Operation Claymore

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Operation Claymore
Burning oil tanks as seen from aboard the HMS Legion
Burning oil tanks as seen from aboard the HMS Legion
date March 4, 1941
place Lofoten , Norway
output British victory
Parties to the conflict

United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire

Troop strength
Command
units , units of the Royal Navy
losses

no casualties,
1 wounded

225 prisoners

Operation Claymore was a British Forces commando during World War II . The company, in which on March 4, 1941 five destroyers of the Royal Navy and two dropships with two command units , a Norwegian command unit and a division of the Royal Engineers raided the Lofoten archipelago occupied by the Germans , represented the first complete victory for British forces in the Second World War.

Strategic starting position

The Lofoten, a center of the fishing industry, had been occupied by Germany. The strategic importance of the archipelago was that in Lofoten, glycerine was obtained from the caught fish via the intermediate product fish oil, which was used, among other things, as a lubricant in aircraft engines. The aim of the operation was therefore to destroy the fish oil factories and the stored production.

The raid

The British attack force consisted of the four tribal class destroyers HMS Somali , HMS Eskimo , HMS Tartar and HMS Bedouin , the L-class destroyer HMS Legion and the two dropships Queen Emma and Prinses Beatrix . The landing forces were the 3rd and 4th Commandos (approx. 500 men), 52 Norwegian commandos and a division of the Royal Engineers. The force left the British naval port of Scapa Flow on February 21 .

The attack hit the German occupation forces completely unprepared and was therefore a great success. The landing succeeded without resistance. The British units occupied the cities of Henningsvær , Brettesnes , Stamsund and Svolvær for six hours and destroyed 11 fish oil factories as well as the production collected for shipment to Germany. Five cargo ships, including the 9000 GRT factory ship Hamburg , were sunk in the ports by explosive charges or the destroyers' on-board guns. 225 German soldiers became prisoners of war, and the British armed forces also took 60 collaborators (" quislings ") and 314 Norwegian volunteers with them when they withdrew . The British forces suffered no casualties. The German outpost boat Krebs also captured code documents and an encryption cylinder, which were useful for deciphering the Enigma .

consequences

In retaliation, the Germans systematically destroyed homes in Lofoten and took 64 civilians hostage in the Grini police detention center . The Lofoten were fortified and the population strictly monitored, as were other centers of the war-essential glycerine production in occupied Norway . A commando following Operation Claymore, Operation Archery , therefore encountered considerably greater resistance.

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