HMS Bittern (L07): Sunk at Namsos, Still Leaking Oil Seven Decades Later

A Class Leader Finished Last

HMS Bittern was built by J. Samuel White at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, laid down on 27 August 1936 and launched on 14 July 1937, becoming operational on 15 March 1938. In a small quirk of naval administration, HMS Bittern gave her name to the entire Bittern class of sloops despite actually being the last of them completed, her sister ships having entered service ahead of her.

Into the Namsos Campaign

HMS Bittern spent her early war service in home waters before being deployed to Norway's coast during the 1940 Namsos campaign, part of the ultimately unsuccessful Allied attempt to help Norway resist the German invasion. Her role at Namsos involved defending transport vessels from submarine and air threats, exactly the kind of exposed, dangerous escort work that characterised the entire short, difficult campaign.

Dive-Bombed, Then Torpedoed by Her Own Side

On 30 April 1940, during intensive Luftwaffe air raids on Namsos harbour, HMS Bittern was attacked by a squadron of Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers at around 7am. A bomb dropped by Oberleutnant Elmo Schäfer's aircraft set her ablaze and inflicted severe damage. With the fire beyond control, her crew were successfully evacuated by nearby Allied vessels, and HMS Bittern herself was finished off by a torpedo from the destroyer HMS Janus, a deliberate act of scuttling her own burning, crippled sister ship rather than leave her to sink slowly or fall into enemy hands.

A Wreck That Won't Quite Rest

HMS Bittern's story did not end with her sinking. By 2011, over seventy years after she went down, her wreck had become a genuine environmental concern, reportedly leaking approximately 200,000 litres of oil into the waters off Namsos, a stark reminder that the physical legacy of wartime losses can persist on the seabed for generations, quietly posing new problems long after the war that caused them has passed from living memory.