Operation Wilfred - Aftermath

Aftermath

Operation Wilfred was now essentially complete and the southern Force WS and WB ships rejoined the Home Fleet to undertake screening duties, military support and convoy defence as part of the general British response to the German move on Norway known as Operation Rupert. The northern WV force, though, immediately became embroiled in the early actions of the British attempt to thwart the German landings.

HMS Glowworm, which had become detached from the main force on April 6 to look for a man lost overboard, encountered the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, and carried out a torpedo attack. After receiving return fire and heavy damage, she rammed Admiral Hipper and sank soon afterwards with 111 men killed, for which her commander, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard Broadmead Roope was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Meanwhile, Renown—which had diverted to assist Glowworm—was in action with the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau 80 mi (70 nmi; 130 km) west of the Lofotens. Although damage was inflicted by both sides, the Germans failed to take their opportunity to sink the older and slower British battlecruiser.

Despite news of these actions and indications from other sources, the Norwegians were still caught largely unprepared for the attack and early the next day the invasion proper began with German landings of troops in the main Norwegian settlements of Stavanger, Oslo, Trondeim, Narvik and Bergen. The same day (9 April), Icarus sank the Europa, another German iron ore carrier which was being used to transport men and equipment to Norway, and the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla—which had taken part in the mining of the Vestfjord—later fought with other British naval units in the 1st Battle of Narvik, sinking a number of German warships.

On 11 April, while furious naval battles were still underway off the Norwegian coast, Churchill made a long speech in the House of Commons about the current situation and to justify Operation Wilfred. He said;

There has been no greater impediment to the blockade of Germany than this Norwegian corridor. It was so in the last war, and it has been so in this war. The British Navy has been forced to watch an endless procession of German and neutral ships carrying contraband of all kinds to Germany, which at any moment they could have stopped, but which they were forbidden to touch.

It was therefore decided at last to interrupt this traffic and make it come out into the open seas. Every precaution was taken to avoid the slightest danger to neutral ships or any loss of life, even to enemy merchant ships, by the minefields which were laid and British patrolling craft were actually stationed around them in order to warn all ships off these dangerous areas.

The Nazi Government have sought to make out that their invasion of Norway and of Denmark was a consequence of our action in closing the Norwegian corridor. It can, however, undoubtedly be proved that not only had their preparations been made nearly a month before, but that their actual movements of troops and ships had begun before the British and French minefields were laid. No doubt they suspected they (the mines) were going to be laid. It must indeed have appeared incomprehensible to them that they had not been laid long before. They therefore decided in the last week of March to use the Norwegian corridor to send empty ore ships northward filled with military stores and soldiers concealed below decks, in order at the given moment to seize the various ports on the Norwegian seaboard which they considered to have military value. —Winston Churchill

British and French troops landed at Narvik on April 14 to assist the Norwegians, pushing the Germans out of the town and almost forcing them to surrender. But although further Allied landings took place between 18 and 23 April, it was all too little too late and the Norwegians surrendered on 9 June 1940.

Ironically, although Operation Wilfred was essentially a failure in that it did not prevent the Germans from having access to the iron ore, once Norway became part of the German Reich it was no longer neutral, and thereafter British ships and aircraft were free to enter her territorial waters to attack German ships at will.