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WWII History: Following is an article giving an overview of Norway's participation in WWII. The initial campaign in Norway in 1940 was unusual in many respects, and provides those interested in tactical and strategic studies many instructive examples. |
Norway and World War II
By: Tor Dagre
Norwegians were surprised and unprepared when Nazi Germany, with its superior military might, attacked Norway on 9 April 1940. The general public, and their political leaders, had believed that Norway would be able to stay out of the second world war, just as the country had maintained its neutrality in World War I. They believed that Norway was strategically on the periphery, protected by British naval power, and thought that Norwegian neutrality was also in the interests of the warring nations on both sides.
Therefore, the Norwegian government had declared Norway's neutrality when the war broke out in the autumn of 1939. There was a broad political consensus for this stance. The military forces were geared to protect the national borders and hinder violations of the country's neutrality, and unprepared for an invasion. During the first winter of the war, the Norwegian authorities even negotiated trade agreements with both Germany and Great Britain. In February 1940, these talks ended in an agreement allowing Great Britain to charter a portion of the Norwegian merchant marine while Norway was to be permitted to maintain its pre-war level of trade with Germany. In case it proved impossible to stay out of the war, the government of Johan Nygaardsvold (Labour Party) had no intention of fighting on the German side.Neutrality of Little Value
The Norwegian neutrality proved to be of little consequence. Strategic interests led both sides to make plans which involved violations of Norwegian boundaries and operations on Norwegian territory. From mid-December 1939, both the German and Allied sides analysed scenarios involving operations in Scandinavia.
The Allies planned mainly to send an expedition corps to Finland, crossing Scandinavian territory from the North Norwegian port of Narvik to the ore fields of North Sweden. In this connection, Norwegian harbors had to be secured. The plans were scrapped when Finland sought peace with the USSR on 13 March 1940. The two Allied divisions which had been earmarked for the operation were transferred to France.
The Germans' plans were more extensive and radical; they called for the complete occupation of both Denmark and Norway. One of the motives was the German navy's desire for Norwegian bases for the war at sea. The German navy had not forgotten how their surface fleet had been trapped in the Baltic during the first world war, and understood that their submarines could have been more effective with more bases in the Atlantic Ocean arena.
The usefulness of such bases was to be demonstrated later on as the sea war developed. In December 1939, three ore ships in the British service were torpedoed by a German submarine off the Norwegian coast. The vessels had been transporting Swedish iron ore, shipped from the North Norwegian town Narvik.
German interests were also involved in iron ore transport from Narvik. The western Allies were displeased with the Norwegian and Swedish policies of neutrality regarding the shipping of this ore through Norwegian waters. The situation became critical when a British war ship cruised into the Norwegian Jøssingfjord and sank a German vessel and liberated British prisoners. On 8 April 1940, the Allies announced that they had placed mines in Norwegian waters to stop the shipments of iron ore to Germany. However, the minelaying was not intended to be the first step in an Allied attack on Norway.
Narvik, the location of an initial German invasion, this city was later beseiged by Allied forces and retaken.
At that point, the German attack on Norway had already started. A huge fleet had departed from German ports with troops and materiel. Nearly the entire German navy, six army divisions and a large air force contingent took part in the attack. The first targets were eight Norwegian towns and cities along the country's lengthy coast.
The Norwegian defence was tiny by comparison. Most of the navy had already been mobilised, but it was organised to guard the country's neutrality. On an average, coastal forts were only 50 per cent manned. The army had mobilised 7,000 soldiers in South Norway but the entire 6th brigade, with its 4,800 men, was on duty in North Norway.
Fierce battles broke out immediately. British naval forces became embroiled in combat with German units and both sides suffered large losses, especially in the Narvik area. After a while, British, French, and Polish army units joined in. But they could not put up sufficient resistance against the well-organised German campaign. The eight targets of the attack were captured within 24 hours, as was the Norwegian naval base at Horten. It took longer for the aggressor to take the rest of the country. In mid-Norway and the south, the last to fall was Hegra Fort in Trøndelag county.
Norwegian Soldiers
By the beginning of May, the military resistance of South Norway had been broken. To the north, in the Narvik region, German forces were outnumbered and were driven back toward the Swedish border. But the Western Allies chose to withdraw due to their setbacks on the Western Front. After 62 days, the German campaign had succeeded. Norwegian defence and security policies had suffered a total defeat. On 7 June, 1940, the Norwegian king and the Nygaardsvold government boarded the British cruiser HMS Devonshire. It would be five years before they could return. |
German British (1 Troop - only personnel, no tanks) French Polish Norwegian The Norwegian army was small, poorly trained, and existed largely as a border protection force. Although they initially possessed a high morale and fought tenaciously, like most European armies in the early stages of WWII they were unequipped for the new realities of war. They had no hand grenades, submachine guns, or anti-tank guns. Each battalion, which was the largest operational organization, had only two medium mortars and nine heavy machineguns for support. * Mountain Troops ** These units were composed of Territorial Battalions, or what could be considered militia units, rather than regular line units. |
The Losses in 1940
The battles in 1940 cost many lives: Norwegians lost about 850, the British 4,000, the French and Poles a combined 530, while the invaders suffered 1,300 dead and 1,600 wounded.
In retrospect, the German campaign has been evaluated as an unusually daring and successful action for its time. It was the first operation in military history which used the combined powers of a nation's army, navy and air force. It was the first time in which large troops were transported on warships. It was also the first time that troops were flown directly to battlegrounds. Resistance Led from London
The Norwegian government resumed its activities from London. It was able to do so because the national assembly, the Storting, had given it the authorisation it needed shortly after the attack. Popular resistance during the war was also bolstered by the knowledge that King Haakon, and the Nygaardsvold government, had resolutely answered "no" to the German demands for submission after the invasion.
Only a negligible portion of the Norwegian defence forces steered clear of the collapse. However, the government's disposition of the merchant navy - the world's third largest at the time - ensured it a certain freedom of action. With the income from the maritime fleet, the government began to build up new forces for the war effort. In addition, the merchant navy's efforts helped raise the status of the exiled government within the Alliance while providing a much-needed currency surplus for post-war reconstruction.
In time, the government had recruited an army, a navy and an air force. When the peace was finally won, the Royal Norwegian Navy consisted of 52 vessels. These participated in ordinary sea war operations, including convoy service and the invasion at Normandy. The Norwegian destroyer Stord played a major part when the 26,000 tonne German battleship Scharnorst was sunk north of the North Cape in December 1943. Throughout the war, the Norwegian naval detachment popularly known as "the Shetland bus" provided a risky transport route between the Shetland Islands and occupied Norway.
A training camp for Norwegian pilots, dubbed "Little Norway", was established in Canada. Norwegian pilots and crews on Norwegian aircraft took part in Allied operations staged from Iceland and Great Britain, and from France in the final phase of the war.
Norwegian army forces were established and trained in Scotland. They were reserved for action in Norway, but commando units also participated in special operations, during the Dieppe raid and the attack on the Dutch island, Walcheren, in 1944.
But country's biggest contribution to the Allied war effort abroad was the hazardous service of sailors in the merchant navy. The modern Norwegian merchant fleet carried oil, war materiel, and food to soldiers and civilians all over the world and to all arenas of the second world war. The effort cost the lives of nearly 4,000 Norwegian seamen.Norwegian Forces in Sweden
In 1943, the Swedish authorities granted permission for the establishment and training of the so-called Norwegian "police" troops on Swedish soil. Some of these forces were sent to Finnmark county in the winter of 1944-45 while German and Soviet forces were fighting there.
The rest of the police troops were immediately transferred to Norway after the German capitulation in May 1945. They consisted of eight police reserve battalions, eight national police companies, as well as staff and support units - 13,000 troops in all. | Continued on the next page... |
