02 Can't buy it, you're better than this.
33:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, usual, isn't it? The sort of usual. Anyway, the Admiralty gives Forbes a message that Plan R four, they tell him in the afternoon, it's been abandoned.
33:59 Speaker 02 Well, I think that's sensible at this stage.
34:01 Speaker 00 Yeah, and that the first cruiser squadron is now disembarking all its troops troops at Rossyth.
34:05 Speaker 02 But obviously if it's disembarking troops, then it can't be out at sea.
34:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's some, there's some argument about who's.
34:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, traditionally in all the books, it says that Churchill gave this order without consulting the Admiralty and just did it. Um, but, but actually it's not, it's not true at all.
34:18 Speaker 00 Right.
34:19 Speaker 02 It was entirely pound.
34:20 Speaker 00 Right. It was not me. Yeah. For him. And, and the, uh, the, the troops, of course, if they got to Trondheim ahead of the Germans, they'd have been in a season.
34:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, Trondheim is one of the ones that's really north, so it's, it's Narvik, then Trondheim, then Bergen, then Stavanger.
34:34 Speaker 00 But.
34:34 Speaker 02 Kind of north to south axis.
34:36 Speaker 00 That's a counterfactual we can't entertain. And Admiral, Admiral Evans takes down his flag from the Aurora and sails on to Scapa Flow.
34:43 Speaker 02 Not needed anymore.
34:44 Speaker 00 Yep. So, um, the whole of.
34:47 Speaker 02 You can sit this one out, Teddy.
34:48 Speaker 00 Yeah, the whole of that invasion fleet is then, is then given to Forbes, including the eighteenth cruiser squadron.
34:53 Speaker 02 Right.
34:54 Speaker 00 And Forbes is, Forbes is annoyed. He thinks that had they, had they set sail, had they gone, had they invaded, they'd have been successful. Um, and they could have got to Trondheim and probably even Stavanger. And there's the, as there's an airfield at Stavanger, which is the crucial bit, isn't it? For building, building people up.
35:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
35:13 Speaker 00 So there's another, there's another missed chance here. So the Allied, just as Allied plans were characterized by Dither, Allied action is characterized by Dither as well.
35:21 Speaker 02 Yep.
35:21 Speaker 00 Except for, um, Lieutenant Commander Roop. Anyway.
35:26 Speaker 00 Um, Forbes is also getting news that the Nizan hour or the blue car plus some cruisers and destroyers have got into the category, which is the channel leading into Bergen.
35:34 Speaker 02 Yep.
35:34 Speaker 00 So he thinks, right, okay, that's where the action is.
35:38 Speaker 02 Yep.
35:39 Speaker 00 We'll head that way. And he turns south at eight, at eight P M. But he's been.
35:43 Speaker 02 My goodness.
35:43 Speaker 00 I mean, it's just this old bit. No, go the wrong way, wrong way, turn around, about turn.
35:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:50 Speaker 00 And he knows that he knows he needs to get everyone together to protect, uh, to prevent successful landings on the west coast. But once again, I mean, it's just. The Admiralty saying they intervene and null his orders.
36:04 Speaker 02 I think it's fair to say that, that, that Forbes and Pound do not see.
36:08 Speaker 00 They don't see eye to eye, do they? Yeah. Although Pound seems to have seen eye to eye with nobody so far.
36:14 Speaker 02 No.
36:15 Speaker 00 In the, in this, in this story. And so he's ordered to take the first, second cruiser squadrons, um, east to rendezvous with the rest of the home fleet, a hundred miles east of the coast at dawn on the ninth of April, rather than, um, a sweep between Bergen and Stavanger.
36:30 Speaker 02 Yeah. And, and again, you know, it means that Forbes has got a hand tied behind his back. I mean, Forbes actually is pretty good.
36:35 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:35 Speaker 02 And he is not being allowed to handle his forces as commander in chief of the home fleet in the way that he thinks he should, which is, you know, it's unforgivable. It's really bad meddling.
36:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:45 Speaker 02 It's not how you do things.
36:46 Speaker 00 No.
36:47 Speaker 02 Anyway, by dawn on the ninth of April, the German assault forces are now, all six of them are now nearing their objectives and pretty much dead on time, you know, which is poor from the Royal Navy's point of view.
36:58 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:58 Speaker 02 And at dawn, Admiral Whitworth, who's the mind leading, in, in the leads, you know, he's doing the mining operation up near Narvik, his force of HMS Renown and the nine destroyers, they spot the, uh, Nizan hour and Sharn horse and a destroyer force in the gales, rain and stormy seas off Narvik, you know, off the Vestfjord, and both sides immediately go into action. And the British destroyers are struggling to keep up, but the collective weight of the aggressive British fire persuades the Germans that they're facing a much stronger force than is actually the reality. And so they disengage and skulk off south. And by this time, Nizan's fire support system has been destroyed by British shells, while the Sharn horse has had both its forward turrets flooded by heavy seas. It was actually not
37:42 Speaker 02 really designed brilliantly for this kind of weather.
37:44 Speaker 00 No.
37:46 Speaker 02 But further to the south, much further to the south, the invasion is now underway. This is the extraordinary story of the Bluka, which is another heavy cruiser.
37:54 Speaker 00 Yeah.
37:54 Speaker 02 Like the Admiral Hipper, which is going, heading up towards Oslo. Um, and this is just extraordinary.
38:03 Speaker 00 Yes, because the, the, um, uh, they haven't mobilised, the Norwegians, have they?
38:07 Speaker 02 No.
38:07 Speaker 00 They haven't, they haven't, um, authorised their navy to open fire on foreign warships.
38:13 Speaker 02 No.
38:13 Speaker 00 Either. However, fear not, there are some Norwegians, um, uh, who aren't gonna, who aren't gonna wait to be told.
38:22 Speaker 02 No.
38:22 Speaker 00 And the first of these is a fellow called Wilding Olsen, who's an officer in the Norwegian Navy Reserve. He's the captain of a small patrol boat called the Pole III. Two hundred and fourteen tonnes, a whaler is basically, um, which is stationed at the entrance to Oslofjord. Now, he sees, I mean, this is so, so cool. He sees these enemy ships looming, the hulks of these gigantic enemy ships. It's around eleven, eleven, uh, o'clock at night on the eighth of April. And he challenges them.
38:55 Speaker 02 Who goes there?
38:56 Speaker 00 Gets no reply.
38:58 Speaker 02 Yep.
38:59 Speaker 00 So goes into action with his lone gun and the.
39:03 Speaker 02 Germans fire back.
39:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, obviously. And Pole III is overwhelmed very quickly, she's on fire. Olsen is mortally wounded, but not before he too has rammed and badly damaged the German torpedo boat Albatros.
39:15 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:16 Speaker 00 Ramming speed.
39:18 Speaker 02 Well, he's, he's run straight into, into Marine Group of Five.
39:21 Speaker 00 Yeah.
39:22 Speaker 02 Fünf.
39:23 Speaker 00 Yeah.
39:23 Speaker 02 Commanded by Admiral Oscar Kometz on the Bluka. And alongside a second heavy cruiser, the Lutze, and the light cruiser Emden. And Kometz, having got past, past Pole III, pushes on towards the shore defence islands of Voi and Bollern, where the defenders merely shine searchlights and fire warning shots, but otherwise let them pass. It's not good, is it?
39:48 Speaker 00 No.
39:49 Speaker 02 A controlled minefield has been planned by the Norwegians, uh, just up ahead, but the Norwegians haven't got around to laying it.
39:55 Speaker 00 Oh, I wouldn't plan to lay them. My field, yeah.
39:58 Speaker 02 So Komet's force passes on through and then pauses to transfer assault troops into smaller craft to attack the Ryo and Ballen from the rear and others are also detached to attack the undefended naval base at Horton. And only one Norwegian ship there, the mine layer, the Olef Trigvassen, which opens fire and forces the torpedo boat Albatross to completely retire. Albatross is getting it in the neck and has had enough, really frankly. Anyway, then Komet's forces pushes on until they reach the critical drawback narrows, which I've sailed through.
40:31 Speaker 00 Right. Excellent. And are they very narrow?
40:35 Speaker 02 They're pretty narrow, yeah.
40:36 Speaker 00 Pretty narrow. Six hundred yards wide, so that's nothing.
40:39 Speaker 02 It's not very wide.
40:40 Speaker 00 No. Um, and there's two islands in the middle.
40:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a third of a mile, isn't it?
40:44 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's a fortress on these islands, Oscar's Borg Islands.
40:49 Speaker 02 Yes. And it's a big for, you know, this is a major thing. And so basically you've got this island in the middle of it. And you've got to go one side. So then it's really, really narrow. And these are the, you know, it is ridiculous that you would send a heavy cruiser through this. Because if it's manned and they're waiting, you're gonna be toast.
41:07 Speaker 00 You've had it.
41:09 Speaker 02 I mean, I remember just sailing through this, just thinking, what were they thinking? But what they're thinking is, they've got no choice in matter.
41:15 Speaker 00 Yeah.
41:16 Speaker 02 It's been signed off by Adolf.
41:17 Speaker 00 Yeah.
41:19 Speaker 02 Anyway, so the Germans are, you know, they are aware of the fences here, but, but they haven't, they just think, oh, well, you know, what can we do? We've just got, just got to go for it. But why would you have your brandest, newest, heaviest cruiser? Wouldn't you send, you know, a few smaller vessels there first?
41:38 Speaker 00 Well, no, because you, you, you don't know what you're doing. You're the cruise mariner.
41:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, but you'd, that's what you'd think, wouldn't you?
41:43 Speaker 00 Yeah, you'd think.
41:44 Speaker 02 You know, and if in fact, then you, then you land people ashore and you attack it from shore first. So you don't risk your, your heavy cruisers. Anyway, you know, the Blukka is so new, it hasn't raised full steam, hasn't been worked up. It's got a largely new crew who are untested and all the rest of it. And the fort does open fire at point blank range with its 28 centimetre guns, and the first strikes hit the Blukka's aircraft hangar, starting an uncontrollable blaze immediately. Another shell then damages the steering gear, sending the ship towards the shore at Keholm. More shells hit it. So basically the ship's just gone, it's just sat there, stuck, can't do anything. And the ship is, goes to a standstill, being absolutely pummeled. Then the fortress fires
42:24 Speaker 02 several torpedoes, which has got torpedo tubes there on the fort, which also hit. I mean, they can't miss, they can't possibly miss. And of course, it's not great being each swell in the narrow confines of the fjord.
42:39 Speaker 02 That's right. The torpedoes is absolutely amazing because there's all these sort of elderly, you know, reservists in the Norwegian Navy. And they've just spent the last 15 years polishing these, these torpedoes. So they kind of glide through the water, polished brass, so there's no problem at all. And they hit the main engine, starting yet more fires. And, and, and the Blukka is listing and burning. There's frantic efforts to save her, but, but to all, to no avail. And the more earlier hours of the, of the night of April, it's, it's, you know, it's toast, basically. The blaze spreads through to a magazine for the 105 or the 10.5 centimetre guns. And at 6:30 a.m. the magazine blows up. What do you do? Abandon ship, Jim.
43:21 Speaker 02 Yep. It's the only thing you can do. And soon after that, the Blukka capsizes and sinks at 7:23 a.m. with a loss of more than a thousand men. Jeebus. Meanwhile, the Lutze has also been hit, at least 11 times, badly damaged. And with the Emden, they retreat back down the fjord. So the troops have then landed on the eastern side, still some way from Oslo. These then attack the fort, eventually forcing its surrender later that afternoon, after which Group Five is then able to continue. But, but this action does help delay the assault on Oslo, which allows the royal family to escape, along with the nation's gold reserves. Which is a story we must do, one of these days.
43:58 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:59 Speaker 02 It's absolutely incredible, that story.
44:00 Speaker 00 Yeah.
44:01 Speaker 02 And in the meantime, Oslo is captured by the Falschen Jäger around midday, along with that crucial airfield at Faunabu, now the Oslo International Airport. It's nuts. Honestly, I remember sailing through these narrows, the Dravot narrows, looking at the fort and just thinking, this is absolutely insane to try and send a heavy cruiser up through here. You know, a couple of destroyers, why can't you send a couple of destroyers out front and test the water?
44:25 Speaker 00 Hmm. It's, it's ma- it's absolute madness.
44:28 Speaker 02 Insane.
44:29 Speaker 00 Yeah. Meanwhile, Marine Gruppe Fia, Group Four, not to be confused with Group Four Securitas, was headed to Christiansand on the southwest of Norway. And they're led by the cruiser Karzera. And Group Four is protected by thick fog. So they're, they're able to sort of arrive by stealth.
44:50 Speaker 02 Yep.
44:51 Speaker 00 And they get to the entrance of the fjord at quarter to four in the morning, but it's not until six that they dare risk coming in, see what they can do.
44:58 Speaker 02 Well, there's, you know, there's rocks sticking up and all that, so you don't want to be doing that if you can't see anything.
45:03 Speaker 00 Yeah. And they then receive extremely heavy, accurate fire from Norwegian shore batteries. So the Karzera turns back.
45:13 Speaker 02 Yep.
45:13 Speaker 00 Then the Luftwaffe are called in to bomb the batteries. That doesn't actually work.
45:17 Speaker 02 No.
45:17 Speaker 00 So Group Four have to retreat a second time. I mean, this is all, this isn't going very well, is it, for the Germans?
45:24 Speaker 02 No, no, no.
45:24 Speaker 00 And Captain Riva on the Karzera, he attempts to land troops to attack the batteries, but there's more fog. So it's not until 11:00 in the morning that fog actually disperses. And at this point, I mean, this is some skull duggery here.
45:40 Speaker 02 Poring.
45:41 Speaker 00 The battery commander gets a message, British and French destroyers coming to your help. Do not fire. He believes this and stands his men down. And of course, it's German ships. It's a ruse.
45:50 Speaker 02 It's a ruse, the Schwein.
45:52 Speaker 00 It's absolute 100% Schweinhunt behaviour, that.
45:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, total.
45:55 Speaker 00 Total Schweinhunt behaviour.
45:57 Speaker 02 British people don't behave like that.
45:58 Speaker 00 No, we absolutely, we never do anything like that at all, James. And by 5pm, the town and its defences have been overrun, but chiefly because of this absolutely. Ghastly, ungentle.
46:09 Speaker 02 Dastardly.
46:10 Speaker 00 Dastardly, ungentlemanly act.
46:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, poor him.
46:12 Speaker 00 Then at Stavanger, the Norwegian destroyer, the Sleipner, had picked up a radio warning from the Pole III.
46:21 Speaker 02 Yep, down in the Osso Field.
46:22 Speaker 00 That means that when a merchant ship approaches the port, the captain of the Sleipner opens fire and sinks her. And this is one of these German. Yeah, good, finally. This is one of these German Trojan Horse ships, supply vessels. So that's a banjaxt.
46:36 Speaker 02 Yep.
46:37 Speaker 00 That plan. That ship also had a load of flak guns on board.
46:42 Speaker 02 Not anymore.
46:42 Speaker 00 Not anymore, for when they captured the airfield at Stavanger. And the Germans do then seize the airfield later in the day, Faustian Jaeger come in and take it. But this is all unraveling, isn't it?
46:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:54 Speaker 00 The German naval component, has to be said.
46:56 Speaker 02 Yep, it is, but they are getting all the men aboard on shore eventually.
47:00 Speaker 00 Yeah.
47:00 Speaker 02 Without too much interruption for the Royal Navy, unfortunately. I mean, you have to say that this whole thing is unbelievably high risk, which of course is exactly what radio has been worried about. But on the other hand, the Royal Navy can't be absolutely everywhere and intelligence at the start of war is really poor. And the flurry of signals and messages is just not being effectively processed. Or passed on. And so on one level, it's not really surprising that Forbes is literally all at sea. And it's not being helped by the fact that there's basically two chiefs. There's Forbes at sea, who's going to chief the home fleet, and there's the Admiralty.
47:33 Speaker 00 Yeah.
47:34 Speaker 02 And the Admiralty needs to kind of sort of back off, really. But anyway. And also, of course, the weather is just.
47:39 Speaker 00 Weather's diabolical, yeah.
47:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
47:41 Speaker 00 Well, you've had rough sea and fog, so in the open sea gunnery is very difficult, fog.
47:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, so Germans are very lucky on that front.
47:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, because the fog helps them at Bergen with Marines Gripper III. If it had been clear, they'd have been seen coming, but they're not, as they. They're clearing the southwest corner of Norway, they're they aren't seen.
48:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, you know, and you have to think, well, Vice Admiral Frederick Edmund Collins's second cruiser squadron is only sixty miles away at this point, which is, you know, not very far really. So two cruisers and eleven destroyers should have made easy work of Group Three, could have absolutely ravaged it. Again, for that problem that they're, you know, Group Three's got lots and lots of troops on board.
48:20 Speaker 00 Yeah.
48:20 Speaker 02 Makes it very difficult, you know, because th- th- those troop ships are underarmed and slow and all the rest of it, but anyway, but they're not spotted. So the fog clears only well after darkness and that enables Group Three to approach the Korsfiord on the approach to Bergen at two AM.
48:35 Speaker 00 Yeah.
48:36 Speaker 02 They're lit up by searchlights and challenged, but the KMS Koen, a light cruiser identifies herself as HMS Cairo. That's a, I mean, how much gold dugger Ian Swinehun behaviour can you have?
48:49 Speaker 00 Full schwein, these are absolutely, these Germans are absolute rotters.
48:51 Speaker 02 And so he's allowed to pass. I mean, it's the oldest trick in the book, isn't it? Then it's challenged at four thirty AM by a Norwegian destroyer and the German supply, I am proceeding to Bergen for a short visit and allowed to pass.
49:03 Speaker 00 Oh, short visit, come on in then, he's just stopping for a short visit, Jim. Don't worry, we haven't been mobilised or ordered to fire anybody. Yep. And they they stop at Bythjord, near the entrance to Bergen, to disembark troops and they they attack the shore battery at Kavaven, south of the town.
49:19 Speaker 02 Yep.
49:19 Speaker 00 And then they press on and they reach Bergen, although the guys at Kavaven, before they're overpowered, they have fired three eight-inch shells at the cruiser Koenigsberg. Smashed her up a bit.
49:30 Speaker 02 Yep.
49:31 Speaker 00 But by by nine o'clock in the morning, Bergen has fallen.
49:35 Speaker 02 And then finally, Group Two, which is Admiral Hipper and her destroyers, which is still damaged after the attack by the Glow One, but opting for speed and steaming straight into Trondheim. At twenty-five knots. So the shore gunners aren't well trained, they struggle to hone their searchlights and the entire German squadron gets through before the gunners can fight their rage. So the coastal forts hold out for two days, but Trondheim itself surrenders without a shot. But what of Narvik, of which we started this series, this was unquestionably Raider's biggest gamble. The assault group had the greatest distance to travel, was the most vulnerable and arguably the least well defended for potentially the most vital prize.
50:16 Speaker 02 There's no heavy ships, there's no cruisers, there's no Panzer Schiffer. You know, and this is the all-important railway and port that supplies the iron ore mines of northern Sweden. So how are they going to fare out? Will Captain Warburton Lee's understrength force of destroyers manage to take on Commodore Bonté's destroyer force? What do you think?
50:33 Speaker 00 Well, I mean, we're looking at a Royal Navy whose attitude is to ram the Admiral Hipper. Exactly. Use the fleet. It's, uh... It's only going to go one way. I think it's fair to say.
50:49 Speaker 02 That's a fuelled hangar, if there was one.
50:51 Speaker 00 That's another fuelled hangar. That's two fuelled hangars in a row. Thanks very much for joining us. If you want, if you need to be put out of your agony right now, go to the We Have Ways Patreon, become a member.
51:00 Speaker 02 And get so much more besides.
51:01 Speaker 00 Exactly.
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51:04 Speaker 00 Audiobook extracts.
51:05 Speaker 02 Audiobook extracts, extra episodes.
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51:24 Speaker 02 All.
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51:33 Speaker 02 Cheerio.
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