Newsroom
2006
Genfer Lloyds Flekkefjord Team Visits Historic Jossingfjorden
10.08.2006Sunday 30 July 13 workers from Genfer Lloyd's Flekkefjord team visited Jossingfjorden. This was the site of a very important incident during WW2.
In February of 1940 a German tanker ship, the Altmark, carrying 300 British war prisoners from ships sunk by the cruiser Graf Spee in the south Atlantic sought refuge from a British destroyer 'Cossack' in this fjord. Norway was at the time neutral and allowed the ship into its waters not knowing that it carried British war prisoners. When the Altmark tried to ram the British destroyer and escape, it ran aground and the British prisoners were liberated by english marines. The incident was praised by Winston Churchill, however the Germans did not approve. So some historians today argue that the Altmark incident in Jossingfjorden were partly instrumental in the Germans' decision to invade and occupy Norway in April of the same year. The Genfer Lloyd workers came across a memorial describing this incident during their visit.
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