The sinking of Blücher - The King's Choice (2016)

Can we just all admit that the first 45 seconds are just masterfully done pieces of cinematography? A search light hitting something in the dark to dead silence is just foreboding as hell.

"No warning, no hesitation. These are enemies". "What if we're wrong"? "At my command...Fire". Leadership does that.

“Is it an enemy ship?” If a warship is coming into your harbor silent as the grave and completely blacked out. Chances are he’s not coming to throw you a surprise party.

The oscarsborg fortress had been relegated to a training facility, and it was manned by a mix of pensioners and new recruits, it's commander was 64 years old. The guns were older than most of the men and the torpedoes had been manufactured in a country that stopped existing 22 years earlier. The man in charge of the torpedoes had retired 13 years earlier and was called in as reserve as the new guy was sick. And they sunk a cruiser that was so new that it still had a new car smell on the toilet seats.

Fun Fact: The commander of the Torpedo Battery was sick at the time of the action, and so command of the battery during the battle was left to an officer who had actually retired 13 years prior, but was recalled to service due to rising tensions. Thanks to his intimate knowledge of the old torpedo systems--which he had previously manned during the last world war--he was able to use them to great effect despite the fact that they had been designed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a country which no longer existed.

When the searchlight picks out the Blucher, running dark, it's like the reveal of a stealth monster in a horror movie. Gives me chills. A lot of people in a situation like this, where you're not sure what's going on and you're used to peace and not sure if war has started, would hesitate and not react in time. The commander here did his job.

In the beginning of the 70'ies I was in a guided tour on the Oscarsborg Fort. The guide served on one of the guns during the battle. He told an amusing story of the hours after the ship was sunk and the fortress came under heavy air attack. One of the running ordonances, a private soldier, was almost hit by an axe that slammed into a wall only inches from his head. A bomb had hit a shed with tools. He reported to the CO: "The Germans are out of bombs! They have started throwing axes from the airplanes!" :-)

Can we stop to appreciate how masterful the directing is? The beginning is dead silent and creepy. Then as you start to see the ship's silhouette the music even adds to the atmosphere. I love it. I've never even heard of this movie, gotta check it out.

When the Fortress opened fire, the Windows of nearby houses shattered. Gives you some idea of how much firepower those guns had

Can we all just appreciate the fact that they sank one of Hitler's newest heavy cruisers with a fortress manned with recruits and a 64 year old commander and with 50 year old torpedoes?

too bad they didn't include his iconic quote: ''Damn straight we're firing live ammunition. Either I will be decorated, or I will be court-martialed. Fire!'' -Birger Eriksen

"Ingen advarsel, ingen nøling, dette er fienden" which translates to "No warning, no hesitation, this is the enemy" gives me the most insane chills every time I watch this.

“Gunner, you see that cruiser?” “Yes sir?” “I don’t want to.” “Understood sir!”

A man who was equally brave as Birger Eriksen, was Leif Welding-Olsen. He was the captain of Pol III, an old whaler used as patrolship. When he spotted the first german warship in the Oslofjord, he rammed his little ship into the torpedoboat Albatros and bravely demanded their surrender. The Albatros then set fire on Pol III and captain Leif Welding-Olsen got hurt and drowned, as the first fallen norwegian. The german captain on the Albatros later gave his tribute to the brave captain.

Perfectly illustrates the chain of command. The 2nd Officer voices concerns and gives the colonel all the information and relays each command without hesitation

Some interesting facts: The Blücher was carrying many of the troops and Gestapo agents needed to occupy Oslo, and its sinking delayed the German occupation to the point where it allowed the Norwegian king, Haakon VII and his government to escape. After the ship had disappeared from the surface, large quantities of oil floated up and covered the close to two thousand sailors and soldiers fighting for their lives in the freezing water. The oil rapidly caught fire, killing hundreds more Germans. Birger Kristian Eriksen, the Oberst ( A rank equivalent to Colonel) in charge of the fort, was 64 years old by the time of the battle, and was 6 months from retirement. The commander of the torpedo battery in the fort, Kommandørkaptein Andreas Anderssen, had been a pensioner for 13 years before being called back into service a month previously. While the Norwegians were supposed to have taken all the Germans prisoner, they instead focused more on caring for the wounded and dying. Sources: Wikipedia

1:31 Gun #1 hit Blücher 's rangefinder 1:42 Gun #2 landed a devastating shot near Blücher's aircraft hanger, starting a major fire 1:49 Fire igniting stored explosives lighting up up the whole hanger and severely crippling the ship's fire-suppression 2:01 Drøbak's offshore 15 cm batteries seen at Blücher's starboard side opens fire 2:19 Two land-based vintage Whitehead torpedoes launched, first one hitting below Blücher's midship 2:33 Second torpedo hits engine room, flooding further cripples the already stricken Blücher At 07:30 am, Blücher listed and finally sank with significant casualties

Guns might be antiques, but a 280mm (11in) gun at that range is going to hurt, a lot. No cruiser in the world armored enough to withstand that sort of fire power.

And he was only six months from retirement. This isn't a joke, he literally was.

The amazing part of this is the historical accuracy. Not many movie makers are so careful in their details. Versus the documented historical battle they have tweaked only a bare 2 or 3 details at most. Add on top of that then the sheer phenomenal cinematography is breath taking.