On 2 June 1998 Flight Lieutenant Mike Balmer RAF led the first British Military Scuba Diving expedition to the Arctic Circle to dive on the wrecks of three German Destroyers sunk by the Royal Navy during the Battle of Narvik, 10 April 1940. The 12-man Joint Service expedition was made up of 8 RAF personnel, 3 British Army personnel and 1 Norwegian Navy officer. The aims of the expedition were to be the first military team to conduct a recreational diving expedition within the Arctic Circle, get a good photographic record of the site for possible future expeditions and to have the best possible time while doing it!
Most of us, I'm sure have been on expeditions and had to endure the pain that is the transit to the dive site. When you want to dive inside the Arctic Circle the problem becomes slightly larger. Half of the team came from the Peterborough area and so their move started with a drive to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to catch the 17-hour overnight ferry to Stavanger, Norway where the rest of the team was based. Then the entire team faced a 1000-mile road move to Ramsund, 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle, where the Norwegian Marine Jaeger Commandos, the equivalent of our Special Boat Squadron (SBS), would accommodate us.
I had gone up to Narvik in February (the ambient air temperature was -45°C to recce the area and seek authority to conduct diving operations in a restricted military area. I had already established, through contact with the German Navy, that the 3 destroyers were not War Graves. There are 2 Norwegian light-destroyers also in the immediate area that were sunk by the Germans with horrendous loss of life, these are designated as War Graves and were duly avoided throughout the Expedition. Permission had to be granted by the Norwegian Government to mount a military expedition in Norway. Then authority had to be obtained from the Regional military HQ for Northern Norway....then the local area Commander had to give permission (no small matter since photography is banned in this area for security reasons). Following this the local Harbour Master had to be approached and convinced that we were authorised and that our operations would not interfere with normal harbour traffic. At this point I should recognise the help offered to the expedition by Matthew Gloag & Son, the makers of The Famous Grouse who, through their kind contribution, allowed us to offer hospitality to a number of our hosts! In addition to all this I had to arrange the accommodation and meet the skipper of the boat which we chartered. The skipper was a Norwegian ex-professional diver called Raold Nicholiason, a tall, thin man who as a result of an underwater explosion was left with 7 fingers and a lazy eye. Basically, a bit of a character with a penchant for scotch!
The ship was the 35-foot 'Jan Roger' which was in good order and had adequate wet and dry areas for our needs - everything was on. On the first morning we positioned the Jan Roger over the first of our three main dive sites, the German destroyer 'Anton Shmidt' (Z-22). Dives on the 'Wilhelm Hidekamp' (Z-21) and 'Dieter Von Roeder' (Z-17) would be conducted later. Following extensive safety briefings, the usual kit checks and a quick history lesson from Raold, we finally put divers in the water.
The 3 wrecks proved to be in excellent condition and their close proximity to each other gave rise to an incredible atmosphere. Fining over the top of the wrecks and around the hull affords a great opportunity to grasp the size of the ships. Due to the very cold sea temperatures all year round the rusting process is greatly slowed and so it is hoped that the wrecks will remain in a safe condition for divers for years to come.
All three of the wrecks offer excellent opportunities for deep penetration. Many of the rooms still have the nameplates above the door - Signal Station B, Administration Office, Officers Mess etc. Moving carefully along gangways and through cabins and holds, trying to avoid disturbing the ever-present silt, you quickly get a feel for how cramped it must have been to live and operate on board one of these warships.
There are many eerie reminders of the crew around the ship - boots, the felt liners from caps and other bits of uniform. Next to the radio room was the ship's administration centre, swollen books and piles of forms react to the unusual movement of water caused by our presence. The team was under strict instructions about the need to try and preserve the integrity of the ships and their contents, balanced with the wishes of the local museum to recover and preserve important elements for the future.
During the course of the expedition Raold Nicholiason recovered a number of items from the wrecks that further added to the poignancy of the occasion. These included a silver cigarette case and watch both bearing the owner's initials - KHM. The crew manifest revealed that KHM was Karl Heinz-Muller, a Lt on board the destroyer 'Anton Shmidt' Z-22. Inside the cigarette case were 4 cigarettes waiting to be smoked and a picture of the owner's girlfriend, Anna. Lt Heinz-Muller was killed during the battle. Other items included Nazi cap insignia, various items of braid from dress uniforms, and a pen set and ink well.
All the items recovered were sent to the excellent Narvik War Museum, who endeavour to contact remaining relatives of those who died in the Narvik area whenever personal possessions are found. The ships themselves do not have the much sought after brass portholes usually found on other vessels of their era. They were built in the late 1930s during the Third Reich's massive ship building program when speed of production rather than finesse was the order of the day. However, previous visitors to the wrecks had done a good job of taking what they could, a few had paid a very high price. The ships had been off limits to divers for many years. During this period a few Swedish divers had carried out covert night dives on the wrecks. Their bodies have since been recovered and removed from the wrecks. It would appear that a combination of light failure, separation, and inability to find their way out of the wrecks accounted for the deaths. The wrecks still contain a lot of ammunition and are littered with fuse rods which, when taken to the surface, dried out and then lit with a match, burn brilliantly both above and below the water (allegedly!)
The Battle of Narvik was one of the fiercest close quarter sea battles in maritime history. When moving over and through the wrecks the aggression and violence of the explosions that ripped through the hulls of these sleek vessels was all too apparent. Twisted metal and buckled bulkheads bore witness to destructive forces of the British torpedoes that had struck on the freezing April night.
In the course of my 100 or so other dives in Norway I had become accustomed to 'gin-clear' water and often 40m plus visibility. The waters of Ofotfjord that provide the harbour for Narvik are strange to say the least. The water temperatures are as low as 2°C but due to unique geological conditions the waters of Ofotfjord never freeze, although some under ice diving was conducted further North during the expedition. This is the reason that the Germans seized Narvik during WWII and established it as an iron ore export terminal. Unfortunately, the presence of minute ore particles had a real impact on our attempt to photograph the ships. The visibility was on average 15-20m with a couple of days proving better than this. We used underwater video equipment with a good degree of success but the underwater cameras were just not producing the goods. I later learned that the human eye and video cameras perform well in low light (low lux) levels hence our perception of good viz and the video results. The still cameras, however, required the target to be illuminated. Unlike the characteristic flash-bounce-back that you get with vegetation and other suspended solids in the water the iron ore particles absorbed the light with little or no bounce-back.
Much of the pre-expedition planning revolved around safety issues. The sea temperature around Britain rarely goes below 8°C and even in these temperatures divers' equipment can fail with potentially fatal consequences. Diving in these extreme conditions (2°C) requires a very high standard of competency from the diver and reliability from the equipment. The diver has more than enough to think about during the dive without worrying about his equipment. Thankfully two very safety conscious companies stepped in and supplied the team with state of the art dive equipment that I am convinced made a major contribution to the safety and therefore success of the expedition. Apeks Marine Equipment offered us their flagship regulator, the TX100, which over the course of the 144 dives, including many under-ice, never developed a single fault. Then Otter Watersports supplied the whole team with the outstanding made to measure 'Britannic' drysuits, complete with fabulous Thinsulate(tm) equipped under-suits. John Womack from Divers Warehouse/Otter Watersports visited the Team and dived with us throughout the expedition. His incredible diving knowledge and constant willingness to help with kit qualify him as the 13th man (many thanks John - Mike). A number of other sponsors offered equipment and their contribution cannot be underplayed.
The Expedition proved to be a tremendous success. The diving phase had gone completely without incident. Well....that's not completely true! Flight Lieutenant Andy Knight, one of the most experienced and competent divers, recognised a potentially dive-ending situation quite early after his entry to the water.... he had forgot to put his fins on!! Needless to say the rest of the team acknowledged that it could happen to anyone and Andy, the Second in Command for the Expedition, was seldom reminded about this minor oversight (not).
The recovery phase back to Stavanger involved that same road move of over 1000 miles and 2 overnight stops. The long drive back offered everyone the chance to reflect on the trip. It is a very special feeling knowing that you have been the first to achieve something in your chosen sport. Other people may return to the site or go further North within the Arctic Circle, but the 12 men of Exercise Arctic Endeavour were first. Flight Lieutenant Mike Balmer and the rest of the Team extend their sincere thanks to the following sponsors of Exercise Arctic Endeavour:
Divers Warehouse - Britannic dry suits
Apeks Marine Equipment - TX100 regulators and octopus
Blandford Sub-Aqua - Sunnto Spyder dive computers
Citizen Watches UK Ltd - Official timekeeper
Sea & Sea - Remora knives and personal lights
MGE Ltd - Reels and delayed SMBs
Undersea - Specialist High quality Sea Lamps
Helios Safety and Rescue - Dry gloves
Seven Tenths - 'Some Day we're all going to dive' sweatshirts
Haliburton Energy Services - Paid for the boat charter
Tog 24, Mileta Sports - Team Fleece
Matthew Gloag & Sons - The Famous Grouse

By Flight Lieutenant Mike Balmer.