The telegram from Lord Halifax to his ambassador in Norway, Cecil Dormer, should be viewed in the light of this optimism. The message stated that the British Government was taking immediate action against the Germans in Bergen and Trondheim. This information was passed to the Norwegians and created false expectations. In fact, the members of the War Cabinet were already shifting their attention away from south and central Norway to Narvik.
Admiral Pound briefed Churchill after the War Cabinet meeting. Pound considered the operation against Bergen too risky after discovering that there were two German cruisers in that city. Churchill agreed and this led to the cancellation of the attack. By the time the telegram from Halifax to Dormer was on its way, telling the Norwegians that the British were moving immediately against the Germans in Bergen, Churchill and the Admiralty were canceling that operation. In retrospect, Churchill concluded that the Admiralty had interfered too much in operational matters and that the decision on whether or not to attack Bergen should have been left to Admiral Forbes.
A meeting of the Supreme War Council was convened at 10 Downing Street around 1730 hours on April 9, with the French represented by Reynaud, Daladier, and Admiral Darlan. The discussion focused on what could be done to thwart the Germans in Norway. The British pointed out that the two divisions held back in England for use in Scandinavia had been sent to France after the conclusion of peace between the Soviet Union and Finland. Consequently, there were only eleven battalions in Great Britain available for operations in Norway. The council was told that two of these battalions were embarked and sailing that night. Another five battalions would be available in three days, earmarked for Bergen and Trondheim according to Secretary of State for War Oliver Stanley, and the remaining four would not be ready for another two weeks. Some of the battalions were short of equipment and supplies left behind on the warships when R4 was cancelled and the fleet readied for naval action.
If additional British forces were required, they had to be withdrawn from those deployed in France. The French offered an alpine division that they claimed would be ready to embark in 40 hours. Even now, after the Admiralty’s cancellation of an attack on Bergen and heavy attacks on the Home Fleet by German aircraft operating from Sola Airfield, the highest level of the government continued to operate as if all would turn out well. Chamberlain informed the French that he hoped to recapture not only Narvik, but also the west coast ports of Bergen and Trondheim.
The War Council was not in agreement over the action that should be taken in Norway. Whereas the French preferred to concentrate on resecuring Narvik, Stanley advocated the capture of Trondheim and Bergen, which would shore up Norwegian resistance. Churchill remained confident that this could easily be achieved and that the Allied troops would be able to push as far as the Swedish border. In the end, no decisions were taken on how to handle the situation in Norway. The meeting concluded with a very vague reference to the employment of forces at ports on the Norwegian coast, with particular emphasis on Narvik.
There was a meeting of the Military Coordination Committee (MCC),12 chaired by Churchill, at 2130 hours on April 9. Churchill proposed that no action be taken against Trondheim and that the focus should be on Narvik. Ironside and the others present agreed. Their fixation with the old question of iron ore meant that they failed to change their thinking in response to the new situation created by the German invasion. Even a successful local operation in Narvik would be of limited use if the Germans held the rest of the country.
The successful conquest of southern and central Norway by the Germans would eventually make the Allied presence in northern Norway untenable. The German forces in Narvik were isolated almost 500 miles from their nearest comrades in Trondheim. They could not receive reinforcements on a meaningful scale and supply by air presented enormous problems, particularly if actions were taken to make the Værnes Airfield near Trondheim unusable. The greatest blow against the Germans in Narvik could best be struck by contesting the German conquest of central Norway. Some at the meeting must have thought along these lines since the committee’s directive to the Chiefs of Staff to prepare plans for the capture of Narvik included a provision for establishing footholds in central Norway, at Åndalsnes and Namsos.
Chamberlain, addressing the House of Commons, was greeted by loud applause as he concluded that the events in Norway would prove to be catastrophic for the Germans. He, like his French counterpart, believed that the references to Narvik in the dispatches were mistakes. He believed they meant the town of Larvik, about 900 miles to the south.13
Kersaudy’s summary of the Allies’ response during the first day of the German invasion is on point:14
… the Allies, after six major gatherings in seventeen hours, had covered considerable ground—on paper at least: at 6:30 a.m., top priority given to Bergen and Trondheim, with a progressive drift towards Narvik in the course of the morning: confirmation of Narvik’s new-found predominance during the afternoon, under insistent pressure from the French: “definite” shelving of Trondheim in the evening, with the surprise appearance in the late-evening conclusions of the Military Co-ordination Committee of the small ports of Namsos and Aandalsnes … some 500 miles south of Narvik.
Realities Set In
After the series of confusing meetings in Great Britain on April 9, the War Office faced the task of earmarking and assembling the force required to implement the decisions, a task made very difficult by the Admiralty order to debark the forces planned for R4. The planners began to realize that the Allies had been caught napping and that the German operations in Norway were on a much larger scale than they had anticipated. However, they were also operating in an intelligence vacuum. Because the Allied representatives became separated from the Norwegian government due to the German thrusts, there was no reliable information on what was happening in that country, on where the government was now located, what it intended to do, or on whether the Norwegian forces were actively opposing the Germans. They could only guess at the strength of the German beachheads.
The lackluster planning that had gone into the Allied plans for occupation of certain points on the Norwegian coast now became very apparent. The planners were unable to locate reliable information on landing sites and they ended up scraping together information and photographs of various harbors in Norway. The forces previously intended for Norway had been chosen on the assumption that they would face unopposed landings. They were not trained or equipped for the opposed landings that now appeared certain. They had no artillery, very limited transport capability, and no air support. In the afternoon of April 10 the planners informed General Ironside that an immediate recapture of Narvik was not feasible with the available forces.
The results of naval operations filtering back to London were not encouraging. The German Luftwaffe, which was now operating from recently captured Norwegian airfields, made naval operations along the Norwegian coast risky. Admiral Forbes’ reaction was to withdraw the Home Fleet northward and out to sea. The Narvik situation was uncertain and it looked like the naval action there that morning had ended in a draw.
The meeting of the War Cabinet made it clear that Narvik was the priority objective. The policy makers were still preoccupied with the iron ore issue and failed to consider the larger strategic picture. There was even discussion of pressing on to the Swedish iron ore areas after Narvik was recaptured, or if that was not possible, to attack German shipping in the Swedish port of Luleå!
It seemed clear that the Allies had already sustained a crushing defeat, and some of the discussions centered on how to deflect the storm of criticism that was sure to follow. Since this setback came on top of the Allied failure to give aid to the Finns, it was necessary politically to launch a concerted effort to shift the blame. Churchill blamed Norway’s “strict observance of neutrality” in a speech delivered to the House of Commons the following day.15
It is not the slightest use blaming the Allies for not being able to give substantial help and protection t
o neutral countries if we are held at arm’s length until these neutrals are actually attacked on a scientifically prepared plan by Germany. The strict observance of neutrality by Norway has been a contributory cause to the sufferings to which she is now exposed and to the limits of the aid which we can give her.
Even now, on April 11, Churchill sounded full of optimism and predicted a catastrophe for the Germans as he spoke to the House of Commons:
In the upshot, it is the considered view of the Admiralty that we have greatly gained by what has occurred in Scandinavia and in northern waters in a strategic and military sense. For myself, I consider that Hitler’s action in invading Scandinavia is as great a strategic and political error as that which was committed by Napoleon in 1807, when he invaded Spain.16
Disorganized Forces, an Untidy Command Structure, and Bewildering Orders
As a result of their hurried debarkation in R4, the eight battalions available for disposition were in a state of confusion. Derry states that the list of forces available was “not numerically unimpressive.” This is a strange statement. The British had only 11 battalions available for operations in Norway and it would take up to two weeks for all of these to be ready to deploy. In the first week, the German forces in Norway had grown to over 45 battalions.
The 24th Guards Brigade was to figure prominently in the early efforts by the Allies to offer a riposte to the German capture of Narvik. This brigade of regulars had existed since the end of 1939, but the headquarters staff assembled hurriedly in the first days of April. It had never trained together as a unit. The 1st Battalion Irish Guards and the 1st Battalion Scots Guards were moved north from the London area on April 6. The Scots Guards were loaded on the Batory, a Polish transport, in the Clyde. The two remaining battalions were not yet at their embarkation points. The Irish Guards embarked in the liner Monarch of Bermuda in the morning of April 11. The third battalion of the brigade, the 2nd Battalion South Wales Borderers, had recently returned from India, not exactly a good training ground for arctic operations. This battalion embarked on the Reino de Pacifica.
Unfortunately, little thought was given to how equipment was loaded. Those items most essential for landing on a hostile shore were loaded deep in the holds while there was so many unnecessary “comfort” items for headquarters operations that it ended up cluttering the piers. Tactical loading was ignored.
The 146th Infantry Brigade, consisting of three territorial battalions, was added to these forces. One battalion of the 146th Infantry Brigade had Trondheim as its destination under R4 and it was ready in the Clyde. The other two battalions of this brigade, previously destined for Bergen, had gone through the hurried debarkation five days earlier and much of their equipment remained on the ships in the mass confusion associated with that embarkation.
Two territorial battalions from the 148th Infantry Brigade also required several days to replace equipment left behind on the ships. The six battalions of French alpine troops that had been part of the forces for R4 were scheduled to deploy a week after the first British forces.
The 49th Infantry Division was designated headquarters for the force at Narvik with Major General Pierce C. Mackesy as its commander. No plan had yet been formulated, not even in conceptual terms. The possibility of copying the German method of landing troops directly in the target area was not realistic since the troops were embarked in large merchant vessels with little thought given to their tactical employment without first disembarking, and then being organized and equipped.
The most frantic efforts were made to get the forces underway as quickly as possible. The 24th Guards Brigade lacked artillery, vehicles, and engineers and was therefore not in a position to advance overland against organized opposition, particularly in the wintry wilderness around Narvik. The 146th was hurried on its way on April 12, without taking time to re-equip. As pointed out by Moulton, it appeared that in their haste to take some action, the command authorities mistook another hasty embarkation as signs of drive and energy.
The selection of commanders was equally confusing and the failure to designate a clear-cut chain of command violated sound operational principles. Admiral Sir Edward Evans had been designated to lead British forces against Narvik before the German attack. However, he was dispatched as a member of the Allied delegation to Sweden and Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cork and Orrery was appointed commander of the naval forces for the Narvik operation. Since Admiral Cork was senior to Admiral Forbes, his nominal superior as Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, the Admiralty put the control of naval operations within 100 miles of Vågsfjord in the hands of Admiral Cork. General Mackesy was sent to Scapa Flow in a hurry to accompany the Scots Guards. Mackesy, the 24th Guards Brigade commander, and two companies of the Scots Guards sailed on the same warship.
The British had only the vaguest ideas as to those two most important elements in coming up with a workable operational plan: the enemy and the terrain. A few lines from General Ironside’s written notes accompanying General Mackesy instructions are illustrative:17
Latest information is that there are 3,000 Germans in Narvik. They must have been knocked about by naval action … You may be able to work up the Norwegians, if they still exist in any formed body in or around Harstad. Tell them that a large force is coming. There should be considerable numbers of ponies in the village and neighbouring ones. Let no question of paying trouble you. Issue payment vouchers and we will see that you get a paymaster as soon as possible. Don’t allow any haggling over prices.
The departing troops were told that there was little or no snow in the Narvik area. One can well imagine their dismay upon arrival in Harstad, seeing snow several feet deep all the way to the water’s edge. General Ironside had drafted General Mackesy’s instructions but neglected to coordinate or discuss these with the other service chiefs of staff. Ironside directed Mackesy to secure a foothold in Harstad, establish contact with Norwegian forces in the area if they existed, prepare the area for the arrival of additional forces, and then to proceed against the enemy in a deliberate manner. However, Ironside’s notes were themselves contradictory. In one place, Mackesy is urged to take bold advantage of naval action but in another place he is told, “It is not intended that you should land in the face of opposition.”18
Admiral Cork had no written instructions, but he received verbal briefings from Admiral Pound, the Military Coordination Committee, and finally from Churchill. There was no doubt in Cork’s mind that he should seize Narvik as quickly as possible and that he should not hesitate to take risks in doing so. Churchill writes that neither he nor the Admiralty received copies of the instructions given to General Mackesy. In an obvious understatement, Churchill admits that the instructions given to Cork and Mackesy “were somewhat different in tone and emphasis.”19
Unity of command was completely disregarded. General Ismay, one of the participants, has summarized neatly what transpired:20
The Chief of the Naval Staff and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff acted with sturdy independence. They appointed their respective commanders without consultations with each other; and worse still, they gave directives to those commanders without harmonizing them. Thereafter they continued to issue separate orders to them. Thus was confusion worse confounded.
Since there was no theater commander, decisions that would normally have fallen to him, were relegated to a large number of committees in London. What was even worse, there was no single commander for all services in the three areas of Norway where the Allies eventually operated. Since the army commanders in the three areas did not command any air or naval forces, they relied on cooperation from those services. The Germans also struggled with unity of command because of service rivalries, but their problems were largely overcome at the operational levels by subordinate commanders who worked together as professionals.
Admiral Cork and General Mackesy did not even meet before they set out for Narvik by separate conveyance on April 12. Cork departed from Rosyth on the cruiser Aurora wh
ile Mackesy departed from Scapa Flow on the cruiser Southampton. The remainder of the 24th Guards Brigade (two companies accompanied General Mackesy and the brigade commander on the Southampton) and the three battalions of the 146th Infantry Brigade left for Narvik on April 12 with a strong naval escort consisting of the battleship Valiant, cruisers Manchester, Birmingham and Cairo, and eleven destroyers.
Changing Allied Strategy and Plans
When we last looked at the confusing scene of Allied decision-making with respect to Norway, it appeared that they had settled firmly late on April 9 on making the recapture of Narvik—codenamed Rupert—the top priority while examining the possibility of landings at Namsos and Åndalsnes. However, the consensus was weak and open to outside influences that soon made themselves felt.
Prime Minister Reynaud was dubious about the early ability of the Allies to land sufficient forces in Norway. He was still preoccupied with the iron ore question and decided to send a diplomatic-military delegation to Sweden to try to convince that country to enter the war on the Allied side. The mission stopped in London on April 11 on its way to Sweden, and Chamberlain, who liked the French idea, decided a British delegation should join the venture.
The Swedes told the delegations that they would remain neutral under all eventualities but they did give advice as evidenced by a telegram from the French ambassador in Sweden on April 13: “The Allied missions here, and also the Swedes, are unanimous in their opinion that the most effective Allied help would be the recapture of Trondheim.” Admiral Evans, who headed the British delegation, expressed similar views in a telegram to the Foreign Office: “Most urgent is Trondhjem be re-captured forthwith, or both Norway and Sweden will completely lose faith in us…. Narvik could wait anyway a fortnight.”21
Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 Page 32
