Cossack entered the coastal waters on a clear, moonlit night. Her navigating officer had followed the wrong light and asked for searchlights to establish the ship's position. An approach that could later look deliberately dramatic included a practical attempt to recover the route. British, Norwegian, and German accounts also differed over the subsequent events. The Gathering Storm attributes some of their increasing divergence to participants' need to justify their actions or inaction.
Notable Point · 2:59:46-3:01:06
Cossack's searchlights and conflicting accounts of the Altmark affair
Cossack's conspicuous approach began with navigational uncertainty, while later accounts increasingly disagreed about the confrontation.