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

area would have taken a different and for the Germans a less favorable course if the 1st Bn 13th Inf Regt at Elvegaardsmoen had not been moved, but instead had been given a chance to take up the defense against a German landing in Herjangen, a fjord-arm on the north side of Ofotfjord.

A defense of Narvik requires long preparation and quite other military and maritime forces and auxiliaries than those that were available on the April night, and only a few hours’ notice, to stand off a powerful and well-planned surprise attack by the Germans. It would have been better if Narvik had been declared an open city inasmuch as its adequate defense had no time to be organized. Instead, all available forces could have been used for isolating the Germans at Narvik by preventing them from pushing eastward along the Ofot railway and northward toward Troms province.

The facts that Sundlo was a member of Quisling’s party and held positions in his administration during the war made the charges with regard to his conduct in Narvik stick, while leaving the conduct of others untarnished. Sundlo’s subsequent behavior cannot be used as a basis for judging his conduct as military commander in Narvik or as an explanation for a spectacular German success that caught everyone in this part of the country by surprise.29

The failure of General Fleischer to curtail his inspection trip in East Finnmark was, in retrospect, a poor decision. The possibility of military action against Narvik should have been obvious to General Fleischer and it is difficult to understand why he did not head back to his headquarters as soon as the war clouds began to gather. The British mining operations on April 8 were clear signs of imminent hostilities, but even this failed to change Fleischer’s itinerary. The start of one of the worst winter storms of the season prevented the general and his chief of staff from returning to the divisional headquarters for several days.

D

ESTROYER

B

ATTLE

“Keep on engaging the enemy.”

CAPTAIN WARBURTON-LEE’S LAST MESSAGE TO HIS DESTROYER FLOTILLA MOMENTS BEFORE BEING MORTALLY WOUNDED.

The German Situation in Narvik

General Dietl and Captain Bonte had good reasons to congratulate themselves in the morning of April 9. They had sailed almost 1,500 miles through waters dominated by the British Navy and had captured Narvik without the loss of a ship, a sailor, or a soldier. They had inflicted a crippling blow on the Norwegian Navy, captured, without firing a shot, nearly 600 Norwegian soldiers and sailors, seized one of the largest Norwegian army depots, and captured five armed British merchant ships and their crews.

Despite these impressive successes, the German position in Narvik was not enviable. Dietl and Bonte each faced serious problems. Dietl’s most immediate task was to consolidate his two beachheads against anticipated Norwegian and British attacks. Bonte’s most urgent task was to return to Germany with his destroyers, a highly dangerous venture now that the British were fully alerted. Several factors complicated the situation for both Dietl and Bonte.

German planners had placed much reliance on the quick capture of the Norwegian shore batteries at the Ofotfjord entrance. It was one of three primary goals. They planned to use these batteries against any British attempt to enter Ofotfjord. The fact that these batteries did not exist increased the danger to the German forces. Dietl did not have the heavy weapons, equipment, and supplies on which he had planned. Most of the weapons and equipment carried on the destroyers washed overboard on the way to Narvik. The ships Bärenfels, Rauenfels, and Alster were scheduled to have arrived in Narvik before the destroyers. They carried weapons, equipment, and supplies. These three ships left Hamburg on April 3. They proceeded separately in order to give the appearance of innocent merchant ships. None reached their destination. Bärenfels fell so far behind schedule that she was redirected to Bergen, where she arrived on April 11. The British destroyer Havock crippled Rauenfels at the Ofotfjord entrance as the British warship returned from battle with the German destroyers on April 10. A British destroyer captured Alster north of Bodø on April 14. The loss of these three ships was a serious blow to Dietl since he could not count on receiving any further supplies by sea. This made the capture of the depot at Elvegårdsmoen all the more important.

Bonte’s destroyers reached Narvik almost empty of fuel. They needed to refuel before they could start their return voyage to Germany but the two large tankers scheduled to be in Narvik when TF 1 arrived had not yet arrived. Jan Wellem sailed from Murmansk and reached Narvik on April 8. The Kattegat sailed from Germany and should also have reached Narvik on April 8. She stopped south of Bodø because of the British minefield and was intercepted by the Norwegian patrol boat Nordkapp and sunk in shallow water. The Norwegians later salvaged most of the cargo. German naval officers considered the loss of Kattegat the most serious blow to the Narvik operation since it prevented the German destroyers from departing Narvik on schedule.1

Bonte’s problems were twofold. Each destroyer required about 600 tons of fuel for the return trip to Germany. With the loss of Kattegat, he had only half of the fuel called for in the operational plan. Jan Wellem could only provide this amount through the time-consuming procedure of mixing diesel oil with boiler oil.2 The second problem involved the time required to refuel. With two tankers, he could have refueled four destroyers at a time and the time required would be much shorter since there would be no need to mix diesel oil and boiler oil. With one tanker, only two destroyers could refuel simultaneously, and each pair required seven to eight hours. Only three destroyers were refueled by 2400 hours, April 9.

The order in which Bonte refueled them presented a problem in itself. Wilhelm Heidkamp, Bonte’s flagship, was one