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

end of April, some in the Allied camp understood that the evacuation of Namsos gave the Germans an opportunity to advance north to relieve their hard-pressed forces in Narvik. Both Paris and London urged that part of the forces evacuated should do so overland while some should proceed to Mosjøen by sea.

The news that Carton de Wiart did not plan to leave forces in the area north of Namsos apparently came as a surprise to General Ironside. After a midnight call on April 29 from a French admiral, a hurried meeting with the French Military Attaché, and a visit to General Massy’s home before 0300 hours, Ironside discovered that his “orders issued about the occupation of various points on the fiords to the north of Namsos had not been obeyed.”13 A message from Massy to Carton de Wiart stressed the importance of holding Mosjøen and suggested that part of the force in Namsos be moved there by sea while other forces were used to delay the Germans along the road from Grong.

Generals Carton de Wiart and Audet argued that they did not have sufficient ski troops to cover the evacuation, that the road north was impassable because of the thaw, and that the troops would be exposed to heavy German air attacks.14 If the Allies had adequate liaison with Norwegian forces they would have learned that the railroad bed across the mountains had been cleared of snow prior to April 19 and that as of April 26, the 5th Brigade was supplied from Mosjøen by using both the railroad and road. At the time that local Allied commanders declared the route impassable, the 1/14th Inf was withdrawing over it.

General Gamelin, surprised by both the evacuation and the fact that forces were not left behind to hinder the German northward advance, sent instructions directly to General Audet on May 2, directing French forces to take up positions near Grong.15 While this led to a hurried meeting between Audet and Carton de Wiart, it came too late and was not sufficient to convince the two commanders. They argued that the force would be trapped since it could not withdraw overland.

It was unfortunate that the decision on how to withdraw from Namsos was left to the local commanders since it had a direct effect on the operations in Narvik over which neither they nor General Massy had any authority. Allowing the two battalions of 5th Demi-Brigade CA to fight a rearguard action along the Grong-Mosjøen road and railroad may have been to Allied benefit. It is quite possible that Getz, encouraged by the fact that some Allies were still at his side, would have withdrawn his remaining two battalions by the same route and the presence of French forces may have prevented the demoralization of the 1/14th Inf. The Allies did send a small French force of about 100 men with two British light anti-aircraft guns by sea to secure Mosjøen against airborne attack.

By a quick decision and decisive action it should have been possible to keep the forces fighting north of Grong supplied through the small port of Mosjøen. The German air threat mentioned by Derry did not present greater problems for the delaying force than it later posed to the piecemeal and ineffectual British attempts to insert troops along the coastline to stem the German advance. In fact, as the Allies were wrangling about how to withdraw their forces from Namsos, on April 29, General Mackesy was directed to send forces from the Narvik front to Nordland Province.

Generals Gamelin and Ironside insisted that part of the evacuating force conduct an effective delaying action between Grong and Mosjøen. The authors of Ironside’s diaries write:

Now that Namsos was on the point of being lost, it was imperative to stop the Germans moving up the coast and relieving their garrison at Narvik before we had captured it ourselves. Ironside [and Gamelin] accordingly wanted his only ski-troops, the Chasseurs Alpins, to retire, not by sea, but slowly up the road to the north, via Grong and Mosjoën, being supplied from the several small ports on the Norwegian coast, delaying the enemy as long as possible and eventually joining the British at Narvik.16

Gamelin’s and Ironside’s views are confirmed by the message Gamelin sent to the French commander in Namsos on May 2 and General Massy’s message to Carton de Wiart on April 29 after what Ironside describes as a stormy meeting in the early morning hours. Hovland places the blame on the British, more specifically on Churchill. Churchill, however, writes:

I was most anxious that a small part of the Namsos force should make their way in whatever vehicles were available along the coastal road to Grong. Even a couple of hundred would have sufficed to fight small rear-guard actions. From Grong they would have to find their way on foot to Mosjoen … I was repeatedly assured that the road was impassable. General Massy from London sent insistent requests. It was replied that even a small party of French Chasseurs, with their skis, could not traverse this route. “It was [seemed] evident,” wrote General Massy a few days later in his dispatch, “that if the French Chasseurs could not retire along this route, the Germans could not advance along it …”17

British authors appear to place the blame on the local commanders, especially the commander of the French contingent. Moulton writes that General Audet considered the road from Grong to Mosjøen impassable and that Carton de Wiart accepted his opinion. Derry writes that Generals Audet and Carton de Wiart were equally opposed to the idea of an overland withdrawal of some forces.

However, General Béthouart relates a different story:

One could have evacuated all or parts of the troops along this road [Namsos to Mosjøen] with all equipment and thereby delayed the enemy’s advance and established a front that with ease and effectiveness could have stopped the enemy … My half-brigade of alpines together with the Norwegian brigade under Colonel Getz were especially well suited for this