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Operation Haudegen ( peration_Broadsword.html"_;"title="Broadsword.html"_;"title="peration_Broadsword">peration_Broadsword">Broadsword.html"_;"title="peration_Broadsword">peration_Broadsword_was_the_name_of_a_Nazi_Germany.html" "title="Broadsword">peration_Broadsword.html" ;"title="Broadsword.html" ;"title="peration Broadsword">peration Broadsword">Broadsword.html" ;"title="peration Broadsword">peration Broadsword was the name of a Nazi Germany">German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
operation during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
to establish meteorological stations on Svalbard. In September 1944, the submarine '' U-307'' and the supply ship ''Carl J. Busch'' transported the men of ''Unternehmen Haudegen'' to the island. The station was active from 9 September 1944. On May 8, 1945, the staff received a message from their commanders in Tromsø that Germany had surrendered and the war was over. After that, radio contact was lost. The soldiers were capable of asking for support only in August 1945 and on 6 September, were picked up by a Norwegian
seal hunting Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. Seal hunting is currently practiced in ten countries: United States (above the Arctic Circle in Alaska), Canada, Namibia, Denmark (in self-governing Greenland only), Ice ...
vessel and surrendered to its captain. The group of men were the last German troops to surrender after the Second World War.


Background


Svalbard Archipelago

The Svalbard Archipelago is in the
Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
from the
North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Ma ...
and a similar distance north of Norway. The islands are mountainous, the peaks permanently snow-covered, some glaciated; there are occasional river terraces at the bottom of steep valleys and some coastal plain. In winter the islands are covered in snow and the bays ice over. Spitsbergen Island has several large fiords along its west coast and Isfjorden is up to wide. The
Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida and up the eastern coastline of the Unit ...
warms the waters and the sea is ice-free during the summer. Settlements were established at Longyearbyen and Barentsberg in inlets along the south shore of Isfjorden, in Kings Bay, north up the coast and in
Van Mijenfjorden Van Mijenfjorden is the third-longest fjord in Norway's Svalbard archipelago. It lies in the southern portion of Spitsbergen island, south of Nordenskiöld Land and north of Nathorst Land. The fjord is long, being separated from Bellsund furthe ...
to the south. The settlements attracted colonists of different nationalities and the treaty of 1920 neutralised the islands and recognised the mineral and fishing rights of the participating countries. Before 1939, the population consisted of about 3,000 people, mostly Norwegian and Russian, who worked in the mining industry.
Drift mines Drift mining is either the mining of an ore deposit by underground methods, or the working of coal seams accessed by adits driven into the surface outcrop of the coal bed. A drift mine is an underground mine in which the entry or access is above ...
were linked to the shore by overhead cable tracks or rails and coal dumped in winter was collected after the summer thaw. By 1939 production was about a year, roughly evenly divided between Norway and Russia.


Allied operations


Operation Gauntlet

Gauntlet was an Allied
Combined Operation In current military use, combined operations are operations conducted by forces of two or more allied nations acting together for the accomplishment of a common strategy, a strategic and operational and sometimes tactical cooperation. Interact ...
from 25 August until 3 September 1941 during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. Canadian, British and Free Norwegian Forces landed on the Norwegian island of
Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Nor ...
in the
Svalbard Archipelago Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group ran ...
, south of the North Pole. Coal mines on the islands were owned and operated by
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...
at
Longyearbyen Longyearbyen (, locally lɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank ...
and by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
at
Barentsburg Barentsburg (russian: Баренцбург) is the second-largest settlement in Svalbard, Norway, with about 455 inhabitants (). A coal mining town, the settlement is almost entirely made up of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians. History Rijpsburg, ...
; both governments agreed to their destruction and the evacuation of their nationals. Gauntlets objective was to deny the Germans the coal, mining and shipping infrastructure, equipment and stores on Spitsbergen and suppress the wireless stations on the archipelago, to prevent the Germans from receiving weather reports. Gauntlet was a success, the Germans had not known of the expedition until it was long gone. The raiders suffered no casualties, the Svalbard population was repatriated, several ships were taken by the raiders as prizes; a German warship was sunk on the return journey.


Operation Fritham

Operation Fritham (30 April – 14 May 1942) was an Allied attempt to secure the
coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
s on Spitzbergen, the main island of the Svalbard Archipelago, from the North Pole and about the same distance from Norway. A party of Norwegian troops sailed from Scotland on 30 April, to reoccupy the island and eject a German meteorological party. On 14 May, four German reconnaissance bombers sank the ships in Green Harbour. The commander,
Einar Sverdrup Einar Sverdrup (18 December 1895 – 13 May 1942) was a Norwegian mining engineer and businessman. He was the CEO of the Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani, operating at Svalbard. When the integrity of Svalbard was threatened during World War ...
, and eleven men were killed, eleven men were wounded and most of the supplies were lost with the ships. On 26 May, a Catalina made contact with Fritham Force and destroyed a German Ju 88 bomber caught on the ground. More sorties delivered supplies, attacked German weather bases, evacuated wounded and rescued shipwrecked sailors.


Operation Gearbox

Operation Gearbox (30 June – 17 September 1942) was a Norwegian and British operation that superseded Operation Fritham. The survivors of Fritham Force had salvaged what equipment they could and set up camp in Barentsburg, which had been deserted since Operation Gauntlet and sent out reconnaissance parties. The
Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...
discovered much of what had happened, through
Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley P ...
decrypts of ''Luftwaffe'' Enigma coded wireless signals. On 2 July, 57 Norwegians with of supplies arrived by cruiser. Barentsburg was fortified and parties attacked the German weather party at Longyearbyen on 12 July, only to find that they had departed three days earlier. The airstrip was blocked and on 23 July, a Ju 88, carrying an experienced crew and two senior officials, was shot down while flying low over the landing ground; the German plan to send another weather party had been thwarted.


Operation Gearbox II

Operation Gearbox II (17 September 1942 – 7 September 1943) was a Norwegian and British operation. The reinforcements of Operation Gearbox consolidated the Barentsburg defences and made preparations for Gearbox II, another reinforcement of the Norwegians and part of the plan for
Convoy PQ 18 Convoy PQ 18 was an Arctic convoy of forty Allied freighters from Scotland and Iceland to Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany. The convoy departed Loch Ewe, Scotland on 2 September 1942, rendezvoused with more ships a ...
, to prevent a repeat of
Convoy PQ 17 PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, ...
(27 June – 10 July 1942) in which 24 of the 35 freighters had been sunk. The fleet oilers and and four destroyer escorts sailed from
Scapa Flow Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay a ...
on 3 September and anchored in Lowe Sound several days later. From 9 to 13 September, relays of destroyers were detached from PQ 18 to refuel before the convoy passed Bear Island and into the range of the ''Luftwaffe'' bombers and torpedo-bombers based in north Norway. Another German weather party was chased off the island by the Norwegians and on 19 October, the cruiser and four destroyers delivered more Norwegian troops.


German operations


Operation Bansö, 1941–1942

By August 1941, the Allies had eliminated German weather stations on Greenland,
Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger ...
Island, Bear Island (''Bjørnøya'') and the civil weather reports from Spitzbergen. The ''Kriegsmarine'' and the ''Luftwaffe'' surveyed land sites for weather stations in the range of sea and air supply, some to be manned and others automatic. '' Wettererkundungsstaffel'' 5 (''Wekusta'' 5) part of ''
Luftflotte 5 Luftflotte 5 (Air Fleet 5) was one of the primary divisions of the German Luftwaffe in World War II. It was formed 12 April 1940 in Hamburg for the invasion of Norway. It transferred to Oslo, Norway on 24 April 1940 and was the organization respo ...
'', was based at Banak in northern Norway. Dr
Erich Etienne Dr. Erich W. Etienne (24 February 191523 July 1942) was a German geophysicist, polar explorer and pilot. Early life Erich Etienne was born in Leipzig and studied geophysics in Leipzig and Exeter before going to the University of Oxford on a Rho ...
, a former Polar explorer, commanded an operation to install a manned station at Advent Bay (
Adventfjorden Adventfjorden (Advent Bay) is a 7 km long and 4 km wide bay running south-eastwards from the southern side of Isfjorden, on the west coast of Spitsbergen in Svalbard. The name represents a corruption of ''Adventure Bay'' - probably name ...
); its subsoil of alluvial gravel was acceptable for a landing ground. The site received the code-name ''Bansö'' (from Banak and Spitzbergen Öya) and ferry flights of men, equipment and supplies began on 25 September. He 111, Ju 88 and Ju 52 pilots gained experience of landing on soft ground, cut with ruts and boulders. The British followed events at Bletchley Park through Ultra decrypts, which was made easier by German willingness to make routine use of radio communication. Dr Albrecht Moll and three men arrived to spend the winter of 1941–1942 transmitting weather reports. On 29 October 1941,
Hans Knoespel Hans may refer to: __NOTOC__ People * Hans (name), a masculine given name * Hans Raj Hans, Indian singer and politician ** Navraj Hans, Indian singer, actor, entrepreneur, cricket player and performer, son of Hans Raj Hans ** Yuvraj Hans, Punjabi ...
and five weathermen were installed by the ''Kriegsmarine'' at
Lilliehöökfjorden Lilliehöökfjorden is a 14 kilometer long fjord branch of Krossfjorden in Albert I Land at the northwestern side of Spitsbergen, Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arct ...
, a branch of Krossfjord in the north-western Spitzbergen. On 2 May 1942, the apparatus for an automatic weather station, a thermometer, barometer, transmitter and batteries arrived at Banak, in a box named a ''Kröte'' (toad) by the aircrew. As soon as weather permitted, it was to be flown to Bansö and the Moll party brought back. On 12 May a He 111 and a Ju 88 were sent with supplies and the technicians to install the ''Kröte''. The aircraft reached Adventfjorden at The He 111 crew and passengers joined the ground party


operations, June–July

The Moll party at Bansö had reported the British flight of 26 May and on 12 June, signalled that the landing ground was dry enough for a landing attempt. A Ju 88 flew to the island and landed but damaged its propellers as it taxied, stranding the crew and increasing the German party to 18 men. aircraft flew to Spitzbergen each day but were warned off each time and the Germans thought about using floatplanes. The east end of Isfjorden and Advent Bay were too full of drifting ice and the idea was dropped. In the
midnight sun The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the Sun remains visible at the local midnight. When the midnight sun is seen in the Arctic, ...
(20 April – 22 August) as mid-summer approached, the ice further west near the Allied positions cleared faster than at the German (eastern) end of the fiord. The Germans reported the Catalina attack on the Ju 88 on 27 June, which had left it a write-off and claimed to have damaged the British aircraft with return fire. On 30 June, the party sent a message that the airstrip was dry enough for
Junkers Ju 52 The Junkers Ju 52/3m (nicknamed ''Tante Ju'' ("Aunt Ju") and ''Iron Annie'') is a transport aircraft that was designed and manufactured by German aviation company Junkers. Development of the Ju 52 commenced during 1930, headed by German aero ...
aircraft and supply flights resumed. The aircraft were watched by a Norwegian party that had gone on an abortive expedition to destroy the German headquarters at the Hans Lund Hut. On clear days the German pilots flew direct over the mountains and on cloudy and misty days, when heavily laden, took the coast route past Barentsburg.


German bases 1942–1943

, another meteorological party, commanded by Dr Franz Nusser, departed Norway in to return to Svalbard and re-occupy the base at Signehamna that had spent the winter of 1941–1942 gathering weather data. Two journeys to Svalbard were made and became operational in November 1942. During the winter of 1942–1943, needed no air supply but in May, spare parts were needed for its motor and hydrogen generators. The supplies were dropped by a Fw 200 of KG 40 which flew from Vaernes on 6, 8 and 18 May, collecting weather data en route. On 20 June 1943 was surprised by Norwegian commando patrol, commanded by Kaptein E. Ullring with Fenrik Augensen, surveying Kongs Fjord and Kross Fjord in a gunboat. Five of the six Germans escaped to the coast of the Mitra peninsula but Heinz Kohler, who was closer to the water was killed by the Norwegians near Signehamna. The weather party had managed to send a distress call before they fled and ( Herbert Sickel), cruising off Svalbard, embarked the party on 22 June. The party had seen a overhead but had not been spotted. On 26 June, U-302 rendezvoused with ( Hans Benker) to transfer the party, which arrived at Narvik on 28 June.


Operation Haudegen

In the Rijpfjord district of Nordaustlandet, the intended site of the Haudegen weather station was under low cloud but was seen to be ice-free. The weather station could be seen to be the same state as when it was abandoned in July. A Fw 200 made a round trip, which took more than 12 hours; the Fw 200 landed at Banak at on 8 September. The flight was made pointless after the mission was diverted to Greenland. Haudegen took place from 10 September 1944 when the Germans sailed from
Hammerfest Hammerfest (; sme, Hámmerfeasta ) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. Hammerfest is the northernmost town in the world with more than 10,000 inhabitants. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Hamm ...
in Norway on the submarine '' U-307'' and the weather ship '' Carl J. Busch'' to 6 September 1945 when the party went aboard the Norwegian ship , having surrendered to the crew.


See also

*
Japanese holdout Japanese holdouts ( ja, 残留日本兵, translit=Zanryū nipponhei, lit=remaining Japanese soldiers) were soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the Pacific Theatre of World War II who continued fighting World Wa ...
*
End of World War II in Europe The final battle of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German dictator Adolf ...


Notes


Footnotes


References

* * * * * *


External links

* Operation Haudegen German Wikipedia
Article on the "weather war" in the North Atlantic

Article on the history of Svalbard Island


("Forgotten, lost, confused", in German),
Berliner Morgenpost ''Berliner Morgenpost'' is a German newspaper, based and mainly read in Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous c ...
, March 20, 2005. * {{coord, 80, 04, N, 22, 24, E, region:NO-21_type:landmark_source:dewiki, display=title Haudegen Germany–Norway relations History of Svalbard Haudegen Naval meteorology 1944 in Norway 1945 in Norway 1944 in Germany 1945 in Germany