Eighty years on. 13th April 1940

Historical

The Second Battle of Narvik.

The British battleship HMS Warspite  with nine destroyers sailed into the Ototfjord to destroy the remaining German flotilla at Narvik.  A Fairey Swordfish launched from Warspite bombed and sank U-64.  The Germans lost eight destroyers, three sunk and five scuttled.  German destroyers shelled but failed to sink HMS Punjabi and HMS Cossack, which ran aground. HMS Eskimo’s bow was struck by a German torpedo but she did not sink. Vice-Admiral Whitworth signalled to London that the Germans were beaten and that Narvik could be taken with a single Brigade.  He may not have allowed for the 2,600 German sailors who now joined the Narvik garrison.

Elsewhere

The Norwegian Cruiser-minelayer HNoMS Frøya, protecting the fortress of Agdenes at Trondheim, was damaged by German warships and beached. U-34 torpedoed her to prevent salvage.

The British War Cabinet dithered between landings at Trondheim to help secure southern Norway f and the original strategic goal of Narvik to interfere with Swedish iron ore traffic. Churchill presciently warned of “the grave danger that we should find ourselves committed to a number of ineffectual operations along the Norwegian coast, none of which would succeed”.

RAF Bomber Command mounted aerial minelaying operations for the first time when fifteen Handley Page Hampdens were deployed to lay sea mines off Denmark.

Game day 226.  China

China collected four Industrial Resource points.  New forces were deployed.  Six armoured battalions in Singkiang, six armoured and eighteen infantry battalions in China.

The remains of the armoured column badly hit by Japanese air strikes moved towards the south-west along the border between China and Japanese-held Kwangtung.