The Blockade Busters

Cheating Hitler's Reich of Vital War Supplies

Ralph Barker

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military Classics
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781844152827
• eBook ISBN: 9781473819115
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History

A detailed history of three British World War II blockade runs to get vital supplies from Sweden past the Germans.
The Blockade Busters recounts one of the greatest sea stories of World War II. It is the story of how George Binney, a thirty-nine-year-old civilian working in neutral Sweden when Norway was overrun by the Germans in 1940. He set about running vital cargoes of Swedish ball-bearings and special steels to Britain through the blockaded Skagerrak, where German air strength was dominant and where the Royal Navy dare not trespass. Despite Admiralty gloom and in the face of political objections that were overcome by Binney's persistence, five ships carrying a year's supply of valuable materials for the expanding British war industries were successfully sailed to Britain in January 1941. The following attempt was not as successful and ended when six ships were sunk or scuttled. But then came the saga of the Little Ships, the motor gunboats flying the Red Duster that operated out of the Humber to and from the Swedish coast in the winter of 1943/44, defying the strengthened German defences and the wrath of severe weather.

CONTENTS

Author’s Note

Illustrations

INTRODUCTION · A Man Called Binney

PART I · OPERATION RUBBLE: Escape Through the Skaggerak

Postscript to Rubble

PART II · OPERATION PERFORMANCE: ‘Twice is not once over again’

Postscript to Performance

PART III · OPERATION BRIDFORD: The Grey Ladies

Postscript to Bridford

Source

Index

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Through the courtesy of Lady Binney and her son Marcus I have had access to all the late Sir George Binney’s manuscripts and papers, and these have been a valuable basic source, filling out the material gathered from official documents and in the course of interviews and correspondence with those who took part in the blockade-running operations or had some responsibility for them.

The enthusiasm and spontaneity with which so many of Sir George’s wartime comrades and associates responded to appeals for help and personal reminiscence provided convincing proof of the esteem and affection in which he was held.

Many of the people listed at the end of the book (Sources, p. 213) have helped at considerable length, and it does not detract from my indebtedness to them to say that I must single out here four for special mention. They are Harald Meltzer, of Oslo, who was my guide and host when I made a research visit to Scandinavia; J. C. ‘Jack’ Aird, whose translation of Norwegian documents was an essential preliminary to that visit; Stina Siberg, widow of Ville Siberg, of SKF, who undertook important research work for me in Sweden; and Captain R. W. ‘Bob’ Tanton, who organised and led me in a tour of the men of the little ships in and around Hull.

R. B.

ILLUSTRATIONS

1 George Binney

2a After breaking the Blockade, January 1941

2b The flagship Tai Shan

3a Captain Andrew Henry with members of the crew of the Elizabeth Bakke

3b The Elizabeth Bakke

4a Captain Carl Jensen with King Haakon

4b Captain Bill Escudier

4c One of the volunteer seamen with his bonus

5a Captain Henry Denham

5b Captain Ivar Blücker

5c Alva Henriksson

5d William Kjellberg

6a Victor Mallet with Christian Günther, 12 May 1945

6b Erik Boheman

6c Bill Waring

7a The Charente, and (inset) Björn Egge

7b The Rigmor, and (inset) F. Wessel Berg

8 Four of the five ‘Little Ship’ captains

8a ‘Ginger’ Stokes

8b Harry Witfield

8c ‘Jacko’ Jackson

8d George Holdsworth

9a Bob Tanton and the Toucan mascot

9b Brian Reynolds—the ‘Lion’

10a Cook-steward Stan Close taking a ‘cuppa’ to the Gay Viking’s bridge

10b Some of the crew of the Gay Corsair

11a Nancy Hegg

11b Ted Ruffman

11c Unloading at Lysekil

12a Looking aft from the Gay Corsair

12b On the bridge of Nonsuch

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The copyright in the photographs is acknowledged as follows: 1 and 12b, Popperfoto; 2a, 3a, 3b, 4c, The Imperial War Museum, London; 2b, Henriksen & Steen A/S; 4a, Royal Norwegian Government; 4b, Captain W. J. Escudier, OBE; 5a, Captain Henry Denham, RN (Retd.); 5b, Leif Blücker; 5c, 5d, C. W. Kjellberg; 6a, John V. G. Mallet; 6b, Reportabild, Stockholm; 6c, 8a, 9b, 10a, 11b, Captain E. B. Ruffman, DSC; 7a (inset), Colonel Björn Egge; 7b (inset), F. Wessel Berg; 8b, Mrs. A. Whitfield; 8c, Mrs. Constance Jackson, ALCM; 8d, Mrs. M. M. Holdsworth; ga, 10b, Associated Newspapers; 11a, Curt Wards; 11c, 12a, SKF, Gothenburg. The maps (on pages 23 and 104) were drawn by Edgar Holloway.

INTRODUCTION

A Man Called Binney

GEORGE BINNEY had never quite got over the accident of birth which had caused him to miss the First World War. Bom on 23rd September 1900, he had been accepted for a commission in the Scots Guards soon after his eighteenth birthday, but the date of acceptance had been 11th November 1918—Armistice Day. Then, when he went on to university, he found himself surrounded by young men very little older than himself who had distinguished themselves on war service, and although he was not a person who easily developed a sense of inferiority, the gap in his experience rankled.

Of any healthy Englishman born in the early years of the Twentieth Century it might be said, adapting Oscar Wilde, that to have missed one World War might be regarded as excusable, but to have missed both looked like cowardice. This was the prospect facing George Binney when, on the outbreak of the Second World War on 3rd September 1939, he volunteered at once for the Navy, only to be told that he was too old to be commissioned to go to sea.

Civilised in the true sense of the word, and enjoying both sensual and aesthetic pleasures, Binney played squash to keep himself fit; but nevertheless he bore the marks of good living. Short but well-built, he was written down by the naval authorities (so it is said) as a man of unmilitary aspect who looked more like a stockbroker than a seafarer and who at close-on 40 could offer them little. But when he protested that he was fitter than many men ten years his junior, his blue eyes sparked with such stubborn refusal to accept outright rejection that the interviewing board recognised him as a fighter.

‘We’ll put you on the list for later consideration,’ they told him.

Sentimental, but with few illusions, Binney was nothing if not resourceful. What was he best fitted for? How could he find some facet of the war for which he was uniquely equipped? The reaction of the authorities, he feared, would be to find him a desk job. That was something he was determined to avoid.

On his seventh birthday the young George Binney had been taken by his father to see Eton College, partly as a treat, partly to give him an appetite for the things it offered. At that time it was a distant prospect indeed. His father, Rev. M. F. B. Binney, was then Vicar of Richmond, Surrey, and with four sons to educate he couldn’t afford to send George to Eton or anywhere else without a scholarship. But he believed that a good education, and good health, were by far the most important things any parent could bestow on an offspring, and he encouraged the boy to try for a King’s Scholarship to Eton. In July 1914, after six years at Summerfields School, Oxford, the young Binney was duly taken by his headmaster to Eton to sit the scholarship examination. When it was over he was sent home to await results.

‘On the appointed day,’ wrote George Binney many years later, ‘my father stood in the hall in his frock coat, anxiously pacing about and peering through the window across Richmond Green for the telegraph boy. Suddenly he shouted “Here he comes!” Hurriedly donning his top-hat, he leapt down the front steps, shot across the road, vaulted over the railings, and dashed across the Green towards the slightly alarmed messenger boy who was carrying the telegram. Snatching it from him, he tore it open and devoured its contents. Then he threw his top-hat into the air, danced with joy, and waved and shouted at me in a frenzy of excitement. “George sixteenth on Eton list,” read the telegram. “Scholarship certain.”’ Binney attributed his scholarship to the luck of being set for his Latin verse paper a Walter Scott poem he had worked on two weeks earlier.

The boyish enthusiasm which the father had retained into his fifties was equally characteristic of the son at 39. A bachelor, but no misogynist, he believed in experiencing life to the full. Allied to this were qualities of ingenuity, tenacity, a disarming ingenuousness which was almost naivety, and old-fashioned virtues of integrity, enterprise, self-reliance and patriotism. Where might, these qualities now best be applied?

From Eton Binney had gained a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, attributing his luck this time to writing an essay on Joachim, the violinist, only to be examined in the oral by Joachim’s nephew. In his second term he had succeeded Beverley Nichols as editor of Isis. Then a chance visit from Julian Huxley, at that time a fellow of New College, had set him on a fresh course. Huxley and other scientists were keen to organise an expedition to Spitsbergen, arid they wanted Isis to help them launch the project. Binney soon found himself first a member of the expedition committee and later organising secretary. ‘This involved the raising of funds, the charter of a Norwegian sealing-sloop, the finding of suitable stores and equipment, the selection of personnel and the sale of press rights,’ he wrote afterwards, ‘for none of which I was qualified. But as I have never been discouraged by my ignorance, I entered into my duties with zest.’ Here further characteristics were revealed, for wartime adventures perhaps the most important of all: cheek, and luck. However boldly planned such adventures might be, they often depended as much as anything on luck for their ultimate success.

Having organised and led three university expeditions while at Oxford, Binney wrote two books on his experiences: With Seaplane and Sledge in the Arctic (1925), and The Eskimo Book of Knowledge (1931). The first of these books brought him to the notice of Sir Charles Sale, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who rightly judged Binney’s exploits to be exceptional for a young man of 25. He gave Binney a job in the Fur Trade Department of the company, which meant that Binney divided his time between winter in London and summer in the Canadian Arctic and around Hudson Bay. Sale, a stem taskmaster, inculcated into Binney a strict Edwardian concept of business methods, together with a respect for precision in verbal negotiation and in the wording of documents. But in 1931 the company had to be reshaped following the Wall Street crash, and Binney was facing dismissal when his second book was published and noticed in a Times leader. He was at once offered a transfer to the Canadian headquarters in Winnipeg. But nearly all his friends were in London, and he was a man who set great store by his friends. So he resigned. Next morning, quite fortuitously, he was offered the job of forming and developing a Central Export Department in United Steel.

Nine months’ training at the works at Sheffield, Scunthorpe and Workington did not turn him into a metallurgist, but it gave him the necessary background. What they wanted was his patience, humanity and persuasiveness as a negotiator. Binney never tried to impose his will on anyone, and he was never arrogant. But his gentle approach concealed a mind that knew exactly what it wanted to achieve and generally did so.

At his house in Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, waited on by a manservant and surrounded by the collection of antiques which was one of his few conceits, Binney let his mind drift back to the Arctic, and to what now seemed the next best thing, Scandinavia. It was the obvious choice. Britain had vital interests there in ferro-alloy, iron-ore, Swedish iron, special steels and ball-bearings, and these interests, of paramount importance to the planned expansion of key British industries in wartime, might well be threatened by German competition. At the same time the background of a neutral country might give opportunities for some form of Intelligence work. Both before and after Munich, Binney had had contacts with Military Intelligence, but his lack of a specialised language had gone against him, and he still hadn’t found his niche.

‘Do you know the Norwegians, George?’ asked Robert Hilton, managing director of United Steel, when Binney approached him, and Binney reminded Hilton that he had spent many months with Norwegian sealing crews in the Arctic and if his Norwegian wasn’t exactly fluent it was colloquial and to the point. And Sweden? ‘We’ve got the best agency in Stockholm of any of the steelmakers,’ replied Binney. ‘Carl Setterwall and Co., and their chief Adolf Fagerland. They’ve got long-standing Sheffield connections and I couldn’t wish for a better foundation there.’ Binney’s schemes, however imaginative, always had a sound logical basis. ‘I’d like to meet your Intelligence friend,’ said Hilton. ‘If he satisfies me, I’ll discuss it with Sir Andrew Duncan.’ Duncan, a Glasgow-trained lawyer,...

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