Heavy Cruiser Hipper

Meanwhile, Churchill increased his pressure on the French cabinet to send its ships to Britain or friendly ports. Few French warships were in French home ports when the terms of the armistice were announced on 22nd June, 1940. Its clauses had been astutely drafted and reflected Hitler's deep attachment to a continental strategy. France would keep 40% of her territory and her own government, although the northern provinces and the long coastline from the Belgian frontier to the Pyrenees would be garrisoned and controlled by Germany.

This semblance of independence was designed to drive a wedge between the French and British and although GrandAdmiral Raeder would have liked to acquire control of the French ships for the KRIEGSMARINE, Hitler's "wishes to refrain from taking any measures that would affect French honour" and left them nominally under the command of the new Vichy regime.

The NAZI takeover of Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France had not only stripped Britain of her allies, but had cut her off from important sources of food and raw materials. Most of Europe's large industrial plants were now under German direction, vastly increasing the power of the Reich's war machine and frustrating the British Naval blockade. The French/German armistice and surrender of France occurred on the 25th June 1940.

Norwegian waters proved to be good hunting grounds for Allied submarines. with her sister HMS SEVERN, the old river class fleet submarine HMS CLYDE, commanded by LCDR D. C. Ingram had formed part of the submarine line off Norway, who on his last patrol, had an interesting encounter with the German raider THOR, one of the GHOST CRUISERS. Believing the enemy to be a transport, Dave Ingram ordered full speed and gave chase on the surface but the THOR could match CLYDE's twenty-one knots and escaped into a rain squall, later to take refuge in Trondheim, whence she emerged a few days later.

This port was being used by GNEISENAU, HIPPER and several destroyers. now, on this patrol, HMS CLYDE was again in the same area but this time scored a significant success. On 26th June, he made up for a hitherto zero score by attacking a force consisting of the battle cruiser GNEISENAU, a pocket battleship, and a destroyer. LCDR Davie Ingram brought his boat in through heavy seas without being detected, to fire at a vessel which he could hardly see through the murk of rough and overcast weather; an extraordinary accomplishment in such prevailing conditions.

He obtained a hit on the battle cruiser GNEISENAU as she was steaming south at high speed down the Norwegian coast. It was a brilliant attack, made in conditions which would have daunted all but the most determined, and the GNEISENAU was out of action as a result for several weeks. The destroyer counter-attack, although otherwise comparatively ineffective, damaged CLYDE's main aerials & weakened her transmission. Although CLYDE herself had a narrow escape, because of the rough weather, she had been trimmed eight tons heavy to prevent her breaking surface during the attack. As soon as she fired her torpedoes, she went deep, and her heavy trim took her to 250 feet in her first dive. It was not the depth charges that worried LCDR Ingram, but the great pressure of the water at that depth for CLYDE's stern was 50 feet lower than her bow and that class of submarine had a flattened section aft to give her increased speed on the surface. As it was, a four-inch steel pillar supporting this section was already bending under the great pressure before CLYDE could be brought up to a safe depth. LCDR Davie Ingram finally managed to get CLYDE under control and returned safely to his base on completion of his patrol.

On the 26th June, HMS SEALION with LCDR Ben Bryant as Skipper, was in the Skagerrak testing operation conditions, acting as a guinea pig as most of the British submarines had been driven out of this area by the intense ASW activities by the Germans. No sooner had they threaded their way through the floating mines, which had somehow collected at the entrance to the Skagerrak.

HMS SEALION in the Ice at Parkstone/Harwich

It became evident the German air and surface patrols were in full force. At 0100 hours on the 26th, they sighted a tanker, escorted by seven escort vessels, their masts and bridges silhouetted against the northern horizon. SEALION was unable to get close to them for a torpedo attack due to the low state of her batteries. It was impossible for SEALION to surface to charge her batteries or ventilate the boat, due to the intense air patrols and numerous A/S craft sweeping to and fro.

SEALION struggled through a third day. They were forever having to take evasive action from the enemy patrols and their batteries being so low just could not compete with this. During the early morning hours of the 30th whilst still dark, SEALION managed to surface and recharge her batteries. In the afternoon, SEALION sneaked out of the Skagerrak on the surface and signalled that operations in the Skagerrak was tough, and they were ordered to patrol off Stavanger, Norway.

On 3rd July, SEALION was in her billet off Stavanger and sighted a southbound convoy of six ships with nine escorts and an air screen. Just as SEALION closed in to attack and the order given to fire torpedoes, a German DORNIER aircraft suddenly swooped down in attacking her, and dropped depth charges. As SEALION dived, the depth charges had been set to explode under her and seemed to hurl SEALION to the surface. The First Lieutenant was flooding every tank he could but still the boat rocketed upwards out of control and they could hear the escorts pounding in. If they broke surface, it would be the end of SEALION.