Operation Checkmate (commando raid)

Operation Checkmate
Part of Raids and Commando Actions in Norway during World War II

Cockles (photograph taken during Operation Frankton)
Date28 April – 15 May 1943
Location59°26′47″N 05°17′54″E / 59.44639°N 5.29833°E / 59.44639; 5.29833
Result British victory
Belligerents
 United Kingdom  Nazi Germany
Commanders and leaders
Lieutenant John Godwin RNVR
Units involved
No. 14 (Arctic) Commando
Strength
Seven men
Casualties and losses
7  (POW)
6 executed
1 died of Typhus
One minesweeper sunk
Haugesund is located in Norway
Haugesund
Haugesund

Operation Checkmate was the codename for a raid on shipping at Haugesund, Norway in April 1943 during the Second World War by British Commandos. The raiding party consisted of seven men of No. 14 (Arctic) Commando who managed to sink one ship using limpet mines. While waiting in hiding for the transport back to the United Kingdom they were captured on 14 and 15 May 1943 and eventually taken to Sachsenhausen and Belsen concentration camps where six of them were executed, victims of the Commando Order. The seventh man died of typhus.[1]