Ships Graveyard

Half of the German destroyer force died at Narvik

By the time night had fallen the guns were silent so too the fjords; but Narvik was aflame in several places, with the wrecks of at least three ships still on fire. The harbour was indeed a ships graveyard with wreckage scattered over a large area; it was all around wherever one looked.

Explosions had tossed parts of a ship ashore and wrecked the pier; other buildings including the new refridgeration plant had been destroyed by the two days of fierce battle.

There were the remnants of the German destroyer force. "it was the strangest sight I had ever witnessed," wrote the mayor Theodor Broch. "I felt as though I were walking around the playground of a huge monster who had suddenly tired of his toys. The whole inside of a warship seemed to be strewn around."

Battles at Narvik Norway 1

Warspite was better equipped

Now at anchor off Narvik, the Warspite began to receive wounded from the destroyers; her sick bay was better equipped to cope with the number of casualties. At least 40 operations were performed by the battleship's surgeons.

"You knew this was definitely for real," recalled one, "especially when a young fellow asked me to cover his legs because they were cold." The stoker agreed, even though his legs had been blow away.

Also transferred to the flagship was a handful of German prisoners. They didn't to AB Banks surprise, "have two heads, nor had they horns or cloven hooves," They were, rather, "just seamen like ourselves."

To his shipmate Donald Auffret, however, the captured enemy lived up to every stereotype of a Nazi. "They though this defeat at Narvik was only a temporary thing - Germany would win in the next six-months."

Loften Vaagso Norway 2

German propagander was wrong

Germany calling, Germany calling. The nasal voice of William Joyce - Lord Haw Haw - was laced with hatred as he addressed the British people on Berlin's English-language propagander station. "We said we would get H.M.S. Cossack and we have," he sneered. "She is lying a blazing wreck in Narvik harbour and her captain is dead." He was wrong on both accounts.

Cossack the destroyer was stranded until high tide in the small hours of the morning; where she made her way to the sheltered waters of Skjelfjord. Dubbed Norway's Scapa Flow by Churchill - near the western tip of the Loften Islands, there she was joined by Eskimo and two covering destroyers.

Norwegian locals helped the ship's company to patch up Cossack; in gratitude, the sailors threw a tea party for them. The destroyer eventually limped into Portsmouth - but only thanks to her crew continuously bailing out water that was flooding in on the way.

As for her 'dead' captain, Robert St. Vincent Sherbrooke, he would be the scourge of the Nazis once more; confounding the German Navy in the Barents Sea on New Year's Eve 1942. He received the Victoria Cross for his actions that day.

Norway 3

The most classical destroyer action ever

Eskimo too was repaired; she spent six-weeks in Norway, first in Skjelfjord, and then at Harstad. She was towed to England and taken to Barrow, where shipwrights found the corpses of her sailors still trapped in her mangled forecastle. Yet within a month Eskimo was back at sea where she rejoined the Home Fleet.

And so the second Battle of Narvik ended and like the first it was a British victory; both would go down in history as overwhelming British Naval victories. It was classic destroyer action, perhaps the most classic destroyer action ever?

For two vessels lost, four damaged and 188 dead, the Royal Navy scythed German's destroyer fleet in two. it would be a negligible factor when Britain and Germany squared up to each other across the Channel in the high summer of 1940.

Norway 4

News of the massacre reached Berlin

When news of the massacre of the German destroyer force reached Berlin, the mood of Naval-Chief-of-Staff Admiral Otto Schniewind was observed; he was seriously depressed; he wrote in his diary: Ten of our modern destroyers - half our powerful and urgently-needed destroyer force - are shot-up, damaged or destroyed. For our forces, Narvik has been a mousetrap.

The 2,500-plus surviving crew members joind their mountain infantry comrades on land and fought alongside of them for the next two months. Some helped hold the iron ore rail line; others performed guard duties or maintained equipment.

Nazi propagander proclaimed their work ashore was 'heroic' but for the crews it was different; pessimism had crept in, one stated: "Everything we are doing here is a waste of time." They knew that things could go belly-up very quickly - through personel bitter experience.

The Knight's Cross for German Commanders

Nearly 300 Norwegians went down with their coastal ships, Eidsvold and Norge. Six days after the ships destruction, the bodies that had been recovered were laid to rest with full military honours.

One German claimed: "Our Navy fought to the last shell and the last torpedoe, our Naval Staff should be filled with pride." His speech was more suited with the Nazi ideal of a heroic death on the battlefield.

The Narvik warrior - would in time, receive the German Narvik Sheild. It was one of the few decorations for a specific battle; which was unusual because the Germans were besotted with granting awards.

The force Commander Friedrich Bonte, posthumously earned Germany's highest award the Knight's Cross. Survivor Erich Bey Second-In-Command also received the Knight's Cross for Narvik. - perhaps it was a Nazi smokescreen to cover up his failings. He would rise to command the Scharnhorst - and he would go down with her at the North Cape on Boxing Day 1943.

Wrecks around the fjords of Narvik

U-64 never reached the scrapyard; her wreck was raised in the late 1950's for breaking up. It sank under tow off the Norwegian coast. No-one has tried to salvage the twisted remains of the George Thiele. To this day her bow protrudes from Rombaksfjord waters, resting against rocks at the water's edge.

Other German wrecks around Narvik - the Willhelm Heidkamp, Anton Schmitt, Hermann Kunne, Diether Von Roeder are popular with frogmen. Not so the remains of the Eidsvold, Norge, and Hardy. All are off limits to divers.

For nearly 70 years, one wreck at Narvik proved elusive. Warships plough these waters regularly - almost every year the Royal Navy can be found Ofotfjord conducting winter exercises. As the wargames reached their climax, the Norwegian minehunter HNoMS sailed up and down Ofotfjord, searching for dummy mines.

HNoMS's echo sounder picked up the hull of a sunken vessel nearly 1,000 feet below; she sent down her robot mini submarine to investigate. The pictures it beamed back were cystal-clear, the ship's badge still discernible in the gloom, the ship's name was unmistakable; it was H.M.S. Hunter.

H.M.S. Albion hoisted the flages with the message used that day at Narvik: - Continue engaging the enemy - Then a procession of warships formed a line and sailed past the wreck's site. Each ship paid her respects by casting a wreath into the icy waters and pouring a tot of rum over the side. As the force left Ofotfjord behind, the Aldis lamps all flashed into life as a final tribute their message was: FAREWELL WE'LL MEET AGAIN.

Royal Navy Ships Graveyard

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