Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940
Page 77
17 Berg and Vollan, Fjellkrigen, p. 241.
18 Hovland, Fleischer, p. 175.
19 Sandvik, Operasjonene, vol. 2, pp. 124-125.
20 See, for example, extracts of reports dated 10, 12, and 21 May, in ibid, pp. 52, 124, and 140.
21 Sandvik, Operasjonene, vol. 2, p. 30.
22 Hovland, Fleischer, p. 173.
23 A report by the German war correspondent Karl Springenschmid is quoted in Berg and Vollan, Fjellkrigen, p. 314: “it was customary for the Norwegians to attack in inclement weather. They now fought harder than at any time. The mountain troops had already learned that they [Norwegians] were outstanding skiers, could fight on skis, and that there were excellent sharpshooters among them. However, the fact that they launched direct assault on fortified positions came as a surprise. Driven back, the reassembled, and time after time assaulted over their own fallen and forced their way into the positions. These stubborn Norwegian ‘peace soldiers’ had in the course of a short time, accustomed themselves to war and had become dangerous opponents.”
24 Munthe-Kaas, Krigen, p. 154.
25 Sandvik, Operasjonene, vol. 2, pp. 134-135.
26 As quoted in ibid, p.140.
27 Munthe-Kaas, Krigen, p. 151.
Chapter 14
1 Derry, The Campaign in Norway, p. 185. Adams (The Dooomed Expedition, p. 76) states that the Germans attacked with 1,700 men. David Erskine (The Scots Guards 1919-1955 [(London: William Clowes and Sons, Limited, 1956]), p. 38,) gives 1,750 as the estimated strength of the German force.
2 Sandvik, Operasjonene, vol. 2, p. 108, n. 137.
3 Derry, The Campaign in Norway, p. 186. He writes: “The Germans also dropped paratroops on the mountainside nearer Mo, who developed a subsidiary flank attack at Lundenget.” Steen, Norges Sjøkrig 1940-1945, vol. 4, p. 198 also refers mistakenly to German paratroopers landing between Stien and Mo.
4 Alex Büchner, Kampf im Gebirge (München-Lochhausen: Schild-Verlag, 1957), pp. 22-23. Tamelander and Zetterling, however, claim that the Germans on Kobbernaglen engaged the British at midnight and this caused Sorko to attack frontally. They cite as their source M. Kräutler and K. Springen-Schmidt, Es war ein Edelweiss, Schicksal und Weg er zweiten Gebirgsdivision, pp. 53ff (Niende april, p. 250). Hans Breckan, Tapte skanser. IR 14 i april, mai, juni 1940 (Brønnøysund: Eget forlag, 1986), p. 45 also alludes to the fact that the flanking maneuver succeeded and that Sorko attacked after the enveloping force went into action. This is contrary to what Büchner, Sandvik, and Ruef write.
5 Lieutenant Colonel Roscher-Nielsen’s report on June 3, 1940, as quoted in Sandvik, Operasjone, vol. 2, p. 103.
6 As quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, p. 121.
7 Ibid, p. 126.
8 Norwegian News Company, Norway (Brooklyn: Arnesen Press, Inc. 1941), p. 2.
9 Feurstein, Irrwege der Pflicht, p. 85.
10 Ellinger, Den Forunderlige Krig, pp. 84-85.
11 Connell, Auchinleck, p. 129.
12 Loc. cit.
13 As quoted in Ash, Norway 1940, p. 268.
14 As quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, pp. 130-131 and 141.
15 Desmond J. L. Fitzgerald, History of the Irish Guards in the Second World War (Aldershot: Gale & Polden Ltd, 1952), pp. 55-57 and Sandvik, Operasjone, vol. 2, pp. 233-234. Stockwell was a major who held the brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was later promoted to full general, knighted, and commanded ground forces in the 1956 Suez operation.
16 Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p. 649.
17 Hubatsch, p. 218.
Chapter 15
1 Derry, The Campaign in Norway, p. 207 and Sandvik, Operasjonene, vol. 2, p. :193, n.ote 12.
2 Derry, The Campaign in Norway, p. 218.
3 Munthe-Kaas, NarvikavsnittetKrigen, p. 180.
4 Lindbäck-Larsen, 6. division,, p. 154.
5 Sandvik, Operasjonen, vol. 2, p. :144 and note 50. A number of the Norwegian archives dealing with operations in the 6th Division area have disappeared. According to Colonel Tor Holm (captain and chief of staff of the 6th Brigade during the campaign), as recorded by Berg and Vollan (in Fjellkrigen, p.age 321), both the 6th Division and 6th Brigade archives were on hand when Major Lindbäck-Larsen began writing his book about the campaign (6th divisjon). Colonel Holm wrote a scathing review of Lindbäck-Larsen’s book in 1947 (in the professional periodical Hærens Offisers Forbund, nr. 9-10, 1947). My colleague, Dr. Haga, attempted to locate a copy of the periodical. The Armed Forces Museum’s Library, responsible for collecting and stocking all Norwegian Military periodicals, reported that the issue in question was missing from its archives and it had proved impossible to locate it anywhere in the Norwegian library system. It is unfortunate and puzzling how and why the archives–apparently not destroyed at the end of hostilities–became missing and why the critique of Lindbäck-Larsen’s account cannot be located.
6 Ziemke, German Northern Theater, p. 101.
7 Witold Biegański, Poles in the Battle of Narvik (Warsaw: Interpress Publishers, 1969), p. 39.
8 Ibid, p. 60.
9 United Kingdom, Cabinet Office Historical Branch, Notes on the Norwegian Campaign, Appendix 1, p. 61 and Appendix 2, p. 64.
10 Ibid, Appendix 2, p. 64.
11 As quoted in Irving, Hitler’s War, pp. 105-106.
12 3GDKTB, 05101200.
13 Fuehrer Conferences 1940, pp. 52-53
14 Ash, Norway 1940, p. 225.
15 Derry, 206.
16 Ruge, Felttoget, 72.
17 Ruge, Krigens dagbok, 370.
18 Lie, 189.
19 Kersuady, 169.
20 Moulton, 243.
21 Victor MacClure, Gladiators over Norway, 23.
22 Ash, 253 and 227.
23 As quoted in Hovland, 181.
24 As quoted in Sandvik, 2:154. Ruge wrote that, “Both the Government, Allied military commanders, and military attaches continually turned to me for decisions on matters that had to be resolved quickly and the distances were so great and communications so bad that I had to make decisions with increasing frequency without first having an opportunity to discuss them with General Fleischer. The reality that I could not avoid making decisions in the long run, forced me in the end to revise my decision not to become involved in the conduct of operations in North Norway.”
25 The quotes from the exchanges between Ruge and Fleischer are from ibid, 2:157.
26 Ruge, Felttoget, 131-132.
Chapter 16
1 3GDKTB, 05270800 and 05282300.
2 3GDKTB, 05241130. Marina Lie Goubonia was originally a Soviet agent in Norway who was turned into a double agent by the Abwehr. She apparently operated from both Sweden and Norway. Hovland writes that she came into Norway from Sweden on skis dressed as a Red Cross worker, established contacts and operated from the Bjerkvik area. As a show of appreciation for services in Narvik, the Germans allowed her to retire from her career as a spy and she settled in Spain.
3 Büchner, Narvik, pp. 126-127.
4 Sandvik, Operasjone, vol. 2, p. 207.
5 MacIntyre, Narvik, p. 197 and Sereau, L’Expedition, p. 89.
6 See, for example, Pierre Oliver Lapie, With the Foreign Legion at Narvik (Anthony Merryn transl., London: J. Murray, 1941), p. 7; Marcel Jean Marie Joseph Torris, Narvik, (New York: Bretano, 1943), p. 222; and Jacques Mordal, La campagne de Norvège (Paris: Self, 1949), p. 401.
7 Lindbäck-Larsen, 6. division, p. 138.
8 Witold Biegański, Poles in the Battle of Narvikk (Warsaw: Interpress Publishers, 1969), p. 80.
9 Lapie, Foreign Legion at Narvik, pp. 90 and 92.
10 The figures given by Biegański for Polish and German casualties may include the entire period from when the Poles took over from the French until the capture of Narvik.
11 Berg and Vollan, Fjellkrigen, p. 316 and Büchner, Narvik, pp. 159-163.
12 6th Division directive of May 30, 1940 as quoted in Sandvik, Operasjone, vol. 2, p. 265.
13 Büchner, Narvik, pp. 164-165.
14 Berg and Vollan, Fjellkrigen, p. 377.
15 Lieutenant Rohr’s journal as quoted in Berg and Vollan, Fjellkrigen, p. 377..
16 Under German pressure, the Swedes entered into an agreement, which was actually an evacuation rather than an internment of Dietl’s forces. The Germans requested the Swedish Government to provide sufficient railroad transport to move Dietl’s forces to Holmesund on the Gulf of Bothnia. The Swedes agreed on the conditions that all weapons be left behind in Norway. At Holmesund, Dietl’s forces were to embark on ships for transport to Germany. The Swedes held four trains in readiness near the border from the end of May until the end of the Narvik Campaign.
Chapter 17
1 Sandvik, Operasjone, vol. 2, p. 201.
2 As quoted in Derry, The Norway Campaign, p. 174.
3 Halvdan Koht, pp. 138-139. It is worth noting the very accurate impression Foreign Minister Koht arrived at as a result of his visit to Paris and London. “This idea about the Swedish iron ore had become so deeply imbedded among the English and French that it appeared they believed that this was the factor which would decide the whole war. In addition, I have no doubt that it was this idea that made Narvik such a main element in Allied war plans. Otherwise, Narvik had little strategic value. When I returned to Norway, it was expected that it was only a matter of days before the Germans in Narvik had to give up and my belief that the Allies then planned to enter Sweden and occupy the iron ore district grew in strength.”
4 Sereau, L’Expedition, p. 84.
5 As quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, pp. 139-141.
6 Moulton, Study of Warfare, p. 248.
7 Connell, Auchinleck, pp. 145-146.
8 Hubatsch, 253 and Ziemke, The German Northern Theater, p. 103.
9 Steen, Norges Sjøkrig 1940-1945, vol. 4, p. 272.
10 Hovland, Fleischer, p. 220.
11 The report in a private archive of an interview with Koht on June 26, 1947 is cited by Hovland, Fleischer, p. 223.
12 Lie, Norge i Krig, pp. 233-234.
13 Hovland, Fleischer, p. 221.
14 Steen, Norges Sjøkrig 1940-1945, vol. 4, p. 282. This accidental engagement is described differently by Captain MacIntyre (pp. 205-206): “Sir Geoffrey Congreve’s irregular command, the self-styled H.M.S. Raven, was given the task of destroying the oil tanks at Solfolla, north of Bodo. Having duly set them ablaze, she encountered an enemy corvette considerably more heavily armed than herself, but boldly went after it in company with a trawler. A strange game of hide-and-seek followed amongst the narrow channels between the islands; but unable to come to grips with the faster enemy vessel, his solitary long range gun, an Army Bofors, having only time-fused self-destroying ammunition, Congreve was forced to abandon the pursuit and continue his interrupted journey to Scapa Flow.”
15 Birger Godtaas, Fra 9. april til 7. juni. Episoder og opplevelser fra krigen i Norge (Oslo: J. Dybwad, 1945), p.235, as quoted in Berg and Vollan, Fjellkrigen, p. 418.
16 Hovland, Fleischer, p. 236.
17 Reports by Lieutenant Colonels Holm and Roscher-Nielsen as quoted in Sandvik, Operasjone, vol. 2, p. 310.
18 Hubatsch, Annex A, Die Lageberichte des Wehrmachtführungsstabes über die Besetzung von Dänemark u. Norwegen 7. April–14. Juni 1940, p. 373.
19 As quoted in Munthe-Kaas, Krigen, p. 213.
20 Hubatsch, p. 256 and Ruge, Felttoget, p.195.
21 As quoted in Steen, Norges Sjøkrig 1940-1945, vol. 4, p. 269.
22 As quoted in loc cit.
23 Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p. 655.
Epilogue
1 Churchill, The Gathering Storm, p. 657.
2 PRO, WO 106/1882 45965–“Extract from report on Operations in Northern Norway from 13 May to 8 June 1940 by Lt Gen CJE Auchinleck.”
3 PRO, WO 106/1882 45965 and Connell, Auchinleck, p. 149. Churchill was unhappy with Auchinleck’s performance as illustrated by a notation quoted in Adams, The Doomed Expedition, p. 281: “I hope before any fresh appointments is given to General Auchinleck, the whole story of the slack and feeble manner in which the operations at Narvik were conducted, and the failure to make an earlier assault on Narvik town, will be considered …” The general’s frank critique of the operations probably did not improve his standings in certain circles in London.
5 Joseph H. Devins Jr., The Vaagso Raid, (Philadelphia: Chilton Book Company, 1968), p. 202.
6 As quoted in David Reynolds, In Command of History (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 125.