Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 Henrik Lunde (general ebook reader txt) 📖

Germans in Narvik. They must have been knocked about by naval action … You may be able to work up the Norwegians, if they still exist in any formed body in or around Harstad. Tell them that a large force is coming. There should be considerable numbers of ponies in the village and neighbouring ones. Let no question of paying trouble you. Issue payment vouchers and we will see that you get a paymaster as soon as possible. Don’t allow any haggling over prices.

The departing troops were told that there was little or no snow in the Narvik area. One can well imagine their dismay upon arrival in Harstad, seeing snow several feet deep all the way to the water’s edge. General Ironside had drafted General Mackesy’s instructions but neglected to coordinate or discuss these with the other service chiefs of staff. Ironside directed Mackesy to secure a foothold in Harstad, establish contact with Norwegian forces in the area if they existed, prepare the area for the arrival of additional forces, and then to proceed against the enemy in a deliberate manner. However, Ironside’s notes were themselves contradictory. In one place, Mackesy is urged to take bold advantage of naval action but in another place he is told, “It is not intended that you should land in the face of opposition.”18

Admiral Cork had no written instructions, but he received verbal briefings from Admiral Pound, the Military Coordination Committee, and finally from Churchill. There was no doubt in Cork’s mind that he should seize Narvik as quickly as possible and that he should not hesitate to take risks in doing so. Churchill writes that neither he nor the Admiralty received copies of the instructions given to General Mackesy. In an obvious understatement, Churchill admits that the instructions given to Cork and Mackesy “were somewhat different in tone and emphasis.”19

Unity of command was completely disregarded. General Ismay, one of the participants, has summarized neatly what transpired:20

The Chief of the Naval Staff and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff acted with sturdy independence. They appointed their respective commanders without consultations with each other; and worse still, they gave directives to those commanders without harmonizing them. Thereafter they continued to issue separate orders to them. Thus was confusion worse confounded.

Since there was no theater commander, decisions that would normally have fallen to him, were relegated to a large number of committees in London. What was even worse, there was no single commander for all services in the three areas of Norway where the Allies eventually operated. Since the army commanders in the three areas did not command any air or naval forces, they relied on cooperation from those services. The Germans also struggled with unity of command because of service rivalries, but their problems were largely overcome at the operational levels by subordinate commanders who worked together as professionals.

Admiral Cork and General Mackesy did not even meet before they set out for Narvik by separate conveyance on April 12. Cork departed from Rosyth on the cruiser Aurora while Mackesy departed from Scapa Flow on the cruiser Southampton. The remainder of the 24th Guards Brigade (two companies accompanied General Mackesy and the brigade commander on the Southampton) and the three battalions of the 146th Infantry Brigade left for Narvik on April 12 with a strong naval escort consisting of the battleship Valiant, cruisers Manchester, Birmingham and Cairo, and eleven destroyers.

Changing Allied Strategy and Plans

When we last looked at the confusing scene of Allied decision-making with respect to Norway, it appeared that they had settled firmly late on April 9 on making the recapture of Narvik—codenamed Rupert—the top priority while examining the possibility of landings at Namsos and Åndalsnes. However, the consensus was weak and open to outside influences that soon made themselves felt.

Prime Minister Reynaud was dubious about the early ability of the Allies to land sufficient forces in Norway. He was still preoccupied with the iron ore question and decided to send a diplomatic-military delegation to Sweden to try to convince that country to enter the war on the Allied side. The mission stopped in London on April 11 on its way to Sweden, and Chamberlain, who liked the French idea, decided a British delegation should join the venture.

The Swedes told the delegations that they would remain neutral under all eventualities but they did give advice as evidenced by a telegram from the French ambassador in Sweden on April 13: “The Allied missions here, and also the Swedes, are unanimous in their opinion that the most effective Allied help would be the recapture of Trondheim.” Admiral Evans, who headed the British delegation, expressed similar views in a telegram to the Foreign Office: “Most urgent is Trondhjem be re-captured forthwith, or both Norway and Sweden will completely lose faith in us…. Narvik could wait anyway a fortnight.”21

The confusion in Allied ranks during these early days of the Norwegian campaign was not entirely due to lack of intelligence, as some British authors claim. The Allies had had no contacts with the Norwegian government since the German attack, and they made no concerted attempt in those early days to get in touch with the Norwegian military authorities. Contact was re established on April 12 when Ambassador Dormer linked up with the Nor wegian government near the Swedish border.

Dormer sent a message to the British Foreign Office via Stockholm in which he confirmed Norwegian resolve to carry on the war against the Germans. However, the message also stated that the Norwegians would only be able to cope with the Germans militarily if aid from the Allies arrived quickly, and it carried an urgent appeal from General Ruge for the recapture of Trondheim. Dormer wrote, “I venture to urge that military assistance at Trondheim is first necessity. Seizure of Narvik was of little assistance to Norwegian government.”22

The political and strategic reassessment caused by these messages now resulted in a change in plans with further confusion. For reasons that should have been obvious to all before