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

There was a misinterpretation of orders from the very start within the right envelopment force. The 1/12th Inf had no contact with the Alta Bn after leaving Tennevoll. The brigade order directed the Alta Bn to provide security for the 1/12th’s right flank and rear. Bøckman interpreted this to mean that the two battalions should advance together across Fjordbotneidet. The brigade commander also understood the division’s directive to mean that the force advancing over Fjordbotneidet consisted of the 1/12th Infantry, the Alta Bn, and half of a mountain artillery battery.

The snowstorm became so bad during the day that Fleischer considered calling off the attack. However, he allowed the operation to proceed since he concluded that it would be more difficult to bring the 1/12th back over the mountains than to allow it to proceed. Fleischer, his chief of staff, and the British liaison officer arrived in Levangen by car in the afternoon of April 23 and Lieutenant Colonel Dahl briefed them. Fleischer planned to spend the night at the 6th Brigade’s CP and left the Alta Bn around 0200 hours on April 24. The weather had turned vicious, the general and his party were snowed in at Levangen, and the house of a merchant in Soløy became the division CP for the rest of the operation. The 1/12th Inf had left a communication relay station in Soløy and this allowed Fleischer to communicate with the Alta Bn, the 1/12th Inf, and the 6th Brigade CP.

Communications problems plagued the operation from the beginning, as did the lack of maps. The radio communication equipment promised the 1/12th Inf in the operational order failed to materialize and the detachment laying landlines as the unit advanced failed to keep up in the storm. Major Bøckman sent his adjutant to the rear to inform the brigade that the battalion, because of the weather and limited visibility, could not accomplish its mission of preventing traffic on Route 50 from Gratangen to Lapphaugen. Brøckman’s orders called for blocking Route 50 by fire from the hills to the north. He was not permitted to enter the valley. Hovland’s explanation for Fleischer’s decision that the 1/12th should not enter the valley but should cut the German line of retreat and reinforcement by blocking-fire from afar is that he wanted to give the battalion a “careful baptism of fire.”

Bøckman now requested brigade permission to enter the valley and physically cut Route 50. This request came to Fleischer’s attention and he concluded that it was inappropriate for Colonel Løken to direct the operation over Fjordbotneidet since the brigade no longer had reliable communications with the 1/12th. After a short telephone call to the brigade, Fleischer assumed direct control of the two battalions in the envelopment. The frontal attack on Lapphaugen and the envelopment were two parts of the same operation but now those two parts answered to two commanders.

It appears that the brigade CP had no great difficulties communicating with the 1/12th Infantry’s communications relay station since Fleischer, who was located near that station, communicated regularly with the brigade by telephone. The difficulty was with communications between that station and the battalion. Therefore, Fleischer’s assumption of control failed to solve the communications problem.

General Fleischer approved Major Bøckman’s request to cross into the Gratang Valley to the Fjellhøgda Farm and ordered him to send security into the south mountains, including Hill 509, if that was possible. The lead elements of the battalion cut Route 50 around 0600 hours on April 24. This severed the road between the reinforced German company at Lapphaugen and the rest of the battalion in the Gratangen area. The half battery of mountain artillery supporting the 1/12th remained on Fjordbotneidet, in a position where it could fire into the valley.

No German units were sighted except for a three-man patrol that was captured. Major Bøckman concluded that the German battalion had withdrawn its forward line to the high ground in the pass between Gratangen and Bjerkvik. He planned to send reconnaissance into the mountains south of Route 50 but the soldiers were too exhausted after their overnight advance in the blizzard.

The troops needed shelter and food and the adjutant skied back to the communications relay to brief the division and ask for permission to go into quarters on the farms near Route 50. This request was approved provided the battalion employed strong local security. According to the adjutant, Major Lindbäck-Larsen told him that the Alta Bn was advancing across Fjordbotneidet to secure the 1/12th Infantry’s flank and rear and that a conclusion of operations at Lapphaugen was expected within a couple of hours. This indicates that the division was aware of the movement of the Alta Bn despite later claims that the battalion had moved without authorization prior to the order to do so that evening.

The 1/12th took up quarters in the valley between 1700 and 1800 hours, with the rifle companies in the built-up area north of the river and the battalion CP and headquarters’ company in the area between the river and Route 50. The machinegun platoons were attached to the rifle companies. The positions astride Route 50 that the battalion had spent the day preparing were abandoned with the intention of reoccupying them at 0600 hours on April 25. As at Bjørnefjell, no security forces were left in the defensive positions. This was an indefensible breach of elementary rules for military units in proximity of the enemy.

The unit’s 15-hour march over mountains in a howling blizzard and a further 12 hours preparing defensive positions stretched the soldiers’ physical and mental capabilities to their limits. It would have been wise to rest the troops in shifts as soon as they reached the valley. However, physical exhaustion does not explain why Majors Omdal and Spjældnes allowed a similar thing to happen at Bjørnefjell.

Because of the storm and limited visibility, the companies were ordered to establish only close-in security and to maintain unit cohesion as they took quarters. It is obvious, based on subsequent events, that