Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (72 page)

While it can certainly be argued that a more effective commander could have produced better results, that same is true for other units in General Fleischer’s command. As we have seen, some unusual demands were placed on this militia battalion. The unannounced withdrawal of the Allies from Namsos, the surrender of the 5th Brigade, the train accident, and the sudden British withdrawal from Mosjøen did much to break its morale. The northward withdrawal past the homes of many of its members, the men privately believing that the British could not, or did not intend to, halt the Germans, did not help.

Many of the leaders in the two battalions in Nordland were located outside the province. In many cases, these leaders were unable to join their units because of the nature of the German invasion. The Reserve Battalion, 14th Inf, for example, lacked a battalion commander and three company commanders. Fleischer was aware of this situation but he was unable to rectify it in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, the delaying actions by the 1/14th Inf slowed the German advance and it may have continued to do so except for Colonel Gubbins’ sudden withdrawal from Mosjøen, leaving the Norwegians to make an exhaustive overland withdrawal.

General Fleischer obviously recognized the threat to his southern flank but he did not have many resources at his disposal to meet that threat. It was only through effective Allied action that the German advance could be stopped. Their actions were not only muddled and piecemeal, but lacked in resolve and overall strategy. However, as of May 15 Fleischer had not even bothered to meet with his Allied counterpart. Whatever the shortcomings in Major Sundlo’s leadership abilities, the blame for the failure to stop Feurstein’s forces cannot be placed on a single battalion commander.

When news arrived about the German amphibious operation at Hemnesberg and the British evacuation of Mosjøen, Fleischer concluded that the line of withdrawal for the two battalions of the 14th Inf was cut. He considered it imperative to recapture Hemnesberg in order to save these two battalions. A General Staff officer, Captain Ø. Dahl, was sent south on May 8 to become Nummedal’s chief of staff. Dahl arrived in Mo in the morning of May 10 and discovered that the reserve battalion had already reached that town but was in a state of dissolution. Dahl reported the situation to the 6th Division on May 11. In answer to the division’s desire to establish a defensive line in the Hemnesberg-Korgen area, Dahl answered that an additional 200 German troops had arrived on Hemnesøy by air and that it was not possible to recapture Hemnesberg with the available Norwegian troops. The recapture of Hemnesøy required British ground and naval support.

On the same day, General Ruge sent a sharply worded message to Admiral Cork, the gist of which is reported by General Sandvik:

Another message from Ruge to Cork, also on May 11, announced that his chief of operations, Lieutenant Colonel Roscher-Nielsen, had assumed command in Nordland Province. Ruge wrote “I hope you agree that in the prevailing crisis, there must be one commander there and that you will order the British troops to act in accordance with the orders issued by Colonel Roscher Nielsen.”
²⁸
The British ignored this suggestion.

General Mackesy, who was also very concerned about developments in the south, decided to send the 1st Bn, Scots Guards to Mo. He also sent along a half-battery of 25-pounders, four antiaircraft guns, and engineers. This force, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Trappes-Lomax, landed in Mo early on May 12. Mackesy viewed the defense of Mo as important since it was the terminal of the last road connection to Sweden and the airfield located just north of that town had to be kept out of German hands. Mackesy also prepared to reinforce the Scots Guards in Mo with the 1st Bn of the Irish Guards.

German Supply Problems

The Germans were having difficulties in supplying their forward units. Von Falkenhorst’s order on May 4 had specified that the 2nd Mountain Division would pass through General Woytasch’s 181st Division in the Grong area. The 181st Division would expand its area of responsibility northward behind the rearmost elements of Feurstein’s forces and assume responsibility for the movement of supplies in those areas. The north-south road was in terrible shape after the thaw set in and it was unsuitable for transport of supplies on a large scale before May 20. Until then, most supplies were brought in by air but the weather conditions made even this effort unpredictable. The capture of the British supplies in Mosjøen on May 11 alleviated the precarious supply situation for five to six days.
²⁹

The Germans attempted unsuccessfully to bring supplies to the 2nd Division by sea. Their failure was attributable to Norwegian patrol boats operating from bases on the islands along the coast. This forced the Germans to undertake operations to secure the sea route by occupying a number of larger islands along the coast in order to prevent Norwegian patrol vessels from operating in the fjords and forcing them out to sea.

This mission was given to the 181st Division and carried out systematically during the rest of May and early June, assisted by a task force from the 2nd Mountain Division. Only small groups of Norwegian volunteers opposed them. Nevertheless, the last island was not captured until May 31. The route along the coast on the inland side of the islands was now open and the Germans began using this on a regular basis; but it was still necessary to plan a large-scale German naval operation for early June.

The Fight at Finneid

Captain Dahl met Lieutenant Colonel Trappes-Lomax soon after the 1st Bn, Scots Guards landed early on May 12. He tried to persuade the British commander to attempt to recapture Hemnes while the Germans were suffering from a lack of supplies. Trappes-Lomax replied that he would await the arrival of reinforcements and that night the British battalion went into positions at Dalselv, approximately midway between Mo and Finneid, a position he considered very strong. This left the defense of Finneid, which was the most defensible position south of Mo, to the 1st Independent Co, without artillery support, and Captain Ellinger’s weak company.
³⁰

Roscher-Nielsen and Nummedal arrived in Mo on May 13. Roscher-Nielsen took command of the Norwegian forces in the area while Nummedal retained his responsibilities for mobilization and training. Roscher-Nielsen’s initial thoughts were for the 1/14th Inf to hold or delay the German northward advance from Elsfjord and Korgen. However, Trappes-Lomax informed him in the evening of May 13 that he had given orders for the 1st Independent Co to withdraw, since the road leading north from Finneid was under German mortar fire from Hemnesøy. Roscher-Nielsen prevailed on his counterpart to delay the withdrawal long enough to assist Captain Ellinger in his effort to cover the withdrawal of the 1/14th through Finneid.

Ellinger’s men occupied positions along the road from Sund to Finneid and remained there while the soldiers in the 1/14th withdrew through Finneid to Mo. A company from the reserve battalion of the 14th Inf was the last unit to withdraw from Korgen in the morning of May 14. Ellinger’s men withdrew from Hemnesøy and British engineers destroyed the road behind them.

The 6th Division was still somewhat in the dark about the situation in Nordland. Roscher-Nielsen sent a message to the division at midnight on May 13, reporting the steps taken, including the withdrawal from Korgen. He also reported that another British battalion was expected on May 14 and that naval gunfire support was required. A message from the division on May 14 requested detailed information about force deployment, to include the exact location of each company in preparation for a meeting with the new British commander, General Auchinleck. Fleischer also wanted to know if the withdrawal from Korgen was due to enemy pressure.

In a message at 2300 hours on May 14, Roscher-Nielsen tried to explain the difficult and serious situation in the Mo area to General Fleischer:

Both Major May and Captain Ellinger expected to be attacked by the Germans on Hemnesøy as well as by the Germans approaching from the south. It was obvious that they did not have sufficient forces to meet attacks from two directions. The German attack across the isthmus from Hemnesøy began at 1700 hours on May 14. The attack was well supported by mortar and artillery fire and the Germans quickly drove back the British outposts and established themselves on the isthmus. Two British warships appeared in the fjord and bombarded the village of Hemnesberg but the bombardment did nothing to help the units fighting at Finneid.

The fighting in some sectors was intense. The units facing south were switched to face west because no attack from the south materialized. However, The Germans had now driven the British and Norwegian troops from the isthmus and crossed to the mainland. May informed Ellinger at 2100 hours that he was withdrawing his forces and suggested that Ellinger do likewise. Ellinger’s machineguns were still effective and they continued to contest the German advance until 2300 hours when both direct and indirect fire became so intense that Ellinger disengaged and withdrew towards Mo.

Tamelander and Zetterling, referencing Captain Holzinger’s after-action report, state that the Germans only had two wounded and that they captured seven of their opponents. However, Ellinger, quoting from Lieutenant General Paul Klatt’s book
Die 3. Gebirgs-Division 1939-1945
, writes that the number of Germans killed in the engagement is not reported but 46 wounded were evacuated by air. Similarly, Ruef writes, “The price [for capturing Finneid] was a row of fallen, almost 50 wounded and two exhausted task forces.”
³²
The fact that two of the ten Knight Crosses to the Iron Cross awarded to the 3rd Mountain Division in the Norwegian operation were awarded for actions at Hemnes and Finneid attest to the intensity of the fight.

British-Norwegian Conference on May 16

Generals Ruge and Fleischer requested a conference with General Auchinleck to discuss the situation on the southern front. This conference took place in Harstad on May 16. It was Fleischer’s first meeting with a British general. Ruge gave Auchinleck a memorandum setting forth his own estimate of the situation. The memorandum stressed the importance of holding the Mosjøen area as a base for future offensive operations and it recommended the Allies land troops in this area as soon as possible and that these forces be augmented as quickly as the situation in the Mo area permitted. The German air threat was also a major part of Ruge’s concern. German aircraft operating from Værnes Airfield near Trondheim could spend less than one hour over their targets in Narvik area. The time-over-target factor would increase significantly if the Germans were able to make fields further north operational. They would be able to quickly gain air superiority and make both land and sea operations very difficult. It was therefore of great importance to halt the German advance as far south as possible.

Hovland criticizes Ruge for devoting a large part of his memorandum to future plans and operations at the expense of immediate concerns. Although events on the Continent would soon present the Allies with a situation where any thoughts of future offensive operations in Norway were unrealistic, developments had not reached that stage at the time of the conference. It was realistic to expect the British to strike effectively at the Germans behind their forward units and thus disrupt their advance. So far, only the Germans had taken such action, in Trondheimfjord and at Hemnesberg.

Both Ruge and Fleischer stressed the absolute necessity of holding Mo, with its airfield. Fleischer was already sending whatever units he could spare to shore up the southern front. The newly mobilized 1/15th Inf, which had provided security at Bardufoss Airfield, would be sent south as soon as a French battalion relieved it. Auchinleck stated that he would do all in his power to stop the Germans and he intended to send reinforcements to Mo.

Other questions that were discussed at the conference led to some agreements. The Norwegians were promised that Colonel Finne, the Norwegian liaison officer at the Allied headquarters, would get copies of all orders to the British commander in the Bodø area. This promise was soon violated. To Ruge’s suggestion that some French battalions from Narvik be sent to Mo and Bodø, Auchinleck answered that this was under consideration. For his part, Auchinleck requested improved administrative support from local authorities and better control of the civilian population within the operational areas.

General Fleischer stated that his troops were running low on ammunition and stressed the need for new weapons using the same ammunition as Allied forces. Fleischer was told that a supply of weapons and ammunition for his troops had arrived from Great Britain. These weapons were never issued to the Norwegians since they were used to reequip the Irish Guards and South Wales Borderers after their losses in their abortive efforts to reach Bodø on May 14 and 17.