In early 1940, the German oil tanker Altmark was traveling through neutral
Norwegian waters hoping to avoid being spotted by the fearsome Royal Navy.
The ship was carrying almost 300 Allied prisoners of war rescued
from vessels sunk by the Admiral Graf Spee pocket battleship in
the Southern Atlantic Ocean during the first months of World War 2.
When Altmark was spotted by a British aircraft, she found refuge in a fjord, accompanied by a
Norwegian escort. But the British were determined to rescue the prisoners, and the 4th Destroyer
Flotilla led by HMS Cossak and her captain Philip Vian was tasked with following the formation.
The British then made several attempts to board Altmark, but the Norwegians
suddenly aimed their torpedo tubes at Cossack. Soon, all three sides settled for a standoff.
Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered
Vian to take back the prisoners and only use force if necessary.
However, the Germans would not give up so easily, and fierce hand-to-hand combat ensued.
It was the Germans and the British who were fighting each other,
but the encounter would mostly have disastrous consequences for Norway…
In late August of 1939, Altmark, a German oil tanker, stopped at Port Arthur, Texas,
to take on a load of fuel. However, while sailing across the Atlantic on the way home,
her crew received the news that war was imminent.
As such, the ship was ordered to travel to the South Atlantic in support of Admiral Graf Spee,
a Deutschland-class Panzerschiff that served with the Kriegsmarine
performing commerce raid operations against Allied merchant traffic.
Altmark would work side by side with her as her replenishment ship.
After rendezvousing on September 1,
the converted oil tanker was equipped with a pair of 20-millimeter anti-aircraft guns,
complete with a naval detachment to handle the weapons, and radio equipment.
While the official rules dictated that Graf Spee had to rescue the crews of every ship she sank,
the most common seamen were usually transferred to Altmark when the two ships
met up to replenish, and the officers would be retained aboard the cruiser.
Still, the conditions aboard the converted ship were austere.
After sinking many enemy boats throughout the fall, Admiral Graf Spee's patrols came to a
sudden end before the year was over. In the middle of December, three Royal Navy cruisers intercepted
the infamous pocket-size battleship and damaged her so much that her crew opted to scuttle her.
With Graf Spee resting at the bottom of the ocean, Altmark's captain, Heinrich Dau,
decided to head back to Germany with all prisoners aboard. However, this would not be an easy task.
At the outbreak of World War 2, the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy
dominated most of the seas, and many of its naval ships were either in home
waters or near other nations trying to blockade Germany. In addition,
a number of released officers revealed the existence of Altmark and her secret prisoners.
Meanwhile, supplies began to run low as Altmark remained
in the South Atlantic for another few weeks.
Believing that the best way to get home was to go around Great Britain
through the North, Dau gave orders to pass through the Norwegian littoral.
First disguised as a Norwegian tanker and then as an American one,
Altmark somehow managed to elude the British and passed through the south of
Iceland before entering the coastal waters of neutral Norway on February 14, 1940.
Captain Dau's plan was to take advantage of the nation’s political position,
stay in Norwegian waters for a few days,
and then dash across the Skagerrak strait to reach Danish waters back to safety.
Believing Altmark was carrying British prisoners, First Lord of the Admiralty
Winston Churchill demanded that the Norwegians search the vessel at once.
Cautious not to risk their neutral status,
the Norwegians reluctantly agreed and sent a torpedo boat to inspect the ship.
During the check-in with authorities, Captain Dau did not try to hide the ship's identity,
stating that Altmark was merely a state-owned tanker on her way from Texas to Germany.
Wary of a belligerent Germany and an insistent Royal Navy, the Norwegian
boarding parties did not really do a thorough job, as the nation mostly wanted the incident
to be over as quickly as possible and get the potentially dangerous ship out of their waters.
Hence, the officials accepted Dau’s word and agreed to let Altmark proceed.
Nevertheless, several sources claim that many top officials within the
Royal Norwegian Navy were utterly aware of Altmark's current role and
ordered that she be escorted at all times while sailing in their protected waters.
To Captain Dau’s frustration and at the insistence of the British forces,
the ship was inspected two more times on the 15th. Accompanied by lots of questions about armament
and the possibility of having non-German citizens aboard, Dau denied everything.
During the third inspection, however, the hidden prisoners shouted, stomped, and banged the walls.
Still, it is unknown whether the Norwegians didn’t hear the trapped soldiers or chose not to.
While transporting prisoners through neutral waters was not illegal per sé,
the Norwegian authorities declined to take action without direct orders from their government.
Still, Altmark was ordered to avoid the exclusion zone around the Bergen port, thus forcing her
to pass through international waters, where the Royal Navy would potentially attack her.
Dau vehemently protested the decision, even reaching the German embassy in Oslo,
and Altmark was eventually allowed to pass through the exclusion zone.
The same day Altmark was allowed to pass through the exclusion zone,
a British aircraft flying over Norway spotted the German tanker.
A detachment of ships from the Royal Navy, led by the destroyer HMS Cossack under Captain
Philip Vian, was immediately sent to pursue Altmark and find out as much as possible.
But after being intercepted by Cossack, Altmark sought
refuge in the three-kilometer-long Jøssingfjord in Southwestern Norway.
Still, Cossack went after her the following day.
As the Allies tried to approach Altmark,
her Norwegian escort ships blocked Vian's men from boarding her,
and the local officers warned Cossack that they would open fire if they made more attempts.
Unsure of how to proceed, Captain Vian asked the British Admiralty for instructions.
In response, Churchill issued a message that read:
[QUOTE] "Unless Norwegian torpedo-boat undertakes to convoy Altmark to Bergen
with a joint Anglo-Norwegian guard on board, and a joint escort, you should board Altmark,
liberate the prisoners, and take possession of the ship pending further instructions."
As guided by Churchill, if the Norwegians interfered by opening fire,
then the captain would have to respond using no more force than necessary.
Vian then asked permission to board the German ship alongside a team of
Norwegians, but he was denied once again.
The following evening, in an attempt to ram Cossack,
Altmark ran aground in the shallow waters of the Norwegian fjord. Seizing their one chance,
Cossack was steered closer to Altmark, and over 30 British men boarded her at 10:22pm.
While historians disagree on who started the fight, the British quickly gained the upper hand.
At such close quarters and without guns, the Royal
Navy crew members engaged the Germans in hand-to-hand combat using cutlasses.
It was the last recorded incident of the Royal Navy ever doing so.
The event became known as the Altmark Incident. Ultimately,
eight Germans lost their lives and about a dozen more were seriously injured,
including an unlucky Norwegian in one of the torpedo boats.
The Altmark's crew was overwhelmed
during the brisk fight, and the Germans eventually surrendered.
After thoroughly searching the ship, the boarding party found 299 prisoners of war.
The men went wild when they heard someone yelling "The Navy's here!",
a phrase that became a popular rallying cry through the remainder of the war.
HMS Cossack and the prisoners reached port on the afternoon of February 17,
1940, to much jubilation from the British public.
Afterward, Churchill publicized the victory all he could to boost the people’s morale,
and the prisoner's conditions were greatly exaggerated to add
fire to the rumors of Nazi atrocities in Poland.
While the Altmark incident was a propaganda coup for the British,
it had severe implications for Norway.
The Norwegian officials were highly disgruntled with the British for boarding the German ship
and violating their neutral status. Still, their overall sympathy towards the Allies prevailed,
and no action was taken beyond strong diplomatic messaging.
Moreover, upon hearing the news that 299 British prisoners were lost at the cost
of four German lives, Adolph Hitler was enraged. According to the Fuhrer,
Altmark and her crew did not fight hard enough against the British boarding detachment.
Until this point, Hitler wanted to keep Norway a neutral nation so that Germany's need for
iron ore grown in Swedish and transported through Norway could remain uninterrupted.
However, Hitler was now convinced that he could no longer trust Norway and decided to
intensify his planning for an invasion of the country in order to safeguard
the more than 11 million tons of iron ore that Germany got from Sweden every year.
Operation Weserübung was then launched on April 9 with the objective of taking Denmark and Norway.
The countries were occupied by Nazi Germany in less than two months,
and the Western Theatre operations were now in full swing...
Thank you for watching Dark Seas! Don’t hesitate to hit the like button and share this video
with someone who might like it. And for more historical stories from the seven seas and beyond,
subscribe to this and all our Dark Documentaries channels, where we publish regularly. Stay tuned!