The light cruiser Königsberg of the Kriegsmarine took part in the first stages of the invasion of Norway in April 1940 but within days it would become the victim of the Royal Navy. Not of capital ships like the destroyers in Narvik nor by submarine such as the Karlsruhe but by obsolete Blackburn Skua dive bombers flying at extreme range from the Shetlands to Bergen.
The German light cruiser Königsberg arrived in Bergen on 8th April 1940 as part of the Fell Weserubung, the German invasion of Norway as part of Task Force 3 along with her sister Köln, the training ship Bremse, two torpedo boats Wolf and Leopard & five E-boats supported by a depot ship & Auxiliaries Schiff 9 and Schiff 18. The taskforce brought soldiers of the 69th Wehrmacht Infantry Division from Wilhelmshaven (Königsberg carried 600 soldiers). The Force had left Germany on the 8th of April and landed the following day.
The Landing went somewhat to plan with Königsberg offloading most of the soldiers onboard to other vessels before dashing into the port firing her main guns and dropping off the remainder of the soldiers still aboard. The Norwegians didn’t sit still as the German cruiser appeared and Fort Kvarven’s 8” batteries opened fire striking three times and causing flooding and fires in the boiler rooms leaving the Königsberg adrift and without power. Luftwaffe support and Koln arrived to provide support against the Fort’s battery and by the end of the battle Königsberg was anchored undergoing repairs with her own guns levelled at the harbour entrance in case of seabourne attack.
The RAF were providing what support they could for Norway and their two engine bombers were operating at long range with little or no fighter escorts but the Königsberg was a target that called to be attacked. Having sighted them with a reconnaissance aircraft they attempted to bomb the ships with Wellingtons of 9 and 115 sqdn dispatched. Only six bombers from 115 found the ships in Bergen harbour.
Squadron Leader Du Buloy led his men down to between 2500-6000ft and dropped 500lb SAP (Semi armour piercing) in a “determined attack”. The Königsberg suffered minor damage from the attack but was still a credible force. The RAF’s follow up raid pencilled in for the 10th was cancelled due to bad weather.
Admiral Raeder, the head of the Kriegsmarine was worried about his limited number of his capital ships being vulnerable to Allied attack whilst sitting in harbour. He had argued with Hitler that as soon as the warships had landed troops and refuelled they should return to the safety of Germany. However the Fuhrer wanted them to stay and provide artillery support for the Infantry that had been landed.
Konterdmiral Schmundt, the commander of Gruppe 3, took the Bergen force back to Germany but had to leave Königsberg behind as the ship’s machinery was playing up and required repair, much to her Captain’s, Heinrich Ruhfus, displeasure. They were alone. By the 10th April the boilers were being brought to readiness and the vessel getting ready to get underway at a reasonable 26 knots.
The British were not sat idle though and on 9th April Commander C. L. Howe the CO of Sparrowhawk gave the Skua squadron commanders of 803 & 800 squadron permission to plan a mission to attack the German cruiser. There was much to prepare and get right for the raid with the foremost concern being the distance.
The round trip to Bergen was 660 miles and the Skuas only had a range of 760 which with fuel needed for taxiing, forming up, taking off & landing it was a tight operation
Capain Richard Partridge recalled;
“I pointed out to Bill that Bergen was about 2 hours flying each way in still air for Skuas and that our official endurance was only 4 hours 20 minutes; to which he replied that we both knew that we could stretch this a bit and if we didn’t hang around over the target too long we should make it”
A meticulous route was planned combining optimum approach to the target and the minimum amount of time in the air to conserve as much fuel as possible.
The Skuas would attack in two waves the first with nine aircraft and the second with seven with both arriving at first light having taken off from Hatson at 4:45 a.m.
The briefing at was set for 3:30 a.m. followed by breakfast at 4:00 a.m. but bad weather pushed the launch time until 5:15 after which the Skuas formed up at Auskerry before steering for Marsten at 12,000 feet under radio silence.
Whilst diverting around a rain squall Lt. Taylour’s Skua became separated from the formation & undertook the flight & navigation alone.
At 7:00 a.m. the Skuas reached the Norwegian coast and approached Bergen from the south east. They formed into line astern and began their attack run clearing the thin cloud at 8000 ft
Petty Officer Rolph, who served as Lieutenant Rooper’s gunner, said his pilot had told him; “Keep a good look out for the bomb”
The German defence was not ready for the raid. They had already been on red alert at 6:30 when a Hudson had passed over carrying out a recon flight and Königsberg’s gunners and Captain had not long stood down and returned below deck
Ruhfus rushed back to the bridge and saw the Skuas approaching believing they were no danger as the Luftwaffe liaison officer had advised him that the British had no single engine aircraft in range of Bergen an assertion backed up by the Königsberg’s Arado pilot who was on the bridg. The pilot was also certain that he could see German crosses on the aircraft’s wings as did several observers on the shore.
At 7:18 a.m. the Skuas dived with the sun at their backs releasing their bombs at 2000 feet to give good penetration of the SAPs but Lieuteants Rooper and Harris released at 3500 whilst Lieutenants Spurway and Lucy at 1500 feet
Lieutenant Church had to make a second pass and flew through a cloud of flak to drop his bomb at 200 feet before pulling out undamaged other than “one large hole in mainplane close to fuselage”
The first eight Skuas saw no flak fire until they reached 4000 feet when accurate bursts were fired at 15 second intervals but despite the accuracy it was not heavy. Flak emplacements on land and other vessels soon joined the cruiser’s gunners.
Aboard Königsberg fire started and smoke enveloped the aft of the ship whilst Lieutenant Frasier-Harris hit the Forecastle, Captain McIver struck between her funnels penetrating to her engine room and blowing a hole in the hull
Taylour arrived 10 Minutes late and attacked scoring a near miss on the Mole alongside but he sighted the cruiser on fire, leaking oil and listing to port. The flames leapt to 100 ft high. About fifty minutes after the Skuas left the Königsberg capsized.
After the raid Boiler Room 4 was filling with water, Boiler Room 3 was heavily splintered and flooding, Boiler Room 2 was abandoned and the last had to be shut down. With no steam they could not use the remaining pumps to fight flood or fire
Engines were damaged, electrical power was gone and only handheld fire extinguishers were available which proved fairly useless against the inferno. Only 18 men were dead with 24 wounded but the sickbay had to be abandoned and medics worked on deck then onto a shore post
The Arado 196 could not be launched to scatter the Skuas due to damage and the list but the crew managed to get some 20mm flak gun’s ashore and start firing at the British aircraft.
The crew abandoned ship as flames ripped through the ship causing the torpedo magazine to erupt though the Germans were thankful that the main magazine had not! Königsberg was no more than a gutted hulk when she finally capsized at 9:51
Rolph recalled that “shortly after leaving the entrance to the fjord I saw a Skua dive vertically into the sea from about 1000 feet” Lieutenant Smeeton and Midshipman Watkinson we’re both killed
The Skuas reformed at Lyso Island and turned west entering heavy cloud and the formation broke up into a gaggle of aircraft but all made it home;
“Some aircraft were forced to make for Sumburgh in the Shetlands due to a shortage of fuel, others of us managed to make Hatson arriving with the proverbial spoonful of fuel in our ta is. After a debriefing session shortly after our arrival at Hatson .we were told that the American Consul in Bergen had managed to get through to the Admiralty & reported that the Königsberg had sunk some 2 hours after our attack”
It was the first strike carried out by land based Skuas but it would not be the last during the Norwegian campaign
The Norwegian Campaign is a part of the war that's often neglected. This was a nice write up of an interesting part of it. Thanks.