 In addition to their cargoes also on board were many British and Norwegian sailors who had been in Sweden following the failure of the Allies' Norwegian Campaign.The ships left Gothenburg on 23 January 1941 and ran the German blockade of the Skagerrak.They narrowly avoided being intercepted by the two German battleships "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" who were just starting Operation Berlin in the Kattegat.