On 26 May, P-Peter, a Catalina flying boat, was flown to Spitsbergen; the crew made contact with Fritham Force and destroyed a German Ju 88 bomber caught on the ground.

[1] The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) based at Bletchley Park housed a small industry of code-breakers and traffic analysts.

Combined with their knowledge of Luftwaffe procedures, the computers could give fairly accurate details of German reconnaissance sorties and sometimes predicted attacks twenty minutes before they were detected by radar.

[4] From 25 July to 9 August 1940, Admiral Hipper sailed from Trondheim to search the area from Tromsø to Bear Island and Svalbard, to intercept British ships returning from Petsamo but found only a Finnish freighter.

Vian was sent to look at the west coast of Spitsbergen, the main island of the Svalbard Archipelago, which was mostly ice-free and 450 mi (720 km) from northern Norway, to assess its potential as a base.

Norwegian and Russian civilians were to be evacuated using the same two cruisers, with five destroyer escorts, an oiler and RMS Empress of Canada, a troop transport carrying 645 men, mainly Canadian infantry.

[8] Normal business was kept up at the Barentsburg wireless station by the Norwegian Military Governor Designate, Lieutenant Ragnvald Tamber; three colliers sent from the mainland were hijacked along with a seal ship MS Selis, the icebreaker SS Isbjørn, a tug and two fishing boats.

The Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe surveyed land sites for weather stations in the range of sea and air supply, some to be manned and others automatic.Wettererkundungsstaffel 5 (Wekusta 5) part of Luftflotte 5, was based at Banak in northern Norway, once the facilities were ready.

The He 111s and Ju 88s of Wekusta 5 ranged over the Arctic Ocean, past Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen, towards Greenland; the experience gained made the unit capable of the transport and supply of manned and automatic weather stations.

[13] After the wireless station on Spitsbergen had mysteriously ceased transmission in early September, German reconnaissance flights from Banak discovered the Canadian demolitions, burning coal dumps and saw one man, a conscientious objector who had refused to leave, waving to them.

[20] The Norwegians assured the British that their men would need only a basic military training, since they were islanders returning to their homeland, not an invasion force, a fact which would also honour the terms of the Svalbard Act (1925).

The local concerns of the Norwegians and the strategic interests of the Admiralty in supporting Arctic convoys to the USSR coincided and a reconnaissance flight by a Catalina from Sullom Voe was arranged.

[21] Catalina flying boat J-Johnnie (Flight-Lieutenant [F/L] D. E. Hawkins) of 240 Squadron Royal Air Force (RAF) flew to Svalbard on 4–5 April, carrying Major Einar Sverdrup of the Norwegian Brigade (former director of Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani [the Great Norwegian Spitsbergen Coal Company]) of Svalbard and Lieutenant Alexander (Sandy) Glen (RNVR), leader of the Oxford University Arctic Expedition, 1935–1936.

Isfjorden was bathed in sunshine when the Catalina arrived and Sverdrup and Glen could see the coal dumps at Grumantbayen and Barentsburg smouldering from the Operation Gauntlet demolitions but no smoke over Longyearbyen.

At first it took full power to move but after six runs it was possible to attempt to take off; there was a river terrace below the end of the strip and falling off this gave the Heinkel enough speed to remain airborne.

An icy wind blew through the holes in the cockpit glazing, the starboard engine began to lose oil and the wireless broke down but the aircraft reached Banak; the bullet damage was found to be worse than thought.

The route of the Catalina was from Muckle Flugga in the Shetland Islands, to Jan Mayen to check the ice edge in the Greenland Sea, thence to Isfiorden, making landfall at 5:50 a.m.

Glen and Godfrey flew to Akureyri by Catalina, rendezvoused with the expedition and the ships sailed on 8 May, with a copy of the ice report made after the reconnaissance flight three days earlier.

A party went ashore at Cape Linné and reported no signs of human habitation, after which the ships sailed east along Isfiorden and found that they could not reach Advent Bay because of the ice.

[30] When the damaged Heinkel had flown back to Banak on 13 May, twelve men had been left behind and Luftwaffe weather reconnaissance aircraft were diverted to Isfiorden to drop messages and supplies.

Command of the Norwegians had devolved to Lieutenant Ove Roll Lund who sent 35 men to Sveagruva, over Grøndalen, Reindalen, the Nordenskiöld Land mountains and then down into Van Mijenfjorden near Bellsund.

Small parties went out on 16 and 17 May to reconnoitre the Germans in Advent Bay, lightly equipped, camouflaged by any white sheets or garments they could find and living off supplies in huts along the route.

A signal station was established in a hut north of Barentsburg close to Cape Heer and the mouth of Green Harbour, in anticipation of the British aircraft flying down Isfjorden.

By the end of May, the rival parties were in improvised bases in fjords heading south from Isfjorden, ten minutes' flying time apart but the land journey between was too rough for a serious expedition by either side.

Landfall was made after 4:00 a.m. on 29 May and the Catalina was flown at 100 kn (190 km/h; 120 mph) as the bags were dropped near huts at the bottom of the valley slope as the crew kept watch for German aircraft.

[37] The landing party returned with reports at 8:00 p.m. and the Catalina was airborne ten minutes later, reaching Sullom Voe at 7:17 a.m.; the wounded were taken to the sick bay and then flown to the Norwegian hospital in Edinburgh.

On clear days the German pilots flew direct over the mountains and if heavily laden took the coast route past Barentsburg and a Kröte was installed on the north side of Advent bay at Hjorthamn.

[42] Catalina N-Nuts flew to Spitsbergen on 13 July with the Colt parts and other supplies, thence to Hope Island (Hopen) another 100 nmi (190 km; 120 mi) and follow the edge of the polar ice as far as possible before turning to Grasnaya on the Kola Inlet or Lake Lakhta near Archangelsk in north Russia.

The ships kept their engines running as the Norwegians and 116 long tons (118 t) of supplies, including short-wave wireless, anti-aircraft guns, skis, sledges and other Arctic warfare equipment were unloaded.

As the aircraft flew low towards Hjorthamn and made a steep turn, Niks Langbak a Selis gunner, shot down the bomber; the crew were buried and code books salvaged from the wreckage.