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. Background Operation Checkmate was the last of twelve commando raids on the Norwegian coast during the Second World War. The raiding party assembled for the operation was composed of one officer and six other ranks from No. 14 (Arctic) Commando (Lieutenant Colonel E. A. M. Wedderburn). The commando had been formed in late 1942, to conduct operations inside of the Arctic circle, following the request of the Chief of Combined Operations Headquarters Louis Mountbatten to meet the demand for further raids in Norway. No. 14 (Arctic) Commando was composed of No. 1 (Boating) Troop which had an establishment of nine officers and 18 other ranks who specialized in small boat operations and No. 2 Troop which had an establishment of six officers and 22 other ranks who specialized in cross-country skiing and mountain climbing. The commando was intended for attacks on the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe bases in Norway, from which the Germans were attacking the Allied Arctic Convoys. For Operation Checkmate the men selected for the raid came from No. 1 (Boating) Troop. The raid commander was Lieutenant John Godwin, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, who was originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The rest of the raiding party comprised one British Army sergeant—Victor John Cox, on attachment from No. 12 Commando; two Royal Navy petty officers—Alfred John Roe and Harold Hiscock; and three Royal Navy able seaman—Neville Arthur Burgess, Keith Mayor and Andrew Anthony West. Their mission was to attack shipping in Oslo and Kopervik in the Haugesund by entering the harbours by canoe and attaching Limpet mines to ships' hulls. Mission The commandos of the raiding force were transported across the North Sea by Motor Torpedo Boat. On arrival in Norwegian waters they set up their patrol base on the island of Bokn, before the Motor Torpedo Boat left them and returned to the United Kingdom. The raiding