Vian arrived with government orders to free the prisoners and proposed a joint British-Norwegian boarding party. The Norwegian officer refused under his own instructions, since permitting or preventing a search could make Norway appear aligned with one belligerent. British and Norwegian accounts later disagreed over whether Vian offered to escort Altmark back to Bergen for a Norwegian search. The boarding freed the prisoners, while Altmark's crew tried to force Cossack against the fjord wall and used lights to dazzle her. Those actions complicate any account of wholly one-sided aggression. The participants' growing need to justify what they had done, or failed to do, makes the contemporary operational records especially important.
Notable Point · 12:13-16:43
The proposed Altmark search and conflicting recollections
The bridge negotiations show British and Norwegian officers searching for a lawful route through the crisis, while their later disagreements reveal how diplomacy shaped their recollections.