Trapped on a remote Arctic island and knowing that Nazi Germany had capitulated, the Swashbuckler squad wanted to surrender too — but there was no one to give themselves up to.
The 11 members of the team were stationed on the otherwise uninhabited Norwegian island of Nordaustlandet, or North East Land, deep inside the Arctic circle, on the outer edge of the archipelago of Svalbard.
They became the last German soldiers to surrender, and their story is the subject of a documentary that has cast fresh light on history.
They had been there for a year, providing weather reports to the German navy and air force, and had known about Germany’s surrender ever since it had been signed on May 8. But in the