After being intercepted by the destroyer , captained by Philip Vian, Altmark sought refuge in the Jøssingfjord, but Cossack followed her in the next day. The Altmark's Norwegian naval escorts blocked initial attempts to board the ship, and aimed their torpedo tubes at the Cossack. Captain Vian then asked the British Admiralty for instructions, and received the following orders directly from the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill: The British government made no particular objection to the fact of a prison ship traversing neutral waters. In fact, in official papers regarding the incident, they noted the fact that the Royal Navy had done the same, for example in December 1939, when the cruiser passed through the Panama Canal, which was neutral waters, with German prisoners aboard from the freighter Düsseldorf. But the crew of the Altmark had gone hundreds of miles out of their way to make the long run through Norwegian waters to Germany. Besides, the Norwegian government had not permitted the Germans to transport prisoners through Norwegian waters (the Altmark having falsely claimed to be carrying none), nor had the crew been truthful regarding the nature of their cargo and voyage. The Norwegian naval forces refused to take part in a joint escort, reiterating that their earlier searches of Altmark had found nothing. Vian then stated that he intended to board Altmark and invited the Norwegians to take part, but this was also refused. In the ensuing action, Altmark ran aground. The British then boarded her at 22:20 on 16 February, and—after some hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets—overwhelmed the ship's crew and went down to the hold. One of the released prisoners stated that the first they knew of the operation was when they heard the shout "any Englishmen here?" from the boarding party. When the prisoners shouted back "yes! We are all British!", the response was "well, the Navy's here!" which brought cheers. This incident is frequently cited as the last Royal Navy action with cutlasses. However, the HMS Cossack Association do not believe this to be true. Barton and McGrath, the authors of British Naval Swords and Swordsmanship, also think this is dubious, and point out that Frischauer and Jackson, authors of The Altmark Affair, interviewed a large number of the crew, none of whom verified the use of cutlasses. Barton and McGrath suggest that idea may have originated from German accusations that the British were