Operation Judgment

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Operation Judgment was an attack by the British Royal Navy on German shipping west of Narvik and on the submarine base in Kilbotn Bay near Harstad in Northern Norway .

Starting position

From the autumn of 1944, when the Wehrmacht had to evacuate northern Norway, the German Navy maintained a submarine base in Kilbotn Bay ("Kilbotnbuka") south of Harstad , which was moved there from Hammerfest , from which its submarines attack the allied northern convoys could. The bay forms a natural harbor and is located about five nautical miles south of Harstad by the settlement Kilbotn in the southwestern part of the Vågsfjord , north of the entrance from Vågsfjord into Tjeldsund , which leads to Ofotfjord and thus to Narvik .

The base consisted in principle of the living and depot ship Black Watch and was protected against air attacks by the flak ship Thetis (the converted former Norwegian coastal armored ship Harald Haarfagre ), two so-called flak carriers and a number of flak positions on land around the bay. Smaller ships and boats were used to transport material, ammunition and crews to, from and in the base.

The attack

On May 1, 1945, a British Home Fleet combat group under Rear Admiral Rhoderick McGrigor of Scapa Flow ran out of an advance against German shipping off the northern Norwegian coast and to the base in Kilbotn Bay. The association consisted of the three escort carriers HMS Searcher (D40), HMS Queen (D19) and HMS Trumpeter (D09), the cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Diadem and seven destroyers . Three squadrons of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm were stationed on the three carriers.

In the afternoon of May 4 were in the Kilbotnbucht, in addition to a number of smaller units, the base ship Black Watch with the submarine U 711 port side alongside, the supply ship Senja and Flakschiff Thetis .

This afternoon 16 flew torpedo bomber of the type Grumman Avenger and 28 also partially armed with bombs fighter aircraft type Grumman F4F Wildcat an attack on the Kilbotnbucht. The 882nd season on the Searcher provided 20 Wildcats for the attack, the 853rd on the Queen provided eight Avengers and four Wildcats, and the 846th on the Trumpeter also provided eight Avengers and four Wildcats. Four Wildcats had, possibly the order of which only 80 kilometers away Air Force - air base in Bardufoss fend coming fighters. The majority of the remaining Wildcats formed the first wave of attack on the bay and were supposed to attack and hold down the flak positions on land and on the water. Eight Wildcats were also armed with a 250-pound bomb to kill the Thetis . The Avengers, with their four 500-pound bombs each, were to attack in the second wave - the 846th season the Black Watch and the 853rd the Senja . For unknown reasons, the attacking machines were not detected or reported in time, so that the attack, at 5 p.m. on a sunny afternoon, came as a complete surprise to the ships lying in the bay.

U 711 had docked with the Black Watch about two hours earlier after a patrol in the sea area off Murmansk , and apart from a ten-man strong guard and the commander , Kapitänleutnant Hans-Günther Lange , the crew had already gone to the Black Watch when the Aircraft appeared low over the bay from the west. The attack proceeded as planned. Several Wildcats received anti-aircraft hits, but only one machine from the first wave crashed into the bay. In the immediately following attack by the Avengers, who dropped their bombs while gliding from a height of about 600 m, a machine was hit and crashed during an attempted emergency landing.

The Black Watch received seven bomb hits in a short time and sank on fire and broken in two parts after an explosion within a very short time. Only a few of their crew of more than 200 could be rescued, and the 40 men from U 711 who had already been transferred to them were also killed. The eleven men still on the submarine were able to free their boat during the attack, but the boat sank not far from the Black Watch due to the pressure of about five close hits. The 11 men could be saved.

Senja , about 200 m further west in the bay, was also sunk. The flak ship Thetis , lying close to land on the west bank of the bay , survived the attack unscathed, probably because it was not an easy target because of its location.

The attack lasted a total of about seven minutes. The British casualties were two planes and their four crewmen.

Operation Judgment was the last air raid of the war in Europe and the Home Fleet's last offensive operation.

Coordinates: 68 ° 43 ′ 30 ″  N , 16 ° 33 ′ 54 ″  E

Footnotes

  1. http://ktsorens.tihlde.org/flyvrak/kilbotn2.html
  2. http://ktsorens.tihlde.org/flyvrak/kilbotn.html
  3. ^ Report by the commander of U 711

Web links

literature

  • Rainer Busch & Hans-Joachim Röll: The submarine war 1939-1945, Volume II: The submarine construction in German shipyards from September 1939 to May 1945. ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn, ISBN 3 -8132-0512-6
  • Death trap "Black Watch" , in: U-Boot im Focus , No. 5, Luftfahrtverlag-Start, Bad Zwischenahn, 2009, ISBN 978-3-941437-03-6
  • Harald Isachsen: Operation Judgment: Angrepet på << Black Watch >>, Kilbotn May 4, 1945, Isachsen (self-published), 2009, ISBN 978-82-998024-2-0 (norwegian.)