Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (70 page)
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Authors: Henrik O. Lunde
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027100
Now that Namsos was on the point of being lost, it was imperative to stop the Germans moving up the coast and relieving their garrison at Narvik before we had captured it ourselves. Ironside [and Gamelin] accordingly wanted his only ski-troops, the Chasseurs Alpins, to retire, not by sea, but slowly up the road to the north, via Grong and Mosjoën, being supplied from the several small ports on the Norwegian coast, delaying the enemy as long as possible and eventually joining the British at Narvik.
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Gamelin’s and Ironside’s views are confirmed by the message Gamelin sent to the French commander in Namsos on May 2 and General Massy’s message to Carton de Wiart on April 29 after what Ironside describes as a stormy meeting in the early morning hours. Hovland places the blame on the British, more specifically on Churchill. Churchill, however, writes:
I was most anxious that a small part of the Namsos force should make their way in whatever vehicles were available along the coastal road to Grong. Even a couple of hundred would have sufficed to fight small rear-guard actions. From Grong they would have to find their way on foot to Mosjoen … I was repeatedly assured that the road was impassable. General Massy from London sent insistent requests. It was replied that even a small party of French Chasseurs, with their skis, could not traverse this route. “It was [seemed] evident,” wrote General Massy a few days later in his dispatch, “that if the French Chasseurs could not retire along this route, the Germans could not advance along it …”
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British authors appear to place the blame on the local commanders, especially the commander of the French contingent. Moulton writes that General Audet considered the road from Grong to Mosjøen impassable and that Carton de Wiart accepted his opinion. Derry writes that Generals Audet and Carton de Wiart were equally opposed to the idea of an overland withdrawal of some forces.
However, General Béthouart relates a different story:
One could have evacuated all or parts of the troops along this road [Namsos to Mosjøen] with all equipment and thereby delayed the enemy’s advance and established a front that with ease and effectiveness could have stopped the enemy … My half-brigade of alpines together with the Norwegian brigade under Colonel Getz were especially well suited for this mission.
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A Supreme Allied War Council decision in early April gave the British command of and responsibility for operations in Scandinavia. We know that General Carton de Wiart’s views on operations in Nord-Trøndelag were heavily influenced by the massive German air attacks on Steinkjer and Namsos. He may well have concluded that any operations in this area were futile unless he received effective air support. General Audet probably shared these views. However, the decision on what to do with the forces in Namsos was a strategic decision that affected what now had become the main Allied operation to recapture Narvik, and it was therefore a decision that should have been made in London, and insisted on.
Feurstein Begins his Advance
The Germans wasted no time in exploiting the vacuum left by the Allied evacuation and the surrender of the 5th Brigade. They entered the ruins of Namsos on May 4 and General von Falkenhorst issued orders that same day for the 2nd Mountain Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Valentin Feurstein, to begin its overland drive to establish contact with Dietl’s forces in Narvik.
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The 2nd Mountain Division was not part of the forces originally earmarked for the invasion of Norway. This elite unit was added when Hitler became concerned in late April about the situation in Norway and particularly about a link-up with Dietl in Narvik. The 2nd Mountain Division was located in the Eifel area when it was ordered to Oslo via Denmark. There were several difficulties and mishaps during its deployment.
Since the division had not been part of the original invasion force and therefore not part of the movement plans, there was a scramble to find transport and much of the heavy equipment was left behind. In addition, there were serious losses in equipment during the transport from Denmark to Norway. Finally, Group XXI detached the division’s engineer battalion for service in southern Norway.
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The 2/137th Inf, reinforced by one mountain artillery battery and one engineer company, moved by air to Værnes Airfield on May 2. Lieutenant Colonel August Sorko commanded this group. While the bulk of the division was underway to Trondheim on foot or by railroad, Sorko’s forces were rushed to Grong to begin the advance towards Narvik.
General Feurstein and his staff ran into some of the same problems that plagued other Germans in Norway. For example, they could not put their hands on adequate maps and were forced, like the pilots over Narvik, to rely on maps on a scale of 1:1,000,000 or road maps. Feuerstein met with General von Falkenhorst and his chief-of-staff, Colonel von Buschenhagen, in Trondheim on May 4 and received his marching order.
While Von Falkenhorst may have expected that any resistance north of Namsos would be minimal after the Allied withdrawal and the surrender of the 5th Norwegian Brigade, he also wanted to light a fire under his subordinate. His order emphasized the need for haste and made light of any possible opposition. Feurstein was less exuberant than his superior and answered, “We will do everything, but please do not expect the impossible.”
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Feurstein knew that there were still elements of the 14th Norwegian Regiment in the area north of Grong. Furthermore, he anticipated that the Allies would make every effort to impede his advance, an advance that threatened their stranglehold on Narvik and Dietl’s forces.
Feurstein and a small staff set out the following day from Trondheim in three taxis to make contact with Sorko. Group XXI’s evening situation report for May 5 stated that Group Feurstein was on its way from Grong to Mosjøen with all available motorized forces. Was this a sarcastic reference to the three taxis? The motorized transport for the two mountain divisions was still in southern Norway waiting for the opening of the road to Trondheim or in Denmark awaiting shipping to Norway. In his history of World War 2, General von Tippelskirch writes that an army corps consisting of one mountain division and one infantry division pressed forward into North Norway after the Allied evacuation of Namsos. Feurstein notes sarcastically that his “army corps” consisted of six and a half companies of mountain troops, one artillery battery, and a staff of six. The 181st Division under General Woytasch had conducted the operations against the Allies and Norwegians north of Trondheim but this unit was only used to repair the lines of communications behind the 2nd Division, assist in the supply effort, and later help clear the offshore islands. The major forces eventually available to General Feurstein for his mission consisted of the 136th and 137th Mountain Infantry Regiments, Colonel Weiss’ 138th Mountain Infantry Regiment (belonging to the 3rd Mountain Division), 83rd Engineer Battalion from the 3rd Division, 1st and 2nd Bns of the 730th Artillery, and the 40th Anti-tank detachment.
The forces available to General Feurstein for the first phase of his daunting task, the 200 kilometer advance from Grong to Mosjøen, consisted of only two mountain infantry battalions (2/137 and 3/138), a battery of mountain artillery and one engineer platoon. This is a far cry from General von Tippelskirch‘s claim that Feurstein began his advance with a mountain corps consisting of what amounted to two reinforced divisions.
Scissorforce
Fleischer and Ruge were concerned about Narvik’s southern flank and had argued repeatedly that Allied units be moved to Nordland to bolster the weak Norwegian forces in that area. Cork and Mackesy were also concerned and one company of the Scots Guards was sent to Bodø from Harstad during the night of April 29–30. Its mission was to prevent the seizure of the town by a German airborne operation. This did not satisfy the Norwegians or Mackesy. He wanted sizable forces to stop the Germans in the Mosjøen area and General Gamelin in Paris was arguing for a similar strategy.
The British, having become reluctant to expose major naval surface units in areas of German air superiority, now adopted a similar attitude when it came to larger ground units. Since air protection was not forthcoming, they decided to use smaller units to try to stop the German advance through Nordland Province. Derry explains the logic behind this decision:
The Germans were to be stopped by demolitions along the road, by guerrilla activities on their flanks, by raising the countryside against them, and by preparing to deal firmly with whatever small parties they might land from the sea or the air. This was to be the work of the Independent Companies, which were so organized as to need air defence neither for themselves nor for their base.
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The decision to use five Independent Cos, who collectively became known as
Scissorforce
, in Norway was made on April 18 but they were not ready until the end of the month. Before they were deployed, the command relationships were further muddled on April 27. Admiral Cork was given command of all forces from Bodø north while General Massy, still operating from London, commanded all forces south of Bodø. It was bad enough to have these forces commanded from far-away London, but the decision failed to recognize that the operation in Nordland was very much a part of the Narvik Campaign and, as such, should have fallen within the same command structure. Cork’s concerns and confusion are made clear in a message he sent to the Admiralty on May 4.
Request I may be informed of the general policy regarding Bodø, Mo and Mosjöen. It seems most important to hold in force the Mo road leading north. From Admiralty messages it appears the forces being sent are hardly adequate for this purpose and with such weak detachments in the air another naval commitment comes into being. These areas do not, I presume, come under Narvik. Are there any Allied forces to the south of me?
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This shortcoming in the command structure was rectified on May 7 when the Independent Cos were placed under Admiral Cork.
The Independent Cos were the forerunners of the famous Commandos of later years. However, in April 1940, they fell far short in quality and training of those highly professional and well-trained units. These companies were large, numbering 20 officers and 270 enlisted. The officers came for the most part from the territorial forces, but included a sprinkling of regulars and members of the Indian Army. The enlisted were all volunteers from the territorial forces. The units, which included some engineers, communicators, and medical personnel, had not worked and trained together for any length of time, even less than the normal territorial forces. Furthermore, while they had some winter gear, such as snowshoes, winter boots, and sheepskin coats, they had no transport to carry provisions and ammunition and no training in winter and arctic warfare.
The British decision to revert to small-scale units rested on conclusions that proved erroneous. The units were organized and equipped to operate with and in support of an organized local guerrilla resistance movement. The sparsely populated Nordland Province could not support a large and effective guerrilla movement and the Norwegians were unprepared for this type of warfare in 1940. If the British were not aware of these facts, they would have learned them if they had consulted Norwegian authorities. Secondly, these companies were actually light infantry units and it should have been rather obvious that they could not succeed against well-trained and battle-hardened German troops with artillery and air support. Finally, these units were designed to work against the enemy’s flanks with hit-and-run type operations. However, they lacked the mobility for such operations in the snow-covered terrain of Nordland Province.
The Independent Cos (named
Scissorforce
) were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel (brevet Colonel) Colin McVean Gubbins with a brigade-size staff. An entry in Ironside’s diaries on May 9 shows that he had a high opinion of Gubbins: “Gubbins has arrived at Mosjoën, thank goodness. Only just in time perhaps. Always confusion and delay in these improvised operations. Unavoidable, I suppose. It now depends upon the guts that Gubbins has. He ought to be good.”
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The
Scissorforce
headquarters was established at Hopen, about 18 kilometers east of Bodø and some 330 kilometers by road from Mosjøen. The 1st Independent Co landed at Mo, about 90 kilometers north of Mosjøen, on May 4. Independent Co 2, landed at Bodø on May 9, some 240 kilometers by road north of Mo. Independent Co 3 joined this unit on May 13. Independent Cos 4 and 5 landed at Mosjøen on May 8 and the Chasseurs Alpins located there since April 30 were withdrawn to Scotland.
The piecemeal deployment of
Scissorforce
along a 300-kilometer stretch of coastline in Nordland Province revealed their strategy not only to the Germans but also to the Norwegians. It was obvious that the British intended only to slow the German advance, not to halt it. This realization dismayed not only General Mackesy and the Norwegian High Command but was obvious to the troops in the 14th Inf, fighting and withdrawing through their home areas. The realization that the Allies did not intend to stop the Germans and eventually go on the offensive did much to weaken the already shaken morale of these troops.
Loss of Mosjøen
The British expected the nearest Germans to be at least 160 kilometers from Mosjøen when they landed. One can imagine Colonel Gubbins’ surprise and dismay when he learned that the Norwegians had been fighting the Germans since May 7 only 40 kilometers from Mosjøen. Lieutenant Colonel Sorko and his men had lived up to von Falkenhorst’s demands and covered 160 kilometers in two days, through terrain that Generals Carton de Wiart and Audet had declared impassable for their own mountain troops.