Altmark Incident

Altmark Incident
Part of World War II
German dead are brought ashore for burial after the incident.
Date 16 February 1940 Location Jøssingfjord, Sokndal, Norway Result British victory
Belligerents
Nazi Germany  Kriegsmarine	United Kingdom Royal Navy
Commanders and leaders
Heinrich Dau	Philip Vian
Strength
German tanker Altmark	HMS Cossack
Casualties and losses
4 killed 5 wounded	1 injured
299 British POWs liberated

 Nazi Germany

 United Kingdom

The Altmark Incident (Norwegian: Altmark-affæren) was a naval skirmish of World War II between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany, which happened on 16 February 1940. It took place in what were, at that time, neutral Norwegian waters. To date, it is the last major boarding action fought by the Royal Navy.

In February 1940, the German tanker, Altmark, was returning to Germany with 299 British merchant sailors on board,prisoners of war who had been picked up from ships sunk by the pocket battleship, Admiral Graf Spee. On its way from the southern Atlantic to Germany, Altmark passed through Norwegian waters. On the insistence of British contacts who had been pursuing the vessel, it was investigated three times on 15 February by the Royal Norwegian Navy. First, the tanker was boarded by officers from the torpedo boat, HNoMS Trygg, off Linesøy Island, then by officers from the torpedo boat, HNoMS Snøgg, in the Sognefjord, and finally personally by Admiral Carsten Tank-Nielsen and naval personnel from the destroyer, HNoMS Garm, in the Hjeltefjord. In each instance, the men who boarded the ship carried out cursory searches and took the Germans' word that the vessel was conducting purely commercial business. Following the third boarding, Altmark was escorted southwards by the torpedo boats HNoMS Skarv and HNoMS Kjell and the guard boat, HNoMS Firern. The British prisoners held in the ship's hold reportedly made strenuous efforts to signal their presence, although international law did not ban the transfer of prisoners of war through neutral waters. The Norwegian search parties, however, did not inspect the hold, and allowed the ship to continue on its way.

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