Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 by Henrik Lunde (the reader ebook .TXT) 📕

take a sudden evasive maneuver to avoid one of the torpedoes fired by the departing Hans Lüdemann. The maneuver resulted in Eskimo presenting its broadside to Georg Thiele at a very short range. Wolf seized the chance and fired his last torpedo. The torpedo hit the forward part of the British destroyer and the explosion tore off Eskimo’s forecastle, killing 15 sailors. Micklethwait reversed engines and managed to retire through the narrow strait where the destroyer was grounded in rather deep water because the sunken wreckage of its forecastle was still attached. The path of the destroyers following Eskimo was temporarily blocked.

Georg Thiele had received numerous hits by British shells and everyone on the bridge was killed except Commander Wolf. Without more shells or torpedoes to fire, Wolf signaled full speed ahead on the engine room telegraph and beached the destroyer at high speed near Sildvik. The ship capsized and the aft portion sank at 1500 hours while the forward part remained beached. Fourteen crewmembers were killed and 28 wounded.

The actions of Commander Wolf throughout the fighting in Narvik—admired by friend and foe alike—had a fitting ending. Commanders Rechel in Bernd von Arnim and Smidt in Erich Giese were also singled out for praise by their opponents for their daring and determination. The British concluded that the German destroyers acquitted themselves as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The ineffectiveness of their submarines, torpedoes, and their shortage of ammunition doomed their efforts from the start. The British destroyer commanders also showed their traditional daring and aggressiveness.

The crews from the German destroyers assembled ashore and headed up the hillsides on the south side of Rombaksbotn, towards the railway line. This was not an easy task on the steep hillsides in deep snow and under fire from the British destroyers. According to the 3rd Division journal, the British fired after the escaping German destroyer crews with both their main armaments and machineguns. The crews were later transported to Narvik. When they entered the inner part of the fjord, the British found Hans Lüdemann still afloat and she was sunk by a torpedo from Hero.

The British Consider Landing

Admiral Whitworth reported to Admiral Forbes at 1742 hours that a German submarine and all destroyers were sunk. He considered the idea of a landing in Narvik, but concluded that his exhausted men were in no state to face the 2,000 or so German troops he believed to be in the city.

The British naval bombardment caused no fatalities among German troops and the material damage was minor, even though many buildings in and around the city were destroyed. Whitworth’s assumption that German morale was low may well be correct. They had watched helplessly as their warships were destroyed. The German troops occupied positions along Rombakfjord and the troops in Narvik were in their positions with orders to repel any landing attempts.

Some British writers leveled mild criticism against Admiral Whitworth for not seizing the opportunity to capture Narvik. Norwegian writers have been more direct. They point out that Dietl’s forces in Narvik numbered only 800 spread along the shoreline from Fagernes to Vassvik as well as along the Rombakfjord, and that they knew it was hopeless to engage an enemy with overwhelming naval artillery with only individual or crew-served weapons. Colonel Munthe-Kaas concludes that “There is no doubt that Narvik would have fallen if a determined amphibious commander had understood to exploit the demoralizing state of mind in which the Germans, for a second time, found themselves, particularly after witnessing their destroyer fleet shattered.”8 He points out that Whitworth had 2,700 men at his disposal and that two companies from the 24th Guards could have augmented this force if the admiral had only waited in the fjord for another half day. The 2,700 were not Royal Marines but the crews of the British battleship and the nine destroyers. Munthe-Kaas fails to consider that the two Guard companies embarked on the cruiser Southampton were prepared for an administrative landing. They carried only individual and a few crew-served weapons and were not ready for combat operations.

Norwegian conclusions that German morale was broken are based primarily on the observations of civilian observers, whose judgment of discipline in the German units is at least debatable. Railroad traffic inspector, Johan Olsen, stated that “Both the Germans and we civilians expected that the British would land in Narvik. The Germans were panic-stricken. Crowds of them threw away their weapons, asked for the way to Sweden, and left the city.”9

The fact that the German troops did not sustain any fatalities and only a few wounded calls into question the accuracy of reports about disintegration of discipline and unit cohesion. There is no reliable information that the German mountain troops were in a state of panic. They were battle-experienced and professionally led troops and their performance against numerically superior Norwegian forces two days later indicates that reports of their demoralization and panic are much exaggerated.

Admiral Whitworth does not deserve criticism for not landing shore parties in Narvik on April 13. Such action would likely have resulted in a severe setback and the possible loss of the inadequate landing parties carried on the warships. Moulton reports that the marines available on the heavy ships of the Home Fleet amounted to two or three companies and that many of these ships were not in the Ofotfjord area. The lead elements of the 24th Guards Brigade were still 24-36 hours away and were unprepared for immediate combat operations. A failed landing would have been an undesirable ending to an otherwise successful operation. Whitworth also feared that enemy submarines and aircraft would attack Warspite if she remained in the fjord. He withdrew Warspite and most of the destroyers from Ofotfjord around 1830 hours.

The 140 survivors from the destroyer Hardy were moved from the immediate vicinity of the wrecked ship to the village of Balangen where they were cared for by local Norwegians. Here they joined 47 merchant seamen who had been prisoners aboard Jan Wellem. Admiral