Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 by Henrik Lunde (popular e readers .TXT) 📗

by heavy fire from a knoll to the north of Hill 405. The company was unable to resume its advance until the commander of Co 2, 4th Bn, located on Hill 677, sent two platoons to storm the troublesome German position. Company 2 reached Nyborg around 0900 hours and found the Germans in the process of evacuating the Ankenes pocket. The boats were fired on, two overturned, and several Germans drowned.

Despite this success, the Poles were unable to capture Ankenes on May 28. The German withdrawal decision was caused as much by the success of the landings at Ornes as it was by the unrelenting Polish pressure. The French and Norwegian forces in Narvik threatened to isolate the German units opposing the Poles, much in the same way as the Polish advance threatened to isolate the German defenders in Narvik. It was important for the Germans to hold the Ankenes positions long enough to assist the withdrawal from Narvik since effective machinegun fire could be placed on anyone trying to advance along the harbor road past Fagernes. When this was accomplished, the defenders withdrew under the protection of a covering force that later escaped across the fjord in boats.

Lieutenant Rieger and his men held Hill 295 until 2000 hours when they had used up all their ammunition. They had successfully repelled three Polish attacks. Rieger and his eight soldiers managed to slip away towards Ankenes and tried to make it across the fjord but the Poles saw their boat and sank it with gunfire. Rieger was wounded and captured. Many in his company were killed, wounded, or missing.

The 1st Polish Bn also met determined resistance in its offensive near the base of the Ankenes Peninsula. The operation began around midnight, with Co 1 of that battalion attacking Hill 650 while Co 3 attacked Hill 773. Company 2 was the battalion reserve. The first attack was repelled but the German Co 7 defending this area was so exhausted after weeks of fighting that it was obvious an effective defense could not be maintained for long.

The defenses at the base of the Ankenes Peninsula assumed enormous importance in the successful extraction of Major Haussels’ forces from Narvik, including the defenders in the Ankenes pocket. If the Poles could break through Co 7’s positions, they could advance on and capture Beisfjord village, thereby cutting Major Haussels line of retreat. The Germans would then be caught in a trap.

Major Haussels was unable to communicate with his forces on Ankenes Peninsula as the day passed, but General Dietl was able to establish communication with Co 7 and gave orders directly to this unit since it reported that it was not only hard pressed but unable to communicate with Haussels. Dietl told the company commander to hold his positions as long as possible but to withdraw in the face of overwhelming enemy strength and establish a delaying position east of Lakselv (Salmon River).

Lieutenant Rieger’s daring attack on and capture of Hill 295 now took on an importance out of all proportion to the size of his force and his actions. Like Lieutenant Schweiger’s attack near Hill 457, it became another key to the successful extraction of the Germans from the Narvik area. General Bohusz-Szyszko viewed Lieutenant Rieger’s attack as posing a serious threat to the facilities in his rear area and the line of communications from Håvik. He ordered the 1st Half-Brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Chlusewiez, to alter the attack plans and this gave the Germans the precious time they needed to make good their escape.

It is difficult to understand the Polish commander’s concern. Only two platoons of his three-company reserve were already committed. The Poles should have been aware of the limited size of the German force on Hill 295 and it had a company of Polish troops on each side. He was surely aware that the French/Norwegian landings at Ornes were successful. This made the Beisfjord village the key objective in trying to trap the Germans. The Ankenes pocket had become, in the course of events, a secondary objective and the Germans on Hill 295 could easily be contained by the 2nd Bn while the full weight of the half-brigade’s attack was directed against Hills 650 and 773.

Instead of doing so, the 1st Half-Brigade was directed at 0300 hours to move the reserve company located at Klubban to Emmenes. Two hours later, a string was put on Co 1 of the 1st Bn, reasoning that it might become necessary to commit it to restore the situation on the left flank of the 2nd Bn. This effectively left the 1st Bn without a reserve and slowed the tempo of its attack against the two key terrain features that constituted the doorway to Beisfjord.

General Bohusz-Szyszko also requested that General Béthouart release at least one company from his reserve, the 3rd Polish Bn, which was located in Ballangen. The request was turned down because the battalion constituted the only protection against threats from the southwest, according to Sereau. What the nature of the threat southwest was is not explained, but it was probably a concern about possible airborne landings since General Feurstein’s forces in Nordland Province were far to the south and had not yet captured Bodø.

Béthouart did ask Magrin-Vernerey if he could send a company of Legionnaires to help the Poles. This elicited a rather caustic reply according to Lapie, “Do they want the 63 men guarding the luggage at Scarnes?” The state of inter-allied cooperation is further illustrated by another comment attributed by Lapie to the French colonel, “Nothing ever seems to happen in this place [Ankenes] … And to think they want a company of mine to help those fellows! Not a single shot.”9 This was a very unfair observation. The Poles fought fiercely and bravely and took heavy losses at the same time as the French and Norwegians were fighting near Narvik.

While the Germans gained valuable time because of the Polish commander’s action, the situation on Hills 650 and 773 eventually turned precarious.