THE FORESIGHT WAR

by Anthony G Williams

  ‘None. It seems the forts were taken by marines in a surprise attack before the ships went through.’

  ‘What about the rest?’

  ‘As expected. Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Narvik are all reported to be under attack by a combination of naval forces and paratroops.’

  ‘Any Norwegian resistance?’

  ‘Yes, some,’ Taylor chipped in. ‘Our warnings persuaded them to order a general mobilisation yesterday morning, so they were beginning to get themselves organised before the attack. Even so, they have little but small arms and a few artillery pieces to fight with. No tanks and no modern aircraft. The only blessing is that the King and the government just got out of Oslo by the skin of their teeth, after some fighting with troops who came from the German embassy.’

  Reports continued to flow in during the morning, describing the progress of the German assault and the movements of British forces in response. At one point, an unidentified head popped around the door. ‘The wireless is on. Can you turn on your loudspeaker?’

  Mary reached over and turned up the volume as the familiar tones of Chamberlain came through. Don felt a pang of sympathy for the utter weariness and disillusionment in his voice. What he said sounded strangely familiar, and Don remembered another occasion, on a September 3rd 1939 long before he was born.

  Chamberlain described how at four o’clock in the morning, British time, elements of the German armed forces had invaded Denmark and Norway. The Danish government had decided to make no resistance, but the Norwegians were attempting to defend themselves against the unprovoked attack. However, German forces had landed in several major cities and others had been bombed. He concluded:

  ‘I have previously warned Herr Hitler that any such action would be regarded as unacceptable by this country, and have offered assistance to the government of Norway. At 4.30 a.m., the Norwegian government formally requested the assistance of His Majesty’s government in repelling this invasion. That assistance is being provided as I speak. Consequently, this country is now at war with Germany.’

  Mary turned off the loudspeaker and Morgan leaned back with a sigh. ‘That’s it, then. The gloves are off at last.’

  The Squadron Leader shifted his position in the cockpit of the Gloster Reaper, trying to ease the stiffness of the long flight. His squadron had taken off from Wick early in the morning, within a few minutes of receiving the command to begin hostilities. They had been on standby for weeks, with plans prepared and maps and photographs of the target area studied. After two hours of cruising at an economical 250 mph, southern Norway was spread beneath them.

  A sharp warning from his wingman alerted him to the distant shapes of aircraft ahead and below. He gave a brief command to his squadron, jettisoned the remaining drop-tank and pushed down the nose of the Reaper. The note of twin Merlin engines rose in pitch as the ASI swung towards and past the 400 mph mark. The aircraft ahead were clearly recognisable as Ju 52 transports, part of the shuttle service he had been warned to look out for, delivering reinforcements and supplies to the invading German Army. No fighter escort was evident so the lumbering transports would stand no chance. He armed the four 20 mm Hispanos and curved into the attack.

  The Lieutenant-Commander brought HMS Seawolf back up to periscope depth for a final check. Once again he saw the purposeful shape of a pocket battleship approaching, this time heading south away from Oslo. The destroyer escort did not seem to have detected him.

  ‘Down periscope. Stand by all tubes.’ As the seconds dragged into minutes, a new sound familiar from training exercises slowly strengthened: the regular ‘ping’ of an Asdic pulse. They’re not supposed to have that, he thought. We can hear their pulse before they will be able to hear the echo, but for how long?

  ‘Up periscope.’ A further pause, the tension palpable. The Lieutenant-Commander tried to ignore the daunting head-on view of a destroyer racing towards his position, and concentrated on the big ship beyond. ‘Fire one – two – three – four; Eighty feet; Down periscope; Steer one-eighty; Full ahead both.’ The commands rapped out in rapid succession and the boat started violent evasive action as the destroyer raced overhead. A few terrible seconds of silence, then the boat was hurled down and sideways as the huge hammers of the shock-waves from exploding depth-charges slammed into the hull. He watched the gauges anxiously; this close to the Swedish coast, the Skagerrak was shallow and he must be close to the bottom. On the other hand, this would make Asdic much less effective.

  ‘Stop both; Silent routine; Damage report.’ The boat slowed, gradually sinking towards the bottom as the slight negative buoyancy took effect. Renewed pinging grew in volume and the crew held their breath. The destroyer was travelling slowly, listening for them. Suddenly two distant ‘crumps’ were audible through the boat and a cheer was quickly stifled. They had scored hits! The destroyer’s screws speeded up again then faded into the distance as it turned to help the stricken pocket-battleship. The Seawolf bumped gently onto the bottom.

  ‘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.’

  The commander of the incoming flight of Beauforts acknowledged and the planes diverted to the north to approach Herjangsfjord over the mountains. The reconnaissance plane had meanwhile climbed to a safe altitude and circled the area, guiding the attacking planes in. The first that the anti-aircraft gunners of the Leipzig knew of the attack was when the planes dived on them from the north, instead of the south-west direction that they had anxiously been scanning. The light cruiser was a sitting target, and the 2,000 lb semi-armour piercing bombs carried by the Beauforts made short work of it for the loss of only one Beaufort. As the Leipzig listed, burning, the reconnaissance aircraft made its way over to Ballangen to guide in the next flight onto the helpless destroyers. The destroyers in Rombaksfjord would be next, the ground troops last.

  The Warspite cruised up the Ofotfjord just before midday, past the burning wreckage of the destroyers. She had been delayed by the need to clear mines from the entrance and by the intensive anti-submarine efforts made by the escorting destroyers and aircraft from the light carriers. Approaching Narvik at the end of the Ofotfjord, she turned to port into the Herjandsfjord, the Gebirgsjäger watching in horrified fascination as the four massive turrets swung with leisurely menace, the barrels of the 15 inch guns seemingly shortening to invisibility as they aimed straight at them. The improvised cover which was all they had had time to devise suddenly seemed horribly inadequate.