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

costly in view of growing German air power projected from Sola Airfield and the fact that the Germans laid their own minefields in the Bergen approaches on April 10.

German aircraft began attacking British naval forces early in the evening of April 9. The Luftwaffe first attacked Admiral Layton’s force on its way back to the Home Fleet after the cancellation of its planned operation against Bergen. Two cruisers received minor damage from near misses and one of the new Tribal class destroyers, the Gurkha, was sunk. The Germans also carried out several attacks against the Home Fleet. A 1000-lb bomb struck the battleship Rodney, Admiral Forbes’ flagship, but the damage and loss of life was not serious. Three cruisers sustained minor damage from near misses and only one German aircraft was shot down. The damage to Forbes’ confidence, however, was considerable.

The Home Fleet steered north for several hours to get out of the range of German bombers, then Admiral Forbes turned westward during the night. He did not head back towards the Norwegian coast until after Warspite and Furious joined him. He also recommended to the Admiralty that British surface vessels only attack German naval units in northern waters and that naval operations near the south and west coast of Norway be limited to submarines. He also recommended that Furious, who had left her fighter squadrons behind in Scotland, should not be used without fighter escorts in areas where she would be exposed to German aircraft. The Admiralty accepted these sensible recommendations. Without adequate air cover, naval operations near the Norwegian shore would have exposed the ships to furious attacks by a Luftwaffe that was growing rapidly in strength at Norwegian airfields.

N

ARVIK

A

REA

D

EFENSES

“The defense of Narvik stands or falls on the defense of the Ofotfjord entrance.”

STATEMENT BY COLONEL GEORG STANG, A FORMER NORWEGIAN MINISTER OF DEFENSE.

The Norwegian military forces stationed in North Norway in 1940, particularly the land forces, were better prepared for hostilities than those in other areas of the country. In the first place, the war between Finland and the Soviet Union resulted in the movement of relatively large forces to Finnmark. It was necessary to insure that neutrality was not violated and that the war did not spill over into Norway. Another reason for a higher level of preparedness was the obvious Allied interest in the iron ore shipments through Narvik.

Naval Forces

A sizable proportion of the naval force stationed in North Norway during the Winter War was redeployed to other parts of the country after the conclusion of peace between Finland and the Soviet Union. This included three modern destroyers, two submarines, and one torpedo boat. Some of the warships that were earlier stationed in Tromsø were organized into a separate division, called the Ofot Division, and moved to Narvik. This concentration of forces was aimed at hindering or discouraging British warships from entering Ofotfjord to destroy the many German merchant ships involved in the iron ore shipments during the winter of 1939-40. The prevailing view in the Norwegian Government was that the British posed the greatest danger to Narvik and consequently very little thought was given to any possibility of confronting German naval forces.

The 3rd Naval District, with its headquarters in Tromsø, was responsible for the naval defense of the long coastline from the provincial boundary between Nord-Trøndelag and Nordland to the Finnish border. This was a relatively new organization, created in January 1937, and at the outset, it had no assigned naval units. Commodore L. Hagerup commanded the 3rd Naval District, but he departed for a leave in southern Norway on April 5. Captain Per Askim, the Ofot Division commander, acted as district commander in Hagerup’s absence. In addition to these duties, Askim was the skipper of the coastal defense ship Norge.

The ships available to the 3rd Naval District were organized into two divisions as of March 31: the Ofot Division and the Finnmark Division. In addition, eight patrol vessels reported directly to the naval district. Most of the ships in the Finnmark Division were reassigned after the Winter War and it had only five patrol vessels on April 8. The Ofot Division consisted of the two coastal defense ships Norge and Eidsvold. The division was also assigned the 3rd Submarine Division, which comprised the submarines B3 and B1 as well as the submarine tender Lyngen. Finally, there were three patrol boats, Michael Sars, Senja, and Kelt. All Ofot Division’s ships were in Narvik on April 8.

The aircraft assigned to the naval district consisted of three Heinkel-115 torpedo aircraft and two MF-11 reconnaissance aircraft. The three torpedo aircraft were stationed at the Tromsø Naval Air Station. There were no torpedoes available and the aircraft were therefore rigged to carry 500-lb and 150-lb bombs. The two reconnaissance aircraft were stationed in Vadsø, near the Soviet border.

The naval forces assigned to the 3rd Naval District were inadequate in both numbers and quality to meet an attack by a modern navy. The two coastal defense ships were 40 years old. They had a displacement of 3,645 tons, a crew of 229, and could muster a maximum speed of only 17 knots. Each was armed with two 8.3-inch guns, six 6-inch guns, and six 76mm guns. This was a large number of heavy weapons for ships of their size but the ranges of the heavier caliber guns were short. The antiaircraft defenses were inadequate. They consisted of two 76mm and two 20mm guns as well as two 12.7mm and four 7.92mm machineguns. The fire direction system was outmoded and the same was true for the watertight compartment and bottom hull construction. The ships were severely limited in their capacity to fight modern warships and aircraft. They were best suited as floating batteries.

The two submarines were built between 1922 and 1925 from old plans that did not incorporate the lessons learned from World War 1. They were especially hampered by the long