Altmark Incident
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Image:German WW2 Tanker Altmark in Norway.jpg
The Altmark Incident (Norwegian: Altmark-saken) was a naval skirmish of World War II between United Kingdom and Nazi Germany, which happened on 16 February 1940 in what, at that time, were neutral Norwegian waters. The Altmark, a German supply ship with Norwegian escorts, was returning to Germany with 299 British merchant sailors on board, who had been picked up from ships sunk by the heavy cruiser Graf Spee, herself scuttled after the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939. It has the unusual distinction of being the last major boarding action fought by the Royal Navy.
After being intercepted by the destroyer HMS Cossack, captained by Philip Vian, the Altmark sought refuge in the fjord Jøssingfjord, but Cossack followed her inside and forced her to ground. The British then boarded the Altmark and after some hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, overwhelmed the ship and released the prisoners. The Norwegian escorts protested, but did not intervene. The official explanation later given by the Norwegian government was that, according to international treaty, a neutral country was not obliged to resist a vastly superior force.
The Norwegians were angered that their neutrality had been infringed and did not want to be dragged into a European war. Yet, the Altmark incident sowed doubts about the Norwegian neutrality among the allies, as well as Germany. Both sides had contingency plans for military action against Norway, primarily to control the traffic of Swedish iron ore, on which German armament industry depended in the early stages of the war. The Altmark incident convinced Hitler that the allies would not respect Norwegian neutrality, and on 19 February decided to intensify the planning for Operation Weserübung, the occupation of Denmark and Norway, which eventually took place on 9 April 1940.
The Altmark incident gave the British a short-lived, but sorely needed morale boost during the "Phony War". The incident also had a more lasting propaganda effect in German-occupied Norway during the war, when the Norwegian collaborator government tried to neutralize their nickname Quislings by using the location of the skirmish (Jøssingfjord) to coin the derogatory term jøssing, referring to pro-allies and anti-nazis. Their efforts backfired, as jøssing was immediately adopted as a positive term by the general public, and the word was finally banned from official use by 1943.
External links
- Ships of the World: Altmark
- Halford Mackinder's Necessary War An essay describing the Altmark incident in a larger strategic context of World War II