Authors: Anthony G Williams
‘Periscope depth; Slow ahead both.’
The view through the periscope showed a cluster of destroyers making for their listing charge.
‘Down periscope: Fifty feet; Steer two-seventy; Half ahead both.’
The
Seawolf
slipped away, back to the safety of the North Sea.
Fornebo airfield was a scene of organised chaos as the Ju 52s landed, were frantically unloaded by teams of soldiers and took off again; a steady stream of
lorries
shuttling supplies into Oslo.
Messerschmitt Bf 109s from the nearby Kjeller airfield cruised high overhead, guarding against surprise attacks from the Reapers which had lived up to their name in the terrible toll they had already taken of the vulnerable transports.
The Gefreiter sat at the controls of the Flak 38, 2 cm cannon pointed skywards, and watched over the scene idly, with a professional soldier’s ability to relax when opportunity presented.
A sudden change in the note of the circling fighters caused him to look up in surprise, to see them racing away to the south; they must have spotted some of the marauding British fighters.
As they disappeared over the horizon he relaxed back into his seat and looked again at the airfield, just in time for sudden, rapid movement to catch his eye.
He sat frozen for a second then shouted ‘Achtung! Achtung!’ and swung the Flak cannon around towards the sleek twin-engined aircraft racing across the field at tree-top height, their bomb-doors open.
The first three planes were already past before he was ready but he centred the fourth in the Flakvisier and sent a deadly stream of cannon-fire into its path.
The plane staggered, debris flying from it, then fell onto the airfield, ripping through a collection of Ju 52s before exploding at the edge of the field.
A sudden silence fell and the Gefreiter looked around cautiously.
Curiously, there appeared to be no other damage; had the other planes not dropped any bombs?
He thought back and recalled seeing many small objects falling from them.
An unloaded Ju 52 revved its engines and taxied to prepare for take-off, the pilot anxious to leave the field before more bombers arrived.
A sudden blast under one engine blew off the undercarriage and the plane lurched to a halt, the wing crumpling as it hit the field.
As the Gefreiter watched in astonishment, another blast caused earth to erupt over some stacked supplies at the edge of the field.
The hundreds of mines scattered by the Mosquitos, fitted with combined contact, tamper and time-delay fuzes, closed Fornebo and other key airfields for a vital twenty-four hours.
The Captain stared out into the night, cheeks burned by the strong wind blowing through the slit windows in the armoured conning tower as
HMS Renown
steamed due east at thirty knots.
The Coastal Command radar report of movements south from Trondheimsfjord had been received nearly three hours earlier and the huge battlecruiser was straining to make the interception.
Further out to sea, her sister-ship
Repulse
was escorting the aircraft-carrier
Furious
as she prepared to launch a dawn bomb and torpedo strike on the target.
‘Radar contact, ships bearing fifty-five degrees, range forty thousand yards.’
The enemy ships – they could be no other, at this time and in this place – were evidently hugging the Norwegian coast as much as possible as they made their way to the safety of German waters under the cover of the night.
The Captain was determined that they would not escape.
He made some calculations.
‘Inform me when the range drops to twenty-five thousand, or if they change course.’
Assuming the enemy force was travelling south along the coast at around 25 knots, they were on a collision course and should close to fighting range in about twenty minutes.
The Captain moved to sit in his chair, and waited.
Aboard the
Furious
, there was quiet activity as the Beauforts were ‘bombed-up’, half with 2,000 lb armour-piercing bombs, the other half with 18 inch torpedoes.
A flight of Beaufighters stood on the flight deck, ready to repulse any air attacks as the short night ended.
One by one, the Beauforts were lifted up onto the windswept deck and moved into position behind the catapults.
They would launch at first light.
Forty miles away, dawn was breaking as the call finally came: ‘Targets bearing fifty-five
degrees,
range twenty-five thousand yards.’
The Captain felt the tension surging as he ordered action stations and forced himself to relax.
‘Can the gunnery radar separate the targets?’
‘Yes sir.
One smaller vessel in the lead, one larger return in the centre, then two other smaller targets on the flanks.’
A classic defensive pattern.
The latest intelligence reports indicated that the large ship was almost certainly the pocket battleship
Graf Spee
. The Captain took a deep breath.
‘Engage the largest target.’
A brilliant flash split the night as the four forward fifteen inch guns opened fire at high elevation; their colossal blast was felt rather than heard.
A long minute followed as the shells, each weighing nearly a ton, took their ordained ballistic path through the night.
Then a message from the gunnery radar: ‘Shell splashes, two hundred yards over.’
The heavy guns fired again, the start of a tactical battle between the gunnery officer, trying to guess where the target would be a minute later, and the enemy ship’s captain, trying to guess where the next salvo would fall.
But all the time, the range was shortening, and the odds improving in favour of the hunter.
Soon, the battlecruiser would be able to swing to starboard and bring all six heavy guns to bear. With its lower speed, thinner armour and smaller guns, the pocket battleship was doomed.
Three torpedoes from a spread of four struck the starboard side of
HMS Furious
as the first flight of Beauforts was preparing for take-off.
The old ship was not designed to withstand the blast of the powerful warheads and the crew of the
Repulse
watched in horror the scene revealed in the dim morning light as the
Furious
listed slowly away from them, aircraft sliding off the deck into the sea.
Two of the escorting destroyers raced away to sea, vengefully hunting down the hidden U-boat, as the others drew alongside the stricken carrier to take off the crew.
The captain of the
Repulse
watched the scene grimly and with a heavy heart ordered his ship to turn away.
With an enemy submarine in the area, he could not risk stopping his valuable battlecruiser to help.
He ordered a course to rendezvous with the
Renown
.
‘Cease fire!’
The silence that followed the order was eerie after the half-hour of deafening gunfire as the
Renown
engaged the pocket battleship and her escorting destroyers with both main and secondary armament.
The
Graf Spee
was sinking, the destroyers disabled and burning, as the big ship turned away.
There had been warnings of submarines in the area and the Captain wanted to put as much distance as possible between his ship and the scene of battle before the flames and smoke brought unwelcome visitors.
‘Message from
Repulse
, sir.’
The seaman handed him the message apprehensively and the Captain glanced at it quickly.
The
Furious
, gone!
He looked at the paper numbly for a moment then turned to order a course to the rendezvous.
‘Radar report, sir.
Aircraft approaching from the south-east.’
That had to be the Luftwaffe.
‘Warn the Gunnery Officer to prepare for air attack.’
The
Renown
, like her sister-ship
Repulse
, had been extensively modified before the war and was well-equipped to deal with enemy aircraft.
Apart from improved armour protection both ships had been fitted with a new secondary battery of sixteen 4.7 inch dual-purpose guns in twin mountings, together with their associated triaxially-stabilised radar-assisted directors to provide accurate fire-control of targets moving in three dimensions.
Any aircraft penetrating the first line of defence had to face a formidable battery of 40 mm Bofors guns.
The Captain felt confident as his ship prepared for action.
In the 4.7 inch turrets the crew sweated to clear away the last of the semi-armour-piercing shells used to engage the destroyers, and waited to receive the time-fuzed high-explosive anti-aircraft shells.
The 62 lb shells and the brass-cased propellant charges were delivered separately from the shell-rooms and magazines below the turret but were put together in a setting tray beside the breech.
At the last possible moment, a fuze-setter at the front of the loading tray automatically adjusted the time fuze to explode at the calculated position of the enemy aircraft, then the shell and case were tipped into the loading tray behind the breech, from which they were driven into the chamber by a spring-powered rammer.
The breech-block slammed shut and the gun was ready to fire.
A practised crew could fire fifteen shots per barrel per minute, until they dropped with exhaustion.
‘The aircraft have separated into two groups, sir.
One group is staying at high
altitude,
the other is diving to low altitude.’
‘Bombers and torpedo planes, I expect.
Concentrate on the torpedo
planes,
they’re the most dangerous to us.’
‘Yes sir, they’ll arrive first anyway.’
The Captain moved to the bridge wing and looked aft for the pursuing aircraft.
He saw the small shapes silhouetted against the early morning horizon.
‘Junkers Eighty-eights, I think,’ someone commented.
The Captain ordered the ship to make a small turn to port in order to allow all of the secondary armament on that side to bear.
As the ship steadied on her new course, the 4.7s suddenly erupted into rapid fire and a few seconds later the air around the planes became speckled with HE bursts.
With all eight guns firing at a combined rate of two rounds per second, the Captain calculated that over 7,000 lb of HE shells were exploding around the aircraft each minute.
First one, then another of the shapes trailed smoke and fell into the sea.
A third exploded instantly from a direct hit.
As the survivors approached, the Bofors guns joined in the barrage, each gun firing at 140 rounds per minute, their tracers streaking menacingly over the sea.
One plane hit the sea in its efforts to avoid them, two others collided.
The remainder dropped their torpedoes at extreme range and turned for safety.
The crew cheered as the ship turned back onto its course, away from the torpedoes.
‘Sir, the bombers!’
The bridge crew looked up at the shapes high above, already being engaged by the starboard battery.
‘Dornier two-one-sevens, I think.’
The Captain focused his binoculars at the planes, brilliantly lit by the morning sunshine which had yet to reach sea level.
As he watched, smaller shapes detached from the aircraft, falling rapidly away.
They seemed to be trailing smoke.
The ship heeled as the helmsman threw it into a steep turn to avoid the bombs, which still had a long way to fall.
The Captain watched incredulously as the bombs turned in their flight to follow them, trailing their smoke.
He suddenly realised what was happening.
‘Hit those aircraft!
They’re guiding the bombs in!’
Even as he spoke, he realised that it was too late.
The first bomb, suddenly looking hideously massive, hit amidships.
It punched through the armoured deck and detonated a fraction of a second later in a boiler room, sending steel fragments slicing through decks, bulkheads and boilers, causing a massive explosion as the boilers burst.
The second bomb landed directly alongside the ship and exploded underwater, staving in the torpedo protection.
As the Captain watched in horror, a third bomb struck aft, penetrating through the ship and detonating immediately forward of the rudder, wrecking the steering and inner propeller shafts and opening the hull to the sea.
The ship shuddered to a halt, crippled, and the Captain realised instantly that this close to enemy-held territory, she would never make it back to port.
All he could do was save as many of his men as possible.
The reconnaissance Beaufort swept down the Ofotfjord towards Narvik in the dawn light, weaving through the flak bursts from the Kriegsmarine ships and drawing a hail of small-arms fire from the Gebirgsjäger positions around the town.
The observer calmly gave a running commentary over the R/T:
‘Four destroyers in the Ofotfjord off Ballangen, ten miles from Narvik, guarding the access from the sea.
One cruiser in the Herjangsfjord about one mile north of Narvik; two destroyers in Rombaksfjord to the north-east.
Infantry established around Narvik and across the Rombaksfjord toward Elvegaardsmoen.’