April 11th 1940

Thursday 11th April

The battle for Norway continues. In fact, though we did not know it, it has been going on since Sunday.

Germany’s loss in ships, if she had a navy as big as ours, would be terrible. As it is they are almost catastrophic. The number of cruisers sunk has gone up to 4 and several damaged, the destroyers up to 6, plus 10 supply vessels, the ammunition ship, and a U boat. The Scharnhorst has been seriously damaged by the Renown, and since Sunday Germany has lost 20 aircraft off our coast and over the North Sea.

There has, as yet, been no news of today’s operations, but they have been terrible. Norway is now beginning to organise resistance inland. She got her gold reserve of £23,000,000 away, and has foiled a determined attempt to seize King Haakon*.

Churchill made a great speech in the Commons**. We lost 2 more destroyers: the Glowworm unhappily a total loss, and another of whose complement only 14 were drowned. If only those 14 were all we had lost.

There are grave fears of an invasion of Holland and Belgium. All French leave has been stopped. The Dutch have taken the precaution of removing their Royal Family from Soesdyke to The Hague.

*There is more detail on this in the Wikipedia entry about King Haakon VII at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway#Resistance_during_World_War_II
**Full text available at https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/apr/11/the-war-at-sea#S5CV0359P0_19400411_HOC_320