1940 military campaign in Namsos, Norway
The Namsos campaign, in Namsos, Norway, and vicinity took place between Anglo-French and Norwegian naval and military forces against German military, naval and air forces in April and early May 1940. It was one of the first occasions during the Second World War when British and French land forces fought the German Army.
Background.
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Norway followed a policy of neutrality, as it had done during the First World War, hoping to stay out of the war once again engulfing Europe. So Norway was at peace in April 1940 when it was suddenly attacked by naval, air and military forces from Nazi Germany. Unlike in the First World War, the Norwegian military was only partially mobilised, with the Royal Norwegian Navy and the coastal artillery being set up with skeleton crews. The Norwegian Army activated only a few battalions in North Norway (amongst others the Alta Battalion) as a precaution in connection with the Soviet Winter War against Finland. Although the Norwegian Government had carried out a hurried modernisation of the military in the second half of the 1930s, the armed forces were disorganised. Effects of the wide-ranging budget reductions carried out during the pacifist policies of the late 1920s and early 1930s were still apparent. In 1940, the Norwegian armed forces were among the weakest in Europe.
There were several reasons for the German attack. Not least was a desire to secure the flow of iron ore from mines at Kiruna in the north of Sweden to Germany's war industries. The northern part of the Baltic Sea, called the Gulf of Bothnia, had a principal Swedish port called Luleå from where in the summer a quantity of ore was shipped. It was frozen in winter, so for several months each year the Swedes shipped most of their iron ore by rail through the ice-free port of Narvik in the far north of Norway. In a normal year, 80 percent of the iron ore was exported through Narvik. The only alternative in winter was a long rail journey to Oxelösund on the Baltic, south of Stockholm, which was not obstructed by ice. British information suggested that Oxelösund could ship only a fifth the amount Germany required. Without the Swedish iron ore shipments through Narvik, the German war industry could not have produced as many tanks, guns, submarines and other weapons.
The Admiralty was investigating the possibility of sending ships into the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1940 (Operation Catherine) to interdict German seaborne trade during the summer months. The operation would have been pointless if the Narvik route remained open. The Germans rightly suspected that the British were planning to mine the Norwegian coastal waters used by German ore ships. British plans were well advanced but the Germans got to Norway first.
Allied counter-attack plans.
Narvik, Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen and other Norwegian towns were seized on the first day of the campaign in a surprise attack. Elements of the Norwegian army fought the Germans north of Oslo. The British and French prime ministers and their military advisers were of one mind in deciding to retake Trondheim, link up with the Norwegians and block a German advance north. This would enable the Allies to cut much of Germany's iron ore supply route. A bonus would be air and naval bases in northern Norway.
It is at Trondheim that Norway becomes narrow, making it easier to block the Germans than further south. To turn the position, Germany would have to attack through Sweden, bringing that nation into the war on the Allied side. The retired Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, MP, repeatedly urged Churchill to seize Trondheim from the Germans, using obsolete battleships if necessary, and offered to lead the attack.
It was planned to force the entrance to Trondheimsfjord with battleships knocking out the Norwegian coastal forts at the entrance, recently captured by the Germans; an amphibious landing would take the city. It was also decided to land forces north and south of the fjord for a pincer attack on the city. The officers responsible for these decisions were the chiefs of staff of the armed forces, Sir Dudley Pound of the Royal Navy, General Sir Edmund Ironside of the British Army and Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall of the Royal Air Force (RAF).
The chiefs of staff had second thoughts; the forcing of the narrows was reduced to a demonstration, with the main thrust being the two pincers. This eliminated the immediate use of the Trondheim airfields by the RAF. It also meant that the military forces would face German naval units in the fjord as well as Luftwaffe units in the air. Churchill was disappointed but faced the combined opposition of his naval advisers as well as the heads of the army and the RAF and had to back down. Keyes was apoplectic and this event, more than any, convinced him to join in an attack on the Government at the end of the Norwegian campaign.
Namsos, then a town of 3,615 people, was felt to be the logical spot to land the troops assigned to the northern pincer, because of its location and facilities. The harbour and approaches to Namsos are ice free all year. Because of the trade in lumber, by 1940 Namsos port was furnished with three good wharves (one of stone) with a depth alongside of and lengths from . This made it suitable for smaller warships and transports to dock and to land troops and supplies for the recapture of Trondheim. Namsos was on a branch line connecting to the Nordland Line. A gravel road led some south to Trondheim.
Screening force.
Captain Frank Pegram of the cruiser , accompanied by the cruiser and ten destroyers, landed a small party of Royal Marines in Namsos on 14 April 1940. The landing party was under the command of Captain Edds and took up blocking positions in the hills outside town which soon attracted German aircraft. The commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, V.C., flew in the next day and his Short Sunderland flying boat was strafed by German aircraft as it landed. His aide was wounded and had to return to Britain. De Wiart was an energetic and competent commander who inspired his troops by his bravery during air attacks but no Allied aircraft were available over Namsos to provide protection against the Luftwaffe.
De Wiart made the decision, because of unopposed enemy air activity, to divert his large, slow and vulnerable troopships north to Lillesjona in Nesna, where they would be offloaded to destroyers for a fast run into Namsos. He arrived there on 16 April to supervise the trans-shipment but less than an hour into the process, German bombers arrived and the British naval commander ordered the destroyers to sail with the troops and equipment they had on board. , , , and got under way for Namsos carrying De Wiart with 36 officers and 1,208 other ranks. Though repeatedly attacked during their voyage, they arrived unscathed, if not rested, and got into Namsos about 9:00 p.m. on 16 April.
Ashore and south.
De Wiart showed considerable vigour in managing the landing and dispersal of troops and supplies, getting them into the hills during the five hours of darkness in Namsos in late April. German air reconnaissance crews failed to spot that landings had occurred the previous night. He wasted no time in setting up a headquarters in Namsos and sent out guards to the long bridge over Namsosfjord, essential to one of the two roads south and moved others to occupy the village of Bangsund further south. He also sent 300 troops due east along the second, less direct, route south to Grong, where they linked up with small numbers of Norwegian troops under Colonel Ole Getz. Smaller groups were sent south of Bangsund to reach Beitstadfjorden, at the head of Trondheimsfjord.
De Wiart understood that speed was vital and that the force should reach Steinkjer, where the two roads south met, before the Germans got there from Trondheim. The naval commander, Admiral Geoffrey Layton, decided that taking his destroyers into Namsos was too risky. He would send troops and supplies in on the Polish transport MS "Chrobry". Since most of the remaining troops at Lillesjona were aboard the , much time was wasted with further trans-shipping, and "Chrobry", accompanied by got into Namsos just before sunrise on 17 April. In the rush to get away before the German bombers arrived, the soldiers landed without much of their kit but De Wiart got the troops dispersed before a reconnaissance aircraft arrived. De Wiart was not aware that the attack directly into Trondheimsfjord had been called off. Throughout his time at Namsos, he was left ignorant of what was happening elsewhere in Norway.
French arrival.
Two battalions of French (mountain troops) landed on 19 April under air attack. One of the transports conveying the French was too long to enter the harbour and returned to the United Kingdom without landing many of the French supplies, leaving the troops without straps for their skis or the mules they used for transport. The French stayed in Namsos, enduring air bombardment against which they had little protection. The French cruiser was damaged by bombing during the disembarkation (no casualties) and was replaced by the . About 6,000 Allied troops were put ashore. The French troops, for the most part, were not used in the short campaign because of a lack of supplies. Towards the end, they were engaged somewhat as the Allied troops fell back on Namsos, preparatory to evacuation.
Clash in the south.
By 21 April, British forces had advanced quickly as far south as the hamlet of Verdal, where road and railway bridges crossed the River Inna, a few miles inland from Trondheimsfjord. This was about halfway between Trondheim and Namsos, some miles down the fjord. They spotted a German gunboat, two armed trawlers and a destroyer in the fjord, on their flanks, well able to land troops behind them and direct fire at them, to which they lacked the means to respond.
When De Wiart landed at Namsos on 15 April, the Germans had about 1,800 troops in the Trondheim area, some in the city and some along the railway to Sweden. Their possession of the Værnes airfield enabled them to fly extra troops in daily, and by 18 April, they had 3,500 men in the area, the next day 5,000. They were generally well equipped but lacked field artillery. Some German troops were diverted to Hegra, where an improvised force of 251 Norwegians was holding out in Hegra Fortress an old border fort. They began pushing up the fjord and patrols reached Verdal on 16 April.
The Verdal bridge was defended by about 80 Norwegian soldiers, armed with Krag-Jørgensen rifles and Colt M/29 heavy machine guns. When the Germans attacked on the morning of 21 April, the Norwegians were supported by a section of Royal Engineers who happened to be in the area. For an hour and a half, this force held the German attack off. The majority of the British forces were a little further back. The Germans landed forces at several points behind them to outflank them, spotted by the main British force. Fearing being cut off, the Norwegians and Royal Engineers withdrew. A battle developed. The advantage was with the Germans, who were equipped with snowshoes and skis, sledge-mounted heavy mortars, and light field guns. They possessed air support from an airfield 35 miles away and had supporting naval gunfire. There was no panic among the British and Norwegian forces, and they succeeded in countering the first moves of the Germans. Heavy fighting occurred around the small village of Vist. The initial attacks were repelled, but the Germans outflanked the British positions on skis through the deep snow.
The Luftwaffe attacked and destroyed the British forward base at Steinkjer on 21 April, causing the loss of much of their supplies and destroying 242 houses, leaving over 1,800 Norwegian civilians homeless. Although 80% of the town was destroyed in the attack, there were no deaths in the bombing.
Air attacks.
German bombers destroyed much of the wooden town of Namsos on 20 April. Attacks lasted throughout the day, and most of the houses, as well as the railway terminal, a church, the French headquarters