Project Catherine
Encyclopedia
Operation Catherine was the name of a proposed Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

 offensive by the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 of the United Kingdom to be undertaken in the spring of 1940. It aimed at interdicting German seaborne commerce with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 and Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

. In particular, an objective was to stop the flow of Swedish iron ore to Germany
Swedish iron ore during World War II
Swedish iron ore was an important economic factor in the European Theatre of World War II. Both the Allies and the Third Reich were keen on the control of the mining district in northernmost Sweden, surrounding the mining towns of Gällivare and Kiruna...

.

The driving force behind the project was the then newly-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 and the head of planning was Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cork
William Boyle, 12th Earl of Cork
Admiral of the Fleet William Henry Dudley Boyle, 12th Earl of Cork, 12th Earl of Orrery GCB GCVO RN was a career Royal Navy officer who had achieved the rank of full Admiral before succeeding a cousin in 1934 to the family titles, chief of which is Earl of Cork...

. Events overtook the project and it was never carried out.

The plan

Churchill proposed a substantial naval squadron: three Revenge-class battleships
Revenge class battleship
The Revenge class battleships were five battleships of the Royal Navy, ordered as World War I loomed on the horizon, and launched in 1914–1916...

, an aircraft carrier, five cruisers, two destroyer flotilla
Flotilla
A flotilla , or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class of warship, such as frigates, destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, gunboats, or minesweepers...

s, submarines and supporting auxiliaries. The battleships would need to be significantly modified to resist air and submarine attack as well as pass through the shallow waters.

Royal Sovereign
HMS Royal Sovereign (05)
HMS Royal Sovereign was a Revenge-class battleship of the Royal Navy displacing and armed with eight guns in four twin turrets...

would have been fitted with very large bulges to her hull (making her 140 ft wide) to increase her buoyancy and so reduce her draught by 9 ft (2.7 m) even after the addition of 4 to 5 in (101.6 to 127 mm) of deck armour (some 2,000 tons of armour would be used in total). While only two of her main turrets would be retained, elevation for those guns would be 30 degrees.
In this new state her top speed would have been about 13-14 knots in action.

As well as cutting off German iron ore supplies, Churchill anticipated that this show of force would encourage the Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n nations to join the war against Germany.

Objections

The First Sea Lord
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...

 Admiral Sir Dudley Pound
Dudley Pound
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound GCB OM GCVO RN was a British naval officer who served as First Sea Lord, professional head of the Royal Navy from June 1939 to September 1943.- Early life :...

 opposed the plan. The arguments against were several. The armour plating was in short supply and was needed elsewhere; the three battleships were badly needed, particularly if Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 also declared war; the impact of air power was under-estimated in the plan; the loss of such a squadron would encourage Italy and Japan to declare war.

The decision

Despite these cogent arguments, and widespread opposition, Churchill continued to push hard for Catherine. Pound avoided a "head-on" argument and apparently cooperated, but pointing out problems as he did so. Eventually, on 20 January 1940, after six months, Churchill himself shelved the operation.

See also

  • Plan R 4
    Plan R 4
    Plan R 4 was the World War II British plan for an invasion of the neutral state of Norway in April 1940. Earlier the British had planned a similar intervention with France during the Winter War.-Background:...

  • Operation Pike
    Operation Pike
    Operation Pike refers to a strategic bombing plan, overseen by Air Commodore John Slessor, against the Soviet Union by the Anglo-French alliance...

  • Franco–British plans for intervention in the Winter War
  • Anglo-German Naval Agreement
    Anglo-German Naval Agreement
    The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 18, 1935 was a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and German Reich regulating the size of the Kriegsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy. The A.G.N.A fixed a ratio whereby the total tonnage of the Kriegsmarine was to be 35% of the total tonnage...

     of 1935
  • British submarine flotilla in the Baltic
    British submarine flotilla in the Baltic
    A British submarine flotilla operated in the Baltic Sea for three years during the First World War. The squadron of nine submarines was attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet. The main task of the flotilla was to prevent the import of iron ore from Sweden to Imperial Germany...


External links

  • World War II magazine Article describing Churchill's plan to convert Revenge class battleships into "armoured turtles" to invade the Baltic Sea in 1940.
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