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

A Supreme Allied War Council decision in early April gave the British command of and responsibility for operations in Scandinavia. We know that General Carton de Wiart’s views on operations in Nord-Trøndelag were heavily influenced by the massive German air attacks on Steinkjer and Namsos. He may well have concluded that any operations in this area were futile unless he received effective air support. General Audet probably shared these views. However, the decision on what to do with the forces in Namsos was a strategic decision that affected what now had become the main Allied operation to recapture Narvik, and it was therefore a decision that should have been made in London, and insisted on.

Feurstein Begins his Advance

The Germans wasted no time in exploiting the vacuum left by the Allied evacuation and the surrender of the 5th Brigade. They entered the ruins of Namsos on May 4 and General von Falkenhorst issued orders that same day for the 2nd Mountain Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Valentin Feurstein, to begin its overland drive to establish contact with Dietl’s forces in Narvik.19

The 2nd Mountain Division was not part of the forces originally earmarked for the invasion of Norway. This elite unit was added when Hitler became concerned in late April about the situation in Norway and particularly about a link-up with Dietl in Narvik. The 2nd Mountain Division was located in the Eifel area when it was ordered to Oslo via Denmark. There were several difficulties and mishaps during its deployment.

Since the division had not been part of the original invasion force and therefore not part of the movement plans, there was a scramble to find transport and much of the heavy equipment was left behind. In addition, there were serious losses in equipment during the transport from Denmark to Norway. Finally, Group XXI detached the division’s engineer battalion for service in southern Norway.20

The 2/137th Inf, reinforced by one mountain artillery battery and one engineer company, moved by air to Værnes Airfield on May 2. Lieutenant Colonel August Sorko commanded this group. While the bulk of the division was underway to Trondheim on foot or by railroad, Sorko’s forces were rushed to Grong to begin the advance towards Narvik.

General Feurstein and his staff ran into some of the same problems that plagued other Germans in Norway. For example, they could not put their hands on adequate maps and were forced, like the pilots over Narvik, to rely on maps on a scale of 1:1,000,000 or road maps. Feuerstein met with General von Falkenhorst and his chief-of-staff, Colonel von Buschenhagen, in Trondheim on May 4 and received his marching order.

While Von Falkenhorst may have expected that any resistance north of Namsos would be minimal after the Allied withdrawal and the surrender of the 5th Norwegian Brigade, he also wanted to light a fire under his subordinate. His order emphasized the need for haste and made light of any possible opposition. Feurstein was less exuberant than his superior and answered, “We will do everything, but please do not expect the impossible.”21 Feurstein knew that there were still elements of the 14th Norwegian Regiment in the area north of Grong. Furthermore, he anticipated that the Allies would make every effort to impede his advance, an advance that threatened their stranglehold on Narvik and Dietl’s forces.

Feurstein and a small staff set out the following day from Trondheim in three taxis to make contact with Sorko. Group XXI’s evening situation report for May 5 stated that Group Feurstein was on its way from Grong to Mosjøen with all available motorized forces. Was this a sarcastic reference to the three taxis? The motorized transport for the two mountain divisions was still in southern Norway waiting for the opening of the road to Trondheim or in Denmark awaiting shipping to Norway. In his history of World War 2, General von Tippelskirch writes that an army corps consisting of one mountain division and one infantry division pressed forward into North Norway after the Allied evacuation of Namsos. Feurstein notes sarcastically that his “army corps” consisted of six and a half companies of mountain troops, one artillery battery, and a staff of six. The 181st Division under General Woytasch had conducted the operations against the Allies and Norwegians north of Trondheim but this unit was only used to repair the lines of communications behind the 2nd Division, assist in the supply effort, and later help clear the offshore islands. The major forces eventually available to General Feurstein for his mission consisted of the 136th and 137th Mountain Infantry Regiments, Colonel Weiss’ 138th Mountain Infantry Regiment (belonging to the 3rd Mountain Division), 83rd Engineer Battalion from the 3rd Division, 1st and 2nd Bns of the 730th Artillery, and the 40th Anti-tank detachment.

The forces available to General Feurstein for the first phase of his daunting task, the 200 kilometer advance from Grong to Mosjøen, consisted of only two mountain infantry battalions (2/137 and 3/138), a battery of mountain artillery and one engineer platoon. This is a far cry from General von Tippelskirch‘s claim that Feurstein began his advance with a mountain corps consisting of what amounted to two reinforced divisions.

Scissorforce

Fleischer and Ruge were concerned about Narvik’s southern flank and had argued repeatedly that Allied units be moved to Nordland to bolster the weak Norwegian forces in that area. Cork and Mackesy were also concerned and one company of the Scots Guards was sent to Bodø from Harstad during the night of April 29–30. Its mission was to prevent the seizure of the town by a German airborne operation. This did not satisfy the Norwegians or Mackesy. He wanted sizable forces to stop the Germans in the Mosjøen area and General Gamelin in Paris was arguing for a similar strategy.

The British, having become reluctant to expose major naval surface units in areas of German air superiority, now adopted a similar attitude when it came to larger ground units. Since air protection was not forthcoming, they decided to use smaller units to