GLORIUS, the carrier.

16 Hurricane fighters were stationed at Bardufoss Airfield by the British RAF. They were used to support the allied forces during the battle of Narvik.

The fighters were kept at Bardufoss until 8th of June, right before the Norwegian surrender 10th of June 1940.

It were cert ain disagreement whether the planes should be demolished, or try to land them onboard the carrier Glorious, situated outside the Lofoten Islands.

Experts were of the opinion that it would be impossible to land the fighters on to the ship at sea. the planes missed an important hook witch connects to a stop-wire on the aircraft carriers deck. It were considered a pure suicide attempt.

The squadrons best pilot Pat Jameson was dispatched to attempt the first landing. However the rest of the squadron didn't receive any message on the result of the attempt. Still they decided to try to rescue the remaining fighters by landing them safely on to Glorious. The pilots and crew put small sandbags at the back of the planes.

The idea was to prevent the aircraft from rolling over under extreme breaking while landing. Inspite of the experts predictions, all had landed safely by 4.30 a.m. on June 8th. This were the first successful landing ever done by a Hurricane onto an aircraft carrier.

However, this is not the end of the story. HMS Glorious sets course towards England carrying it's valuable cargo. To escort Glorious she got only to destroyers, "Ardent" and "Acasta". At 4 p.m. action stations was sounded. Traces of tell tale smoke was observed on the horizon. Glorious had fallen into the clutches of the enormous German battleships Scarnhorst and the Gneisenau. The Ardent was quickly sunk by the 28 cm guns.

The Acasta tried desperately create a smoke screen around Glorious and then bravely attacked the Scharnhorst actually hitting it with a torpedo, but all too quickly followed the Ardent. The Glourious was then torn to pieces by the two huge German ships who stayed out of range of its smaller guns.