Weird History: Did You Know Once German And British Pilots Shot Each Other Down, Then Forged Unlikely Alliance To Stay Alive?

After Germany invaded Poland and the British and French declared war on the Third Reich, there was little warfare between these countries. All had begun to fortify their defences against one another, and naval battles were breaking out in the Baltic and North Seas.

This was primarily due to German efforts to keep urgently needed Swedish iron ore streaming in to feed their war engine. The majority of this iron originated in Norway.

The northern port of Narvik was especially important since iron could be carried from there during the winter when the Baltic Sea was frozen and hazardous.

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Who forged an unlikely friendship during WWII?

As Europe slid into war, Norway began to mobilise its army, navy, and air force to protect its neutrality. The British and Germans became increasingly daring in taking naval and aerial hits on each other.

By early 1940, Hitler was determined to invade Norway in order to ensure its strategic relevance in the struggle against the Allies. The Norwegian Campaign lasted from April 9th to June 10th, 1940, when the German invasion of France pulled the majority of Allied forces south and Norway was seized. The Norwegian government relocated to London.

What happened at the war site?

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Despite the horrors of war, occasional cooperation between foes occurred, if only for survival, deep out in the woods.

Lieutenant Horst Schopis' Heinkel bomber was shot down by Captain R.T. Partridge and his radio operator, R.S. Bostock, in their Skua. Schopis' tail gunner, Hans Hauck, was killed on impact, but Schopis and the surviving survivors of his crew, Unteroffizier Josef Auchtor and Feldwebel Karl-Heinz Strunk, confronted the vast, frigid unknown.

They weren't alone, though. Partridge and Bostock had crash-landed not far away on a frozen lake after their engines failed. The two crews were the closest to Grotli, Norway, but they were surrounded by mountains and lakes, and they were kilometres from any road.

Where did the two end up?

Partridge saw an ancient reindeer hunter's cottage not far away while attempting to land his sputtering plane. They trudged through the snow, only to be ambushed by the German crew, who were armed with pistols and knives.

Partridge, using a mix of German and English to break down the language barrier, convinced the Germans that he and Bostock were survivors of a downed Vickers Wellington Bomber (rather than the aces who had brought their jet down).

According to Schopis' memoirs, Partridge advised on the first day they met that the Germans stay in the cabin while the Brits seek protection elsewhere. That night, the British came across the Grotli Hotel, which was closed for the winter but provided shelter from the elements. The Germans arrived the next morning, and everyone enjoyed breakfast.

Partridge and Strunk set out that day to look for people and, hopefully, save both crews. It would be useless for either party if they were discovered dead from famine when the seasons finally changed.

They quickly located a Norwegian ski patrol, which was close enough to the hotel for Bostock to hear a shot being fired, which he imagined was Feldwebel Strunk shooting his captain.

But Strunk was the one who died, allegedly shot by the ski patrol as he went for his pistol. Schopis and Auchtor were apprehended by the Norwegians, handed over to the British, and subsequently deported to a POW camp in Canada, where they remained for the duration of the war.

How did the two help each other?

Partridge and Bostock, under suspicion for their collaboration with the Germans, managed to persuade the Norwegians that they were, at the very least, English by showing them tailor labels on their uniforms and a half-crown coin. Furthermore, the leader of the ski patrol happened to have some mutual contacts with Partridge.

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The two British pilots were released and trekked to Alesund, a town on the Norwegian coast many miles away and heavily under German bombardment. The ship that was meant to bring them and other British soldiers back to England never arrived, so they stole a car and drove northeast to Andelsnes, where they were able to arrange passage back to England.

Partridge was shot down and captured by the Germans in June 1940 while attacking the German battleship Scharnhorst. He spent the rest of the war as a POW. Bostock was killed in the same combat, this time flying a Blackburn Skua.

Many years later, in 1977, Schopis received a phone call from Partridge, and the two eventually reunited as friends in their respective hometowns of Munich and London.

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