"sea-pirates". However, Jim Rhodes, a former crew member of Cossack, wrote in the April 2002 newsletter of the Association that he had witnessed a cutlass being carried by one of the boarding party. Rhodes did not take part in the action, he watched from B Gun deck, and was not close enough to identify the cutlass holder. Rhodes stated that four cutlasses were kept on board for ceremonial purposes. Seven German sailors were killed and eleven wounded during the fighting; six seriously. The German dead were buried in Sogndal Cemetery above Jøssingfjord. HMS Cossack left the Jøssingfjord just after midnight on 17 February. The Norwegian escorts protested, but did not intervene. The official explanation later given by the Norwegian government was that, according to international treaty, a neutral country was not obliged to resist a vastly superior force. Aftermath The Norwegians were angered that their neutrality had been infringed, as they did not want to be dragged into the war. Nonetheless, the Altmark incident sowed doubts about Norwegian neutrality among the Allies and in Germany. Hitler, who earlier had decided on 14 December 1939 on the invasion of Norway after discussions with Admiral Erich Raeder and Vidkun Quisling, ordered intensified planning on 19 February 1940 for attacks on Norway and Denmark, which eventually took place on 9 April 1940 under the code name Operation Weserübung. However, as noted by politician Maurice Hankey, the incident "does not seem to have given Hitler the pretext he was seeking for launching an invasion of Norway." The Altmark incident gave the British a short-lived but sorely needed morale boost during the Phoney War. The incident also had a lasting propaganda effect in German-occupied Norway during the war, when the Norwegian collaborationist government tried to neutralise their nickname "quislings" by using the location of the skirmish, Jøssingfjord, to coin the derogatory term "jøssing", referring to pro-Allies and anti-Nazis. Their efforts backfired, as "jøssing" was immediately adopted as a positive term by the general public, and the word was banned from official use by 1943. The phrase "the Navy's here" became well known in Britain, being used as the title of a book about the incident; the publisher referred to "the simple statement which stirred the imagination of the world". A popular song was written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles which saluted the incident by comparing it with those of Drake, Nelson, Beatty and Fisher.