There was a period between September of 1939, when France and Britain declared war on Germany
over the invasion of Poland in the spring of 1940, when the Second World War included very little,
well, war. In fact, the period was so quiet that it became known as the Phoney
War. But while the events of that period were overshadowed by the more violent years to come,
it's not that nothing happened during that period, things were happening,
particularly at sea with merchant shipping. Things that deserve to be remembered.
On September 4th 1939, a Brazilian steamer came upon a lifeboat. The boat had come from the 5000
ton British steamer RMS Clement. According to the men in the lifeboat, the Clement had
been sunk the day before by a German warship. The crew had abandoned ship, but the ship's captain,
and chief engineer, had been taken aboard the German vessel. On October 22nd 1939, Captain
J. Edwards of the cargo vessel MV Trevanion was off the coast of South West Africa en route from
Fremantle, Australia, to Swansea, England. Lookout sighted a ship, it was a warship but
was flying the French Tricolor, so the captain was not worried. But the ship ordered him to heave to,
and make no signals. Sensing that something was wrong, he had the radioman issue a distress call,
and at that, the ship lowered the French flag and raised the German one. A German boarding
party removed the crew of the Trevanion, and the ship was sunk. Around noon on December 2nd 1939,
the 10,000 ton Blue Star Line's steamer Doric Star was some 600 miles from the island of Saint Helena
when a heavy shell splashed into the sea less than a hundred yards off. The Doric Star had been
outfitted with a 4-inch gun at the start of the war for anti-submarine defense, but before they
could bring it to bear, the lookout identified the ship shooting at them as a battleship. It would
have been suicide to try to fight it with their small gun. A launch came from the attacking vessel
with a boarding party, and the crew were given 10 minutes to collect life vests, eating utensils,
and belongings, and were removed to the German ship. The Doric Star was sunk with a torpedo.
They found that the German ship was crowded with other British merchant mariners, all victims of
the same German commerce Raider. But the next day they met up with another ship. A German
tanker called the Altmark, and many of those merchant mariners were moved to the Altmark,
although senior officers of the Doric Star, and other vessels like the captain,
the first officer and the chief engineer were kept aboard the warship. The ship was large,
mounting 11 inch guns. Officially a Panzerschiffe, or armored ship, it was
of the type the British referred to as a pocket battleship. It was the Deutschland class vessel,
Admiral Graf Spee. Hitler wanted Britain to agree to a separate peace, but Britain was
insisting that he first remove his troops from Poland. Hitler was tried to push Britain to the
peace table without provoking them further, so he had instructed his navy to begin commerce raiding
on British merchant vessels. However, he had them do so under prize rules, which meant that
before sinking a vessel, they had to evacuate the vessel's crew, and ensure their rescue.
But the Admiral Graf Spee days were numbered, because the Doric Star had
been able to radio its position before it had been captured. And from that information,
a British squadron had been able to define where the pocket battleship would go next.
Thus the officers of the Doric Star, and several other vessels, were locked into tiny rooms aboard
the Admiral Graf Spee on December 13th, when they heard the unmistakable sounds of combat.
The Admiral Graf Spee had run into more than a merchant vessel. In fact, Admiral Graf Spee
was in the first significant naval battle of the Second World War. The Battle of the River Plate,
engaged with three British cruisers, the York class heavy cruiser HMS Exeter,
and 2 leander class light cruisers, HMS Ajax, and HMNZS Achilles, of the New Zealand squadron.
While the Deutschland class had been built to outgun any Cruiser fast enough to catch it,
Captain Hans Langsdorff had initially thought he was being engaged by destroyers. By the time he
realized his mistake, he was in a fight with three cruisers. It was a bruising battle, although their
own lives were in danger, Captain Stubbs of the Doric Star and other merchant mariner officers
reportedly cheered each time the British vessels scored a hit on the Admiral Graf Spee. Exeter was
badly damaged, but the Admiral Graf Spee was doomed. A shell from Exeter had destroyed the
Graf Spee raw fuel processing center, leaving her with only 16 hours of fuel. With no friendly port
in reach where it could make repairs, the Admiral Graf Spee could not make it home.
The captain of the Achilles was surprised when the Graf Spee turned away, thinking
the ship could have finished them off, with Exeter nearly disabled. In fact Langsdorff
had surveyed the damage to his own ship, and determined that it was no longer seaworthy.
In the decision still questioned to this day, he made smoke, and ran for the neutral port of
Montevideo Uruguay. By the rules of neutrality, a warship was only supposed to be allowed to stay
in a neutral port for 24 hours, but Uruguay gave Langsdorff an extra 72 hours. Still,
by treaty if he stayed longer, his crew and ship would have to be interred for the rest
of the war. Under orders not to let his ship be interned, Langsdorff mistakenly convinced that the
British had brought an overwhelming force to meet him, took the damaged Admiral Graf Spee to sea,
and scuttled the ship. The Merchant Marine officers that had been aboard the Admiral
Graf Spee were released in Montevideo. Captain Langsdorff and his crew would be interred for
the remainder of the war, although Langsdorff himself, committed suicide on December 19th.
But the ordeal was not over for the rest of the crew of the Doric Star, and other British merchant
vessels, because nearly 300 British merchant seamen were still aboard the Altmark which had
been the supply vessel for the Admiral Graf Spee. One of those seamen was William Melville Evans,
who was the Third Mate and navigator of the Doric Star. At first, the prisoners thought
that the crew of the Altmark would drop them off with the neutral ship but they didn't,
apparently afraid that if they did, the neutral ship would give away their position. One day the
prisoners noticed that the crew of the Altmark grew excited. They painted the ship and they
made alterations that appeared to be designed to change the ship's profile. The prisoners weren't
told but the Admiral Graf Spee had been sunk, and the Altmark was now on its own.
Melville Evans had managed to take a chart from the bridge of the Doric Star before
going aboard the Admiral Graf Spee, and while the Germans confiscated all navigational equipment,
he managed to keep the chart in an Almanac hidden by folding it, and stuffing it down
his pants. Being Mariners, they were able to cleverly use the few tools they had at hand
to generally determine longitude and latitude, which they tracked on the chart. For two and a
half months they wandered the Atlantic Ocean, never getting near land. Going first South,
and then eventually North passed Iceland, into the coast of neutral Norway. Norway
was in a precarious position in the winter of 1939-40. Norway was of strategic importance
to both the Allies and the Germans. Germany was very dependent upon iron ore from Sweden,
which was shipped from the region's ports. Britain wanted to blockade those supplies. The Soviets,
at the time aligned with Germany, were attacking Finland, and the Allies would have to cross both
Norway, and Sweden if they wanted to support Finland. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder of the
German Navy saw Norway's Shores as the key to controlling the North Atlantic sea lanes,
and wanted to place U-boat bases there. In short, Norway had many threats to its neutrality. Knowing
that both Britain and Germany wanted to control Norway, and that either may invade under the
excuse of preventing the other from invading. The presence of the Altmark was inconvenient, as they
knew that it could be used as an excuse by either side to intervene. But the ship, not technically
a warship, was allowed to travel through neutral waters. By now British aircraft had sighted and
identified the Altmark, and they knew there were British prisoners aboard. The Royal Navy
dispatched a squadron of Destroyers to intercept the ship. The crew knew their gambit was risky,
with for example, the prisoners guards changing from German Navy uniforms to civilian clothes.
It's not illegal to carry prisoners of war through a neutral territories waters,
but it does require the permission of the host government, and the crew of the Altmark decided
to keep the prisoners a secret, because they were afraid that Norway might in turn
the vessel and its crew. At the prodding of the British, the Norwegian Navy boarded the
Altmark three different times searching for prisoners, but every time the German
officers of the Altmark told them that they were merely engaged in commerce. In fact,
the German sailors would operate the cranes while the Norwegians were aboard so they wouldn't hear
the British prisoners down below trying to call out to the Norwegians. But in fact those searches
were only cursory, the Norwegians did not want to find prisoners. They had every incentive to
let the Altmark pass through their waters as quickly as possible, and without incident.
The Norwegian Navy even provided Altmark with two Navy escorts, torpedo boats, to ensure the
protection of neutral shipping. But the British decided to press the issue. On February 16th,
with the Altmark just hours from safe harbor, three Royal Navy destroyers cut off the ship.
The Altmark decided to move into a small fjord called JossingFjord, and hoped that Norway
would protect them. The commander of the British squadron, Captain Phillip Vian, conferred with
the commanders of the Norwegian escorts asking permission to join them in a search of Altmark
for prisoners. The Norwegians refused, and even went so far as to aim their torpedo tubes at the
British. But Vian was given orders by the First Lord of the Navy, Winston Churchill, to rescue
the prisoners, but to limit violence against the Norwegians if possible. As the Destroyer HMS
Cossack approached, the Altmark tried to maneuver to keep them from coming alongside. Outgunned, the
Norwegian vessels remain silent. A boarding party came onto the ship where the Altmark crew offered
a brief and uncoordinated resistance, in which six German crew were killed, and ten injured. Famously
the boarding party was said to have called into the hold, “The navy's here!”, though William
Melville Evans claims to not have heard that line used, even though it became famous in the press.
Both Norway and Germany protested what they saw was a crass violation of Norwegian neutrality.
But Britain argued that the Altmark had gone hundreds of miles out of its way to travel
through Norwegian waters, which would be an abuse of neutrality, and that they had lied about having
prisoners on board. In fact, Melville Evans' chart was used as evidence to prove that there
were prisoners on board all along. And while the legal argument about whether the British acted
properly in the Altmark incident has really got evidence on both sides. What is unquestionable
is that the Altmark incident moved up the German timetable to invade Norway. Hitler always planned
to invade Norway, but commanders later argued that the Altmark incident convinced him that
the Allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and caused him to move up his plans, for fear that
the Allies would act first. The German invasion of Denmark and Norway in April of 1940 marked
the end of the phoney part of the Second World War. The official explanation from Germany was
that they invaded Denmark and Norway to protect their neutrality from an Anglo-French invasion.
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