The September raid

On 8 September 1943 a German naval force led by the battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, with nine destroyers, attacked the Norwegian garrisons on Isfjorden, on the island of Spitsbergen. Longyearbyen lies at the mouth of its valley by Adventfjorden, an arm of Isfjorden, and Barentsburg lies in Grønfjorden, also off Isfjorden. Store norske leksikon, in the entry by Susan Barr, says that Barentsburg, Longyearbyen and Grumantbyen were nearly completely razed.

Thoralv Lund writes in Kalde krigsår (1990) that the operation had the code name Zitronella. The ships left Altafjorden in the night between 6 and 7 September, after reports that Allied warships were not to be seen from the air. The plan allowed at most 11 hours at Svalbard. Allied surveillance failed, and the Germans were not met by British naval forces. The fleet was not seen on its way and arrived unreported. The sentry at Heerodden sighted it at 02:43. Lund counts 614 landing troops against 148 Norwegians, and a ratio of ship firepower to land firepower of 24 to 1. Helge Ingstad, in Landet med de kalde kyster (1948), gives the Norwegian strength at the start of September as 152.

Lund records that the destroyers landed troops at Barentsburg, Longyearbyen, Hotellneset and Kapp Linné, and that there was fighting at Heerodden and Barentsburg, where German vessels were hit. One destroyer took 26 hits and had to leave the fight, and German figures give nine killed and 49 wounded on the three ships. Ingstad writes that coal and timber stores in Barentsburg soon burned and the town became a sea of flames. At Longyearbyen no organised resistance was possible. Barentsburg had tried to warn the town by radio, but there was no round-the-clock radio watch. Most of the town was burning within 10 to 15 minutes, and Vigtel, who commanded at Longyearbyen, was found dead at his gun. The retreat signal was given at 09:00. Lund puts the fleet's departure from Isfjorden at 11:00, while Ingstad says nine to ten in the morning. On the way in, Scharnhorst shelled Grumant, and the oil tank there caught fire. The oil tank at Moskushamn was destroyed and the area at the entrance to Gruve 2 was set alight.

Lund gives the Norwegian losses as six killed, three prisoners who died of wounds, and 41 taken prisoner, among them the military governor, Commander Bredsdorff, so that 101 of 148 men remained. Ingstad also gives six killed and 41 captured. The prisoners were taken via Alta to the camp at Schildberg. In Barentsburg only the radio station was left standing. Its equipment was intact, but the code book was gone, and radio silence was ordered for fear the Germans had it. In Longyearbyen the hospital, an office building and one small dwelling stood, while Sverdrupbyen was largely undamaged. The jubilee history of 1991 from Store Norske (the state-owned mining company) records that the coal silo at Gruve 2 was set on fire by Scharnhorst and burned until 1962. It adds that the bombing wrecked a plan to send 70 workers and 130 soldiers to Longyearbyen on 24 September to restart mining.

The ships reached Altafjorden on 9 September, and Lund notes that Tirpitz never sailed on another raid; British midget submarines badly damaged it on 22 September. German aircraft and a U-boat kept harassing the survivors, who regrouped at Barentsburg, Heerodden, Kapp Laila and Sverdrupbyen. Roll Lund became the highest authority on Svalbard from 29 September, the headquarters moved to Longyearbyen in October, and regular radio contact with Britain began on 7 October. The relief force Locomotive arrived on 19 October. Store norske leksikon says that Barentsburg was rebuilt after the war and coal mining resumed there, and that Longyearbyen was rebuilt and extended.