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Landing Ship Infantry (Medium), H.M.S. Queen Emma and H.M.S. Princess Beatrix
Opposing Forces
Operation
The mission of the force is the destruction of the Norwegian fish oil factories and supplies, whose product is used in the manufacture of Glycerine for the German munitions industry at the Lofoten Islands in North of Norway.
The Commando force lands at four different target areas. No. 3 Commando lands at the two western targets at Stamsund and Henningsvaer. No. 4 Commando lands at the eastern targets at Svolvaer and Brettesness. The men from the Norwegian Independent Company 1, of Captain Martin Linge are divided over the four different landing area in parties of one officer and twelve lower ranks.
The force destroys over three million liters of fish oil and Glycerine by setting them on fire. Eleven factories that produce these goods are destroyed. They return to Great Britain with 225 German prisoners, 314 Norwegian volunteers and 60 Norwegian Quisling regime collaborators. Ten enemy ships are sunk. The English manager of Messrs Allen & Hanbury, chemists, who had been taken prisoner during the Germans invasion of the country, is liberated. But by far the most significant result of the raid is the capture of a set of rotor wheels for an Enigma cipher machine and its code books from the German armed trawler Krebs. This allows the British scientists at Bletchley Park to read the German naval codes. The Allied experience only one injury, caused by an accidently self-inflicted gun wound.