HNoMS Æger (1936)

HNoMS "Æger" was a Sleipner class destroyer built in Norway in the second half of the 1930s. She was constructed at Horten naval shipyard under build number 122. [Horten municipal archive of local history: [http://www.lokalhistoriskarkiv.no/arkivet/historiske_sider/horten_verft/byggenummer Byggenummer ved Horten verft] no icon]

"Æger" was amongst the first Royal Norwegian Navy units to encounter the German invasion forces of Operation Weserübung when in the early morning of 9 April, 1940 she stopped the German cargo ship "Roda" outside Stavanger. At the time she formed part of the 2nd Naval District's 2nd Destroyer Division, [ [http://niehorster.orbat.com/022_norway/navy_02.htm Royal Norwegian Navy Administrative Order of Battle 8 April, 1940] ] covering an area roughly the same as the Vestlandet and Trøndelag regions.

Name

She was named after Ægir - a Jotun and a king of the sea in Norse mythology. Ægir is a personification of the power of the ocean.

Æger and the German invasion

The Roda

At about 0100 hrs April 9 Norwegian customs officers came on-board the "Æger" while she was at anchor in Stavanger and reported their suspicion that the 6,780 ton cargo ship "Roda" [ [http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/handelsmarine/verlustliste8.htm Losses of the German merchant navy in World War II] de icon] anchored near Ullsnes was probably carrying a different cargo than the 7,000 tons of coke stated in her cargo documents. The German vessel was riding far too high in the water to carry such a cargo. Adding still more suspicion was the fact that the Germans claimed they were bringing the coke to the Norwegian company Sigval Bergesen, a company the customs officers knew had never before taken deliveries of coke. [Bjørnsen 1977: 27] Although the situation was unclear the Norwegian destroyer's commander, Captain Nils Larsen Bruun, decided to take the "Roda" as a prize.

When the Norwegian destroyer found the German ship in the Byfjord near Stavanger and signalled that they were going to seize the German vessel the crew of the "Roda" resisted, leading to Captain Larsen Bruun deciding to sink the cargo ship. After the German crew had abandoned their ship, "Æger" fired a total of twenty-five 10 cm rounds into both sides of the vessel, sinking her in deep waters.

Air attack

A short while after the sinking of the "Roda" Luftwaffe aircraft started appearing overhead, this was the crew of the "Æger"'s first sign of Operation Weserübung - the German invasion of Norway.

At 0830 hrs the first three of in total ten Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 bombers began attacking the "Æger" at low altitude.

Responding with her single 40 mm Bofors gun and two 12,7 mm Colt anti-aircraft machine guns "Æger" managed to shoot down two of the attacking German bombers while zig-zagging to avoid the stacks of bombs being unleashed at her. However, while trying to avoid an attack by three aircraft all from different directions "Æger" was hit amidships by a 250 kg bomb, tearing up the deck of the destroyer and blowing out its sides.

Seven crew members were killed outright, one mortally and three lightly wounded, with the ship being left dead in the water. As seven more German planes continued to attack the crippled destroyer another bomb hit the mast, leaving it bent out of shape but bouncing off into the sea without exploding. Yet another bomb hit the side of the ship midship, but stuck without exploding. All the time the attacking aircraft were pelting the crippled vessel with their machine guns.

As all of the ship's anti-aircraft weapons were by now knocked out, Captain Bruun ordered his crew to abandon ship. The entire surviving crew managed to get ashore without any further casualties.

Aftermath

Captain Bruun now had fifty-seven unwounded crew members under his command and originally intended to keep his crew together and bring them to unoccupied areas to continue the fight. However, as both Stavanger and the nearby Sola Air Station had been occupied by the invaders, he instead decided to dismiss the crew. He also encouraged them to form small groups and make their way to unoccupied areas to continue the fighting, something a majority of the crew did.

The wreck of the "Æger" later drifted ashore at nearby Hundvåg and attracted many civilian spectators until removed for scrapping. The three 10 cm main guns of the "Æger" were removed by the Germans, the first two in May, the third in August 1940, for use as coastal artillery. The guns were deployed as a harbour defence battery at Grødeimhammeren just north of Stavanger. [Fjeld 1999: 232, 264]

The "Roda"'s cargo later turned out to have been the entire contingent of heavy anti-aircraft guns intended for the defence of Sola Air Station after its capture by German paratroops, the loss of the guns leaving the newly captured air strips vulnerable to RAF attack.

References

Literature

* Abelsen, Frank: "Norwegian naval ships 1939-1945", Sem & Stenersen AS, Oslo 1986 ISBN 82-7046-050-8 en icon&no icon
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ee also

* List of World War II ships of less than 1000 tons
* List of shipwrecks in 1940