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

established an air-bridge from Oslo to Trondheim on April 14. In addition to needed supplies, the airlift brought one engineer and five infantry battalions to Trondheim by April 20.

The British Arrive

By April 20, the Germans had reached the approximate line between Rena and Dokka where General Ruge planned to mount his main defense. The situation, however, was not to the general’s liking. The delaying actions had not been as effective as hoped and had failed to inflict heavy losses on the attacker or win the necessary time to organize a proper defense. However, they provided the delay necessary for Allied assistance to arrive. This assistance, however, was inadequate, not well planned, and carried out hesitantly.

The fighting that took place in a large number of hard-fought small-scale delaying actions in eastern Norway is largely ignored in the English literature. While the Germans suffered higher numbers of killed and wounded than the Norwegians, the latter had far more troops captured and missing. This was primarily due to German use of tanks and their air dominance. German armor quickly penetrated and overwhelmed Norwegian defensive positions before an orderly withdrawal was possible. The scattered defenders were captured, had great difficulties rejoining their units, or failed to do so. Ruge’s forces were badly depleted, exhausted, and demoralized by their helplessness against German armor and air power.

Ruge’s greatest disappointment had to do with the lack of Allied assistance. His operational directive of April 15 assumed quick and effective Allied assistance and stated as much at the outset. This assumption, in turn, was based on the personal promise received from the British Prime Minister on April 14. This promise was not kept. Furthermore, the Allies never informed him where they intended to land and what their plans were. He would have been far more dismayed if he had known the true state of Allied confusion and lack of preparedness.

The “great strength” that Chamberlain had promised turned out to be about 1,000 troops from the 148th Territorial Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Morgan. This brigade consisted of two battalions, the 1/5th Leicestershire and the 1/8th Sherwood Foresters. It was embarked on two cruisers destined for Stavanger on April 6. The troops were offloaded in a hurry on April 7 and lost much of their equipment in the process.

On April 13, the brigade was ordered to Namsos and was already embarked on the transport Orion in the evening of April 16 when new orders arrived. The 146th Brigade was now underway to Namsos and the 148th was ordered to disembark from Orion, board five warships, and proceed to Åndalsnes. The order to disembark was carried out at night in great confusion. Colonel Dudley Clarke, who took part in the operation, describes the scene:4

In the original haste to get off to a quick start, goods of every kind had been stowed in the holds in the order in which they arrived, with each following consignment piled in on top. Now reserves of food and ammunition were mixed with unit equipment and skis for the Norwegians; bicycles and sappers’ tools lay with medical provisions, while such things as the long-range wireless equipment as often as not was split between two holds. There was never a chance of sorting this out in the dark and getting it into the right ships in time, so the plan was being adopted of skimming the top layers from every hold and loading them in turn into each warship as she came alongside.

The results were simply disastrous for this poorly trained militia force. One-half of the Leicestershire battalion and other essential units were left behind because of space limitation. These troops, about 600 men, followed two days later and arrived in Åndalsnes on April 21. When the warships reached open sea, it was realized that most of the brigade’s communications equipment, mortar ammunition, vehicles, as well as essential antiaircraft equipment were left behind. There was no artillery and no provisions for air support. When the maps were unfolded, they were all for the Namsos area.

Morgan’s operational orders were equally confusing. His instructions dated April 16 read, “Your role to land Aandalsnes area secure Dombaas then operate northwards and take offensive action against Germans in Trondheim area.”5 If this was not ambitious enough, Morgan received additional orders from Ironside while en route to Norway. The emphasis seemed to have switched from an offensive to a defensive role and required him to face south as well as north. More baffling, Morgan was ordered to contact the Norwegian high command “and avoid isolating Norwegian forces operating towards Oslo.”6 Morgan’s orders were now contradictory, ambiguous, and unrealistic.

Ruge was forced to change his earlier strategic plan. He still considered the capture of Trondheim the highest priority, but forces operating against that city from the south would find their rear threatened and their line of communication to Åndalsnes cut if Norwegian defenses in the south collapsed. He considered it necessary to abandon the southern pincer against Trondheim in order to shore up the defenses in the south. King-Salter and Bertrand Vigne agreed with his assessment when they met Brigadier Morgan at Dombås in the afternoon of April 19. They described the situation in the south and pressed Morgan to help prevent a collapse of Norwegian resistance. King-Salter pointed out that Ruge had received a message from the War Office giving him authority to call on British forces. Morgan felt that he had to refer the issue to London since Allied operations that far south were not envisaged. In the meantime, he accompanied the attachés to meet General Ruge around midnight.

After expressing his displeasure at not being informed about Allied plans and disappointment at the size and composition of the British force, Ruge came right to the point. He expected all troops in Norway, no matter what nationality, to conform to his strategy, which he briefly explained. Morgan promised to give whatever help he could wherever needed. Ruge insisted that he needed the two British battalions in the area south of