Secret Alliances

by Tony Insall

  Denham had reported from Stockholm in September 1942 that Tirpitz needed a refit. The battleship did not return to Germany for this, but remained in Trondheim while it was carried out. The main reason was that German anxiety about an Allied landing was again on the increase and Hitler remained very concerned about the defence of Norway.10 Tirpitz stayed there until March 1943, when it moved back to the Narvik area. During this period, both Corona (in Oslo) and Scorpion (Trondheim) provided regular updates on the progress of repairs while Tirpitz was anchored at a large German naval base in Lofjord. On one occasion in January, in response to an urgent enquiry from SIS, Scorpion was able to provide rapid confirmation that Tirpitz was still moored there and had not left.11

  Operation SOURCE

  Very shortly after the failure of TITLE, planning began on another naval operation against Tirpitz. This was Operation source, originally envisaged as an attack against both Tirpitz and possibly also other capital ships in the Trondheimfjord. It was to use X-craft submarines, which were much larger than Welmans or chariots. They had a crew of four, with an intended range of over 1,000 miles, or 150 miles submerged. They were originally intended to go under an enemy ship in harbour, when a diver would be used to plant limpet mines on the hull of the vessel above. This idea was discarded in favour of using two large detachable side charges weighing two tons each, which would be dislodged and left on the bottom of the sea directly under the target vessel.

  For transport, it was initially intended that some of SOE’s fishing boats from the Shetlands base would be used, which would tow three X-craft to some of the outer skerries, or small uninhabited islands offshore from Trondheim. They would be left to operate independently thereafter. SOE’s Lark station would be responsible for exfiltrating the crews to Sweden if they were unable to return to Shetland on their own. Odd Sørli was sent back in March 1943 for this purpose and set up Lark Blue.‡ However, the planning was bedevilled by technical problems. The Norwegian fishing vessels proved to be too small to tow the heavy X-craft except in a calm sea or with the wind abeam. Moreover, production of the X-craft was delayed, which limited opportunities for training. As the nights were getting shorter, the Admiralty decided to postpone the operation until the autumn, and also concluded that it would be better to use submarines, rather than fishing boats, to tow the X-craft. By then, there were six of them available for use, and Tirpitz had moved deep into the Altafjord. SIS resources in northern Norway at that time were so limited that it would have been more difficult to help the crews to escape to Sweden if that proved necessary.

  Attack on Svalbard, September 1943

  But before SOURCE could be launched, Tirpitz took part in its only offensive action of the war. This was an attack on the Allied weather stations on Svalbard. The Germans sent a large fleet, including not only Tirpitz, but also Scharnhorst and nine destroyers. They bombarded the buildings, destroyed coal depots and other facilities, and captured many of the Norwegians who were stationed there. The attack was of limited and temporary value, because the Allies restored a weather station on the island soon afterwards. The German fleet was not attacked during this sortie. Ultra had given indications of several different planned German operations, but it was not clear which was which. Once it was established that Tirpitz and Scharnhorst were involved in the attack on Svalbard, the Home Fleet set sail. But they were too late to make an interception. This illustrated again that Ultra and photo reconnaissance could not always be relied upon to give adequate warning of the movements of large German naval units from their Norwegian bases. It further emphasised the importance of extending the SIS coast-watching service in the area.

  The attack by X-craft in the Altafjord

  The six X-craft sailed from Scotland in mid-September. One was lost in unexplained circumstances on the journey north. It was therefore agreed that of the five others, three would attack Tirpitz, with one each going for Lützow and Scharnhorst. The one destined for Lützow was lost on the final stage of its journey. Of the remainder, only X-7 and X-6 were able to make their attack, which took place on 22 September. X-7 had considerable difficulty negotiating a way through the torpedo net, which extended all the way to the sea bottom, and succeeded by a lucky chance. The commander, Godfrey Place, dropped his charges and then found it even harder to get out through the net again. He spent about forty-five minutes trying to do so, and in the end only managed by a remarkable manoeuvre. He made contact with the net to make sure that he was as close as possible. He then went straight down, and blew his bow tank to full buoyancy so that he ascended as quickly as possible with the bow at a sharp angle upwards, while going at full speed. This enabled him, just, to get high enough to scrape over the net. The Germans did not notice this happening. However he was still in the area when the charges exploded and his submarine was damaged and sank.12 X-6 attracted attention while negotiating the nets and came under fire but its commander, Donald Cameron, was nevertheless able to drop his charges by Tirpitz and scuttle the submarine. All four of his crew, and Place and one other crew member of X-7, were able to escape from their submarines. They were taken prisoner and sent to Germany. No other X-craft made an attack. X-5 was lost, while the fifth, X-10, was recovered by a towing submarine and returned to Britain. Place and Cameron were both awarded VCs.§

  The damage to Tirpitz from the four large charges was extensive. The first indications came from Ultra in early October. An SIS report soon afterwards stated:

  Ship lifted 1.5 metres by explosions. Upper bridge away, guns on after ship rendered unusable. On after deck especially, large dents and bulges. Engine room area particularly badly damaged. Ship unable to move under her own power. Engineers and stokers among casualties.13

  SIS provided several more useful damage reports in the course of the next few weeks.14 Upsilon in Tromsø also provided regular updates, reporting in early February 1944 that more than 22,000 bags of cement had been used to stop the leak. Steaming trials at a speed of 4 knots had resulted in a new leak, so delaying progress.15 Repairs were carried out in the Altafjord and took six months to complete.

  The problems experienced by X-7 in finding a way through the German torpedo nets were not expected, and they certainly interfered with her attack. There have been conflicting accounts about whether the Norwegian resistance provided prior intelligence through Denham, in Stockholm, about the depth of the nets, which was then rejected by Admiralty boom defence experts. Hinsley suggests that this was possible.16 Upsilon certainly provided confirmation on 19 September that the number of nets had been tripled. It also provided their location, though made no mention of their depth.17 It would have been a remarkable achievement for anyone to have obtained such detailed information from such a closely guarded area. We do know that Torbjørn Johansen, the brother of Einar who was actively involved in half a dozen SIS stations, was sent to the Altafjord to gather intelligence. He travelled north-east from Tromsø to Alteidet and cycled from there along Langfjord and Kåfjord, making notes and sketches of the anchorages and the boom defences of Lützow, Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. He also used a hydrometer to take measurements of the salinity of the water, while ostensibly out fishing. Upsilon II sent the maps and this information back to London via Sweden in August 1943 and they added significantly to intelligence available from a photo reconnaissance Spitfire operating from Vaenga in Russia.18

  Sørli had spent eight months in Trondheim working for Lark and helping to plan TITLE, and a further ten months in 1943, first preparing for TITLE and then on other work after Tirpitz moved north. After his return to Britain, he was awarded the MBE (Military).

  SIS operations against Tirpitz in the Altafjord and elsewhere in northern Norway

  It was not a straightforward matter for SIS to establish stations in the north of Norway, apart from in towns such as Tromsø. The climate for much of the year is harsh, and it would have been difficult to establish hermit stations there. Communities were small, and strangers stood out. For this reason, SIS tried to send their agents b
ack to their home areas, but it was not always practical. Distances between towns were great, and transport – except perhaps by sea – was often unreliable or unpredictable. Moreover, meteorological conditions often disrupted wireless communications. For example, on 24 September 1943 station Venus, in Finnsnes, reported that two warships and four destroyers had passed, going south. Due to the deplorable weather conditions which affected transmission, the message was not received by SIS until 14 October – far too late to be of any use.

  An additional problem was that SIS had known from the spring of 1942 that the Germans were increasing the extent of their counter-espionage activities in northern Norway. Captain Hugh Trevor-Roper ran the Radio Security Service, otherwise known as Subsection Vw of the counter-intelligence Section V of SIS, studying the activities of the Abwehr and working closely with GC&CS. He reported the new measures which the Abwehr were taking, increasing telephone surveillance and arranging for two further direction finding squads to be made available. One would be based near Tromsø, the other in Kirkenes. They would be accompanied by a Y station, a signals intelligence collection unit gathering evidence of agent transmissions, which would be based at Lakselv airfield at Banak, used by the German Air Force. Trevor-Roper concluded that the move of Tirpitz was at least partly responsible for the development of this campaign.19 It is not clear to what extent, if at all, SIS took account of these enhanced security measures when briefing agents destined for deployment to this area. Trevor-Roper also reported that the Abwehr was considering sending a party to occupy Bear Island to observe the passage of Allied convoys to Murmansk – though in the event this did not happen.

  Some of the activities of Upsilon, the first SIS station to be set up in the Arctic Circle, were described in Chapter 8. Although it was disrupted by German arrests in the aftermath of the SOE Operation MARTIN, it survived in different guises, sending from different sites and using different codenames, until the end of the war. Upsilon operated alone until it was reinforced nearly a year later by Mu operating from Laukøya, about a hundred miles further north, and then station Lyra. Lyra operated from Porsa, in Vargsund, north of the Altafjord, nearly 300 miles north-east of Tromsø. Together with Upsilon, both these stations were able to obtain intelligence on Tirpitz when it was based in Kåfjord, off the Altafjord more than 200 miles north. Sometimes this was based on reports from agents, such as Torbjørn Johansen, who had visited the area; very occasionally it came from the codes used over the telephone employing cryptic language, and more often it came from a regular courier service which was operated between Alta and station Lyra. Both these stations had their difficulties. Mu had to close for a while when the Gestapo were active on a neighbouring island and captured some Norwegian agents who were working for the Russians. Mu undertook that in the event of the passage of a major warship, they would transmit a report whatever the circumstances. Fortunately that did not prove necessary, and they survived. Chapter 8 described how Lyra was captured, enabling the Germans to make a widespread series of arrests. They also forced the wireless operator to maintain contact with London for six months. Libra, in Kvitnes on Vesterålen, west of Harstad, was set up in late 1942. It was another station which was temporarily able to report on Tirpitz during periods when it was based in Bogen, close to Narvik.

  But none of these were substitutes for a station on the Altafjord, which would be in a position to report significant activities relating to Tirpitz without delay once it established a more permanent anchorage in Kåfjord. SIS tried and failed three times to set up a station on the fjord. The fourth attempt was successful, when Torstein Raaby was landed by submarine in early September 1943. Raaby had worked for Russian intelligence in early 1942, sending reports from Tromsø.20 He arrived in Britain in June 1943, and joined SIS straight away. Since he was already qualified as a telegraphist, he required little training. It was possible to send him back to Norway with minimal delay and he agreed to go to Altafjord.

  Torstein Raaby, who reported on the movements of Tirpitz from the SIS coast-watching station Ida. © NHM

  Raaby was not a native of the Altafjord – he came from Andøya, several hundred miles south of Tromsø. Nonetheless he managed to establish himself in the small town of Elvebakken at the southern end of the fjord, not far from the anchorage of Tirpitz. German security was tight, and there was a large German garrison there with thousands of troops in the area. With the help of a friend, Karl Rasmussen, Raaby obtained a job as an assistant cashier with the road authorities. He was given responsibility for paying staff in different offices and locations in the area. He arranged the timings for doing this so that he was able to travel frequently, and at varying intervals, past the anchorage where Tirpitz lay. In order to build up further his reputation for carrying out an irregular routine, he simulated the behaviour of a drunkard. This helped to explain his absences from his office during working hours at times when it was particularly important for him to be operating his set. He sent his first transmission from station Ida on 11 November 1943. This meant that there were now seven SIS stations operating in the region: Ida near Alta, Lyra at one of the exits from the Altafjord, Mu on Nikkeby, Upsilon II in Tromsø, Valhall in Belvika on Kvaløy, Venus in Finnsnes and Libra on Vesterålen. For the first time, SIS could feel confident that it had reasonably adequate coverage of German naval movements in northern Norway.

  Raaby continued to provide regular updates on Tirpitz, which were much appreciated in London. The SIS progress report for March 1944 stated that Ida ‘continues to send in extremely valuable information which in all cases has proved to be entirely reliable, exact and detailed’.21 As the repairs to Tirpitz neared completion, the Admiralty began to prepare Operation TUNGSTEN, a carrier-borne attack using Barracudas of the Fleet Air Arm. Raaby provided much of the detailed intelligence required, including the locations of radar installations and anti-aircraft guns and high-tension cables, potentially damaging to low-flying aircraft. Prior to the operation, he also provided weather forecasts every two hours. This was an extremely important contribution, but also highly dangerous as it greatly increased the chances that Ida could be located by direction finding. The attack on 3 April caused considerable superficial damage, but the armour plating of Tirpitz was thick enough to withstand assault by armour-piercing bombs. Neither Ultra nor aerial reconnaissance was able to provide much information about the extent of the damage, to enable an estimate of how long she would be out of action. However, Raaby provided a series of detailed damage reports, starting on the day of the attack:

  3 April. Local inhabitants extremely impressed by the bombing. No civilian casualties and very little civilian damage. Three direct hits. One on the foredeck, one on the afterdeck and one just before funnel, which has been damaged by fire.

  4 April. She got more than three direct hits. You came in the nick of time, she had let go and was under way. She had two aircraft on board. Both are destroyed. Fo’csle badly gashed forward of forward turret, which appears to be pointing below the horizontal. All her guns were swung to port, but she still had a list to starboard.

  13 April. Tirpitz’s list is due to the fact that her pipes were burst and filled the cabins on the starboard side. The steam pipes for her engines were destroyed by fire. Impossible for the moment to define the condition of her engines.22

  Raaby later confirmed that Tirpitz’s engines had not been damaged.23

  Tirpitz under attack by the RAF in Kåfjord, Alta. © NHM

  SIS sent the following congratulatory telegram: ‘Vice-Admiral in charge of the operation directs us to thank you on behalf of the fleet for supplying him with invaluable information and perfect weather.’24 Not surprisingly, following the attack the Germans mounted an intensive investigation to try to find Ida. Raaby wanted to leave. However, further air attacks were being planned to prevent Tirpitz becoming seaworthy again. SIS explained this to Raaby, and left to him the choice of whether he should remain. He chose to stay while three further operations were being planned. None came to fru
ition, and Raaby finally left for Sweden in May.

  On his return to Britain, Raaby was awarded the DSO.¶ Cordeaux arranged for him to meet the deputy director of naval intelligence, Ian Campbell, and the flag officer, submarines, for dinner at the Savoy Hotel.25 Shortly afterwards, he enjoyed another voyage to Norway to watch preparations from the Commander in Chief’s flagship for a further air attack against Tirpitz, though it was prevented by bad weather. He did not remain long in Britain, returning to Norway in September 1944 to set up station Delfin in Kirkenes in the far north of Norway. After the Russians arrived in October, he moved the station to Vadsø and maintained independent contact with London. The Norwegian contingent under Colonel Dahl, which was attached to the Russian forces, was not permitted to have its own direct communications with London. So Dahl sought help from Raaby. He was not under Dahl’s command, and was temporarily able to provide an alternative means of communication for him.||

  In January 1944, when Raaby had been in place for several months and the SIS network in the north was flourishing, the DNI, Edmund Rushbrooke, wrote to defence minister Torp to pay a handsome compliment to the contribution of the agent network:

  The reports from your agents in North Norway have been generally of a consistently high standard which is continually improving. This has recently been particularly evident in connection with the attack on Tirpitz.

  Since the capture of the prisoners from Scharnhorst and the receipt of messages from British prisoners captured after the midget attack,** it has been possible to obtain almost complete confirmation of a large number of reports from your agents.