February 17th 1940

Saturday February 17th

Theo* came home, he being on a searchlight course at Shrivenham** near Swindon. It is marvellous to have him - almost epoch-making to see him twice in two months.

There has been a bit of excitement today: the Nazis are hopping with rage as the result of another exploit of the Royal Navy.

Apparently one of the Graf Spee’s supply ships - the Altmark - has been snooping round the Atlantic and the North Sea trying to get back to Germany with close to 400 prisoners of war on board. She was chased by HM ships Intrepid and Cossack into Norwegian territorial waters and put into a Norwegian fiord. There, when two Norwegian gun boats appeared, it was suggested that a joint Norwegian and British inquiry should be held at Bergen to see if she had any contraband on board and, if not, she was perfectly entitled to remain in neutral waters.

The commander of one of the gun boats assured the British commander that there was no contraband or prisoners aboard and that the ship had been examined. (Someone’s palm would appear to have been oiled, or else he was stone blind!). Whereupon the Cossack and Intrepid withdrew, but under cover of darkness the Cossack sailed gaily into the fjord, boarded the Altmark and rescued the hapless 400 who were battened down between decks which were mined with time bombs!

Boarding parties in the old style, and a good time was had by all, except the Bosche, who, having violated Norwegian neutrality by taking contraband i.e. prisoners of war into neutral waters, using them as a lane to convey the prisoners to Germany, are now howling to Heaven that this is an outrage, that it is bestial, brutal and Lord knows what. But the sinking of harmless neutral ships and the killing of unarmed sailors by Germany are legitimate acts of war! A very salutary lesson, on the whole, that two can play at piracy***.

* Lorna's brother

** Detail from https://www.da.mod.uk/about-us/history-of-the-defence-academy: 'During the war [Shrivenham] served as a training site for two anti-aircraft batteries, a dispersal site for the RAF making it harder for the Luftwaffe to locate its planes, an ammunition store in case Britain was invaded, a training depot for night landings, and a marshalling area for Dunkirk evacuees in 1940. It was also used as a Civil Affairs Centre, offering language and military training to civil affairs officers (who would liaise between the military and local communities) in preparation for Operation Overlord and the liberation of Europe.'

*** See the account of the 'Altmark incident' on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altmark_incident