Operation Checkmate (commando raid)

Operation Checkmate
Part of Raids and Commando Actions in Norway during World War II
Cockles (photograph taken during Operation Frankton)
Date 28 April – 15 May 1943 Location Haugesund, Norway 59°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 class=notpageimage| Haugesund, a city and municipality in Rogaland county, Norway

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]