the ships of Gruppe Oldenburg. Blücher had embarked 822 men, Emden 610, Möwe 114, Albatros and Kondor about 100 each. Most of the soldiers came from 1st and 2nd Battalion of IR 307 but there were also staff personnel from Group XXI and 163rd ID as well as naval artillerymen, communication personnel, pioneers, war correspondents and ground crew for the Luftwaffe units to be stationed at Oslo-Fornebu. Lützow had 400 Gebirgsjägers and some 50 Luftwaffe men originally intended for Trondheim.59
All ships were at sea and there was no way back.
Meanwhile, General von Falkenhorst and his staff moved from Berlin to Hamburg. Hotel Esplanade, where Generalleutnant Geisler of X Fliegerkorps had worked since December had been emptied of guests and on 7 April became the temporary headquarters for Operation Weserübung.60
War of Nerves
The first report of German warships at sea reached Whitehall at 06:37 on 7 April, when aircraft sightings from the night before of a large, unidentified ship heading north at fifteen to twenty knots off Helgoland were logged. At 08:48, a Hudson of 220 Sqn reported ‘one cruiser and six destroyers escorted by aircraft’ on a northerly course off Horns Reef. This report only reached C-in-C Home Fleet Admiral Forbes at Scapa Flow at 11:20. Half an hour later, he received a supplementary signal from C-in-C Rosyth that the cruiser was ‘probably of the Nürnberg-class’. The shadowing Hudsons had been chased off, but bombers were on their way.
At 13:15, an entry in the Admiralty War Diary was made, stating air reconnaissance in the afternoon of the day before had confirmed Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to be at anchor off Wilhelmshaven while one pocket battleship, two K-class cruisers and one Hipper-class cruiser were moored at the various docks. Lützow was (falsely) reported to be in Stettin. German U-boats were operating near the Orkneys, while one was believed to be in the Bristol Channel and another in the Irish Sea. This outdated and partly incorrect information, together with the initial under-reporting of Groups I and II at sea, gave the Admiralty the impression that nothing untoward was going on.61 At 14:00 there was another brief entry in the war diary noting that a heavy cruiser, probably Blücher, had been sighted off Gedser on a westerly course, while C-in-C Rosyth reported three destroyers off Horns Reef heading south, apparently back towards Germany. At about the same time, Admiral Forbes received another signal from the Admiralty, where it had been issued over an hour earlier:
Recent reports suggest a German expedition is being prepared. Hitler is reported from Copenhagen to have ordered unostentatious movement of one division in ten ships by night to land at Narvik with simultaneous occupation of Jutland. Sweden to be left alone. Moderates said to be opposing the plan. Date given for arrival at Narvik was 8th April. All these reports are of doubtful value and may well be only a further move in the war of nerves.62
Forbes later remarked that in the light of subsequent events, ‘It was unfortunate that the last paragraph was included.’ First Sea Lord Admiral Pound was out of office at Mountbatten’s estate near Romsey most of Sunday 7 April. The wording of the signal was that of the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Tom Phillips – he had already warned Churchill and Pound a week earlier that the Germans appeared to be planning an operation of their own. Admiral Pound did not modify any of the actions taken or signals sent when he came to Whitehall around 20:00 that evening, so it must be assumed he concurred with what had been done. Nor did he take any initiatives to get an update of the situation or to verify the state of affairs with the other services or the CoS. Neither did Churchill initiate any modifications or initiatives when he came by later. It was incomprehensible to the Admiralty that Germany would try anything like invading western Norway – far less Narvik – across the North Sea. Such an operation would, it was believed, require ship concentrations well beyond the capacity of the Kriegsmarine. According to the diary of Captain Ralph Edwards, Director of Operations (Home), ‘The Old Man [Pound] was away fishing for salmon and arrived back rather late in the evening dead beat. DCNS [Phillips] was tired and the First Lord well dined. The result was they all failed to come to any useful decision.’63 The day of 7 April 1940 is not one to be remembered with pride in the history of the Admiralty.
Only when the report of the Blenheims having attacked heavy German forces in the Bight arrived at 17:35 did Admiral Forbes order his ships to raise steam and prepare for sea.64 At 20:50, Rodney (flag), Repulse and Valiant cleared Hoxa Boom and half an hour later reached open water, where a north-easterly course was set. The cruisers Sheffield and Penelope were in company as were the destroyers Codrington, Brazen, Bedouin, Electra, Eskimo, Escapade, Griffin, Jupiter, Punjabi and Kimberley.65
About half an hour later, 2nd Cruiser Squadron under Vice Admiral GF Edward-Collins left Rosyth with orders to make a sweep into the North Sea and then join the Home Fleet. Besides the cruisers Galatea and Arethusa the force consisted of the destroyers Afridi D(4), Cossack, Gurkha, Kashmir, Kelvin, Sikh, Mohawk, Zulu and the Polish destroyers Grom, Burza and Blyskawica. Next morning they were joined by Somali D(6), Mashona, Matabele and Tartar.
The carrier Furious was at Clyde after a refit, and Forbes seems to have forgotten her in the general melee. It was not until 16:37 on 8 February that the Admiralty intervened, ordering Furious to re-embark her aircraft and prepare to join the fleet. It would be another twenty-four hours before her two Swordfish Squadrons (nos. 816 and 818) had been landed onboard and Captain Troubridge could take to sea. The carrier’s Fighter Squadron (no. 801) was at Evanston, too far off to comply in time and Furious took to sea without fighter aircraft onboard.
Vice Admiral Geoffrey Layton, commander of 18th Cruiser Squadron, was at sea with Manchester and Southampton, covering outward-bound convoy ON25 to Norway. During the afternoon, he was ordered by the C-in-C to turn the convoy back to Scotland and join the Home Fleet. It appears that Admiral Layton missed or misread parts of the signal from the C-in-C and, considering his orders inadequate, he stood off to the south during the night intending to regain contact with the convoy and its escort in the morning.
Left behind at Rosyth for the time being was Admiral Cunningham’s 1st Cruiser Squadron with Devonshire, Berwick, York, Glasgow and eight destroyers embarking troops and equipment for Bergen and Stavanger.66 The cruisers Penelope and Aurora and six destroyers were at the Clyde, ready to provide cover and escort for the transports to Narvik and Trondheim.
Just before leaving, the German fleet was reported to consist of ‘one battle-cruiser, one pocket battleship, three cruisers and twelve destroyers’. Admiral Forbes took it for granted that updates would reach him once at sea, but the weather deteriorated rapidly, hampering the Hudsons from Leuchars, and he would have no further information until next morning. The course set by the Home Fleet upon leaving Scapa Flow would enable the fleet to intercept ships attempting to break out into the Atlantic, but left the central North Sea and the Norwegian coast uncovered. At 22:00, the armed merchant cruisers of the Northern Patrol were ordered to withdraw southwards, out of harm’s way. At 22:51, the minelayer Teviot Bank was recalled, and her destroyer escort instructed to rejoin the Home Fleet after refuelling. Admiral Forbes was preparing to meet an Atlantic breakout. During the night the fleet steered north-north-east at twenty knots and at dawn on 8 April passed 60° N, between Shetland and Bergen. By then the German fleet was some 200 miles further north-east, off Trondheim, widening the gap with every passing hour.67
British Mines
When Admiral Whitworth arrived off Vestfjorden in the evening of 7 April, the minelayers and their escorts were detached according to plan at 19:00. They headed for Landegode, north of Bodø, while Renown, with only Greyhound in company, hovered to the west, some thirty miles
