The Forgotten Battle That Destroyed Germany's Navy
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
146,060 views
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Listen: linktr.ee/wehaveways
Why did Hitler launch the invasion of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, and how did the Royal Navy respond? Why did the British Admiralty miss a crucial opportunity to strike the Kriegsmarine? How did HMS Glowworm fire the first shots of the Norwegian campaign, what role did the Polish submarine Orzeł and the Royal Navy’s “Stringbags” play, and how did the British finally sink the German destroyer Georg Thiele?
Join Al Murray and James Holland for the complete story of Britain’s dramatic naval fight at Narvik, from the opening stages of the German invasion to Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee’s extraordinary attack and posthumous Victoria Cross.
0:00 The Battle of Norway’s forgotten naval war
1:28 Operation Weserübung begins
4:30 British intelligence gets Narvik badly wrong
7:12 Narvik surrenders — but the German destroyers are trapped
10:05 Snow, fjords and Warburton-Lee’s attack at dawn
13:13 Why Norway changed the naval war
16:00 Admiral Raeder and the Kriegsmarine’s flawed ambitions
24:21 Pocket battleships, cruisers and Germany’s wrong fleet
30:00 Why Narvik’s iron ore mattered so much
33:18 Churchill wants to mine the Norwegian Leads
36:01 Quisling, Hitler and the birth of Weserübung
42:26 Raeder warns Hitler: this breaks all naval logic
47:27 Operation Wilfred and Britain’s half-plan for Norway
53:38 Dash vs dither: Hitler gambles, the Allies hesitate
1:00:00 Germany’s invasion fleet and “Trojan horse” supply ships
1:05:00 British intelligence spots the Germans — and dismisses it
1:10:45 HMS Glowworm: the destroyer that chose to fight
1:18:07 “Ram her”: Glowworm takes on Admiral Hipper
1:25:00 The Polish submarine warning Britain ignored
1:34:08 The Blücher heads into Oslofjord
1:40:00 Norway’s guns delay Oslo and save the royal family
1:45:00 Bergen and Trondheim fall
1:50:00 The Royal Navy’s missed chance at Bergen
1:55:29 Germany wins invasion day — despite serious losses
2:00:13 Back to Narvik: Warburton-Lee enters the fjord
2:05:01 Total surprise: German destroyers hammered at anchor
2:10:00 The brutal cost of destroyer warfare
2:15:00 The trapped German destroyers try to escape
2:20:27 Warspite sails into the fjord
2:25:00 The final destruction of the Narvik destroyers
2:30:00 Why Narvik gutted the Kriegsmarine
2:35:24 Was this the decisive naval battle of WWII?
20 Comments
Surrounded by wartime recipe books (sausage stew with just sausages, spuds, onions & Oxo cubes is still a favourite, straight out of the Home Front), the nose cone of an anti-aircraft shell used as a paperweight, A.R.P. warden's helmets, gas masks and the ever present family stories of being strafed in my mum's school playground with machine gun fire "and I could the German pilot laughing as he fired", standing on Box Hill watching the East End burn etc. etc. I found the Just William books and Quisling is a dominant character in one of them.
Anyone born around the time I was (1964) was immediately immersed into WWII. The impact on the British psyche cannot be underestimated, and the German's too as I discovered by being involved in the town twinning scheme in the mid seventies.
There, just the same as the UK, the kids were looking forward but the two previous generations were seemingly stuck retelling the same family stories that could've been swapped between the two countries with just the place names changed.
But as a kid, I needed no explanations or help with abbreviations etc. because I was absolutely immersed in wartime Britain from birth.
The books, my family and stuff around the house meant it made, strangely, a very warm, cosy atmosphere.
Watching The World at War series on TV definitely attacked that cosy, homey feeling, but it's never really left me to this day.
Quisling was SUCH a hated character in Britain during the war that his name became a noun, as in "a Quisling has been found...".
He's another thing that shall live in infamy.
You could imagine him, broad Norwegian accent, saying "Oh! Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me!" 🤣
P.S.: The Fornebu airport was where the Germans landed their paratroopers, but it is no longer an international airport. It has long been closed down and is being turned into a new suburb.
A good summing up of Sealion is that the RN would have crushed an attempted invasion. The RAF stopped the Germans from even trying!
The Forgotten Battle That Destroyed Germany's Navy
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
146,060 views
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Listen: linktr.ee/wehaveways
Why did Hitler launch the invasion of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, and how did the Royal Navy respond? Why did the British Admiralty miss a crucial opportunity to strike the Kriegsmarine? How did HMS Glowworm fire the first shots of the Norwegian campaign, what role did the Polish submarine Orzeł and the Royal Navy’s “Stringbags” play, and how did the British finally sink the German destroyer Georg Thiele?
Join Al Murray and James Holland for the complete story of Britain’s dramatic naval fight at Narvik, from the opening stages of the German invasion to Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee’s extraordinary attack and posthumous Victoria Cross.
0:00 The Battle of Norway’s forgotten naval war
1:28 Operation Weserübung begins
4:30 British intelligence gets Narvik badly wrong
7:12 Narvik surrenders — but the German destroyers are trapped
10:05 Snow, fjords and Warburton-Lee’s attack at dawn
13:13 Why Norway changed the naval war
16:00 Admiral Raeder and the Kriegsmarine’s flawed ambitions
24:21 Pocket battleships, cruisers and Germany’s wrong fleet
30:00 Why Narvik’s iron ore mattered so much
33:18 Churchill wants to mine the Norwegian Leads
36:01 Quisling, Hitler and the birth of Weserübung
42:26 Raeder warns Hitler: this breaks all naval logic
47:27 Operation Wilfred and Britain’s half-plan for Norway
53:38 Dash vs dither: Hitler gambles, the Allies hesitate
1:00:00 Germany’s invasion fleet and “Trojan horse” supply ships
1:05:00 British intelligence spots the Germans — and dismisses it
1:10:45 HMS Glowworm: the destroyer that chose to fight
1:18:07 “Ram her”: Glowworm takes on Admiral Hipper
1:25:00 The Polish submarine warning Britain ignored
1:34:08 The Blücher heads into Oslofjord
1:40:00 Norway’s guns delay Oslo and save the royal family
1:45:00 Bergen and Trondheim fall
1:50:00 The Royal Navy’s missed chance at Bergen
1:55:29 Germany wins invasion day — despite serious losses
2:00:13 Back to Narvik: Warburton-Lee enters the fjord
2:05:01 Total surprise: German destroyers hammered at anchor
2:10:00 The brutal cost of destroyer warfare
2:15:00 The trapped German destroyers try to escape
2:20:27 Warspite sails into the fjord
2:25:00 The final destruction of the Narvik destroyers
2:30:00 Why Narvik gutted the Kriegsmarine
2:35:24 Was this the decisive naval battle of WWII?
This incredible mix of love for details, silly joking, fake German accents and appreciation for individual exceptionalism - or failure - never fails to inform, entertain and touch me, all at the same time. Great job, guys! Don't stop it!