Author(s): Tony Gyles

Second World War

The embryo for Operation Konigin was not dreamt up by admirals surrounded by staff officers in some beautifully panelled room of an occupied French Chateau. Instead it began in a glorified whore-house in Lorient in a smoke filled room stinking of spilt beer, over-perfumed women and the body odour of men who knew that their lives could be very short. One of those men, the captain of a U-boat, made a drunken remark about 'Putting one up the Queen' which grew to become a ribald cartoon on the notice board in naval Headquarters in Berlin. There it caught the eye of an admiral who detailed a commander to find out what was behind it. This is the chronicle of the conception, gestation and final birth, in the distant unforgiving cold waters off Iceland, of 'Operation Konigin'. Had it succeeded it would have totally devastated the allied cause. That it did not was in no way due to bad planning or lack of physical courage.