Operation Gearbox II (17 September 1942 – 7 September 1943) was a Norwegian and British operation during the Second World War on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago. Operation Fritham, the first attempt to establish a base had been defeated when the two ships carrying the force were sunk by Luftwaffe bombers on 14 May.
In Operation Gearbox (30 June – 17 September 1942), 57 Norwegian reinforcements with 116 long tons (118 t) of supplies had arrived by cruiser on 2 July. The reinforcements consolidated the defences of the former settlement at Barentsburg and made preparations for Gearbox II, another reinforcement of the Norwegians and part of the plan for Convoy PQ 18, to prevent a repeat of Convoy PQ 17 (27 June – 10 July 1942) in which 24 of the 35 freighters in the convoy had been sunk.
Force P (the Spitsbergen Fuelling Force) comprising the fleet oilers RFA Blue Ranger and RFA Oligarch and four destroyer escorts, sailed from Scapa Flow on 3 September and anchored in Lowe Sound (Van Mijenfjorden) several days later. From 9 to 13 September, relays of destroyers were detached from PQ 18 to refuel before the convoy passed Bjørnøya (Bear Island), into range of Luftwaffe bombers and torpedo-bombers based in north Norway.
After another German weather party was chased off the island by the Norwegians in June 1943, a German flotilla, including Tirpitz, raided Spitsbergen in Operation Zitronella on 7 September, took 31 prisoners and destroyed much of the infrastructure and equipment of Gearbox II. On 19 October, the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa and four destroyers delivered more Norwegian troops.
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