fjord in Finnmark. As the fighting in Norway neared its end with the Allied evacuation from the country following the German attack into France, the Norwegian authorities instructed Prins Olav's captain to sail west to the Faroe Islands. Last voyage and sinking On 7 June 1940 Prins Olav bunkered in the port of Hammerfest in western Finnmark, before sailing to Kågsund in Troms, where the Royal Norwegian Navy's chief of staff, Captain Gunnar Hovdenak, was organizing the evacuation of merchant vessels from Northern Norway to the United Kingdom. Prins Olav embarked Captain Hovdenak and steamed alone towards the Faroe Islands in the early morning on 8 June, attempting to join the last of the British evacuation convoys to have left Norway. While Prins Olav had been bunkering in Hammerfest, false rumours had been circulating in the civilian population of the town that King Haakon and his government were on board. Initially, Prins Olav sailed in the company of the steamer , but lost sight of the other vessel while temporarily changing course to order the Tromsø-bound steamer to redirect to Tórshavn on the Faroe Islands. On 9 June Prins Olav caught up with the fellow Hurtigruten steamer Ariadne. The two unarmed Norwegian vessels sailed together throughout the day. At 22:30 the ships were discovered by six Luftwaffe Heinkel He 111 bombers from the II. Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 26, despatched from Værnes Air Station near Trondheim to search for ships trying to escape from Northern Norway, and came under attack. After managing to avoid being hit for more than an hour by evasive manoeuvring at full speed, dodging 14 bombs, Prins Olav suffered a near miss which damaged her machinery and left her dead in the water. The crew abandoned ship while being strafed by the German aircraft. Shortly after the crew had boarded life boats and left the ship, Prins Olav was struck by two bombs in the stern and caught fire before later sinking at . One crew member was killed in the sinking, while four others were wounded. In all, 36 people survived the sinking of Prins Olav. Ariadne, which had served as a hospital ship during the Norwegian Campaign but disembarked her medical personnel in Tromsø and had her red crosses painted over before departing, was also sunk by the German bombers, with the loss of nine lives. After the attack, the survivors of the two ships