Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (82 page)

The Germans, however, did not press the attack on the east side of Saltelva. During the night, while the British commander moved almost half of his combat power to the east side of Saltelva, German combat engineers constructed a pontoon bridge about a kilometer south of the main bridge at Posthus. Sorko’s command, now reinforced by units from Schratz’ group, crossed the pontoon bridge in a steady stream. By early morning, the Germans had successfully switched their main attack to the west side of the river at the same time as the British had moved half of their combat power to the east side of the river. They were also trying to secure the log bridge over the river at Posthus. The destruction of this bridge had been only partly successful. Company 4 and the Norwegian detachment were able to keep the Germans from crossing the remnants of the bridge and inflicted a number of casualties on the attackers.

The Germans drove back the British outposts on the west side of the river and began a flanking movement via the high ground to the southwest of Posthus Bridge. Stockwell committed his last reserve, part of Independent Co 2, in a vain attempt to counter the envelopment. The second line of defense was now empty. As happens so often in an engagement, the initiative was with the attacker. The two companies on the east side of the river were mere onlookers to the main event on the other side of the river.

Brigadier Gubbins gave the order to retreat around 1130 hours but the order was not carried out until about 1900 hours. Independent Co 2 withdrew after its unsuccessful attempt to counter the German envelopment and took up a delaying position near the suspension bridge in order to allow the two companies on the east side of the river to cross back to the west side and the road leading to Rognan. Independent Co 3 received the order to cross the river but could not reach the bridge before it was destroyed. Company 2 of the Guards did not receive the order to withdraw until a Norwegian liaison officer arrived and told them. This happened after the bridge had been destroyed. The two companies were left to make their retreat on the roadless east side of the river.

The disengagement of Cos 3 and 4 was helped by the unexpected appearance of a lone British aircraft that strafed the German troops. Three aircraft had flown from Bardufoss and landed at Bodø Airfield to refuel. They took off again as the Germans were bombing the airfield. One crashed, one returned, and the third is the one that made its appearance above the withdrawing Irish Guards. In the history of the Irish Guards, it is claimed that this lone aircraft shot down three Heinkels. Derry and Ash claim that the two Gladiators that remained after the third crashed shot down two German aircraft and damaged two more. German sources do not mention the loss of any fighters or bombers but they do record the loss in this area of two transports on their way to Narvik.

The Norwegian volunteers under Captain Ellinger occupied two delay positions along the route of withdrawal, one at Sundby and one at Meby. These delays provided the Irish Guards with the time they needed to embark on ferries and fishing boats that brought them across the fjord to Langset, from where the road continued to Finneid and Fauske. The German pursuit was slowed because at that time there was no road between Rognan and Langset. Later that year, in London, Colonel Stockwell introduced Captain Ellinger at the Irish Guards Officer Mess as the man who saved their lives in Norway.

Of the two British companies that made their withdrawal on the east side of the river, Independent Co 3 managed to re-cross the river and board the last ferry. Company 2 of the Irish Guards was unable to cross the river and made a 30-kilometer march through very difficult terrain to Langset.

The Irish Guards and the Independent Cos reached Finneid early on May 27. The unit history relates that those unaccounted for at Rognan arrived throughout the day in twos and threes. By evening, all were accounted for except 20 members of the battalion staff. One eventually reached Fauske alone. The British remained in Fauske until the following night when they moved eight kilometers further west.

The advance of the 2nd Mountain Division through Nordland Province won the forthright admiration of their enemies. Churchill writes:

The Evacuation of Bodø

As the British and Norwegians were fighting at Posthus, the Germans made their breakthrough to the Channel Coast in France and the desperate British evacuation from Dunkirk was about to start. Churchill decided that all available resources had to be concentrated on the defense of Great Britain. Part of this decision involved the evacuation of Bodø, which was ordered on May 25, the first day of the fighting at Posthus. The British were still reinforcing Bodø that day with the arrival of the last company of the South Wales Borderers. It is rather ironic that the destroyer bringing this company to Bodø also brought Colonel Dowler from Harstad carrying the evacuation order for all British forces.

The original plan was to bring the German northward advance to a halt at Finneid. As pointed out by Ash, this was the best defensive position during the whole campaign with water in front and on the flanks, anchored against high mountains in the east, stretching to the Swedish border, about 30 kilometers away. The Norwegians considered it imperative to halt the German drive in this location in order to provide General Fleischer time to eliminate the Germans in the Narvik area and thereafter switch his forces against General Feurstein. For that reason, Lieutenant Colonel Roscher-Nielsen had concentrated the remnants of the withdrawing Norwegian forces and the newly arrived battalion from Bardufoss in this area.

The Norwegians were therefore dismayed to see the British forces withdraw westward to positions that were less suitable for defense and did not cover the route to Narvik. To the Norwegians, who were again not informed about the evacuation, the westward movement of the British forces was, in the words of Sandvik, “incomprehensible and ominous.” General Fleischer was notified by a telegram, copied to General Ruge, late in the evening of May 28. Gubbins made no mention to Roscher-Nielsen about the British evacuation decision, taken three days earlier. The same applies to a conference Major Lindbäck-Larsen had with Colonel Dowler at Harstad after the latter’s return from Bodø on May 26.

Lindbäck-Larsen reported his conversation with Dowler to Roscher-Nielsen on May 28, and to Fleischer, and Ruge the following day. Dowler had promised that British fighters would operate from Bodø, a lengthy deployment of British aircraft carriers to the Bodø area, eight Bofors guns for the Norwegians to use at Finneid, additional reinforcements, and that the Finneid line would be held.

The Norwegians redeployed their forces when the British moved their defense line to the Fauske area. A Norwegian force was sent towards Langset to delay the German advance. One company that had been sent to Sulitjelma earlier, to block the eastern and more mountainous route into the Finneid area, was ordered back to Fauske in order not to be isolated by the German advance, now that Finneid was not to be defended. The commander was told that Norwegian forces would attempt to hold the road through Finneid open until the following day (May 29).

The German advance was more rapid than anticipated and the Norwegians were forced back across the bridge at Finneid in the evening of May 28, after which the bridge was destroyed. The forces at Sulitjelma were isolated and Roscher-Nielsen ordered them to withdraw over the mountains and the glacier of Blåmannsisen to Røsvik.

Defensive positions south of Djupvik were prepared and occupied by two infantry companies from the 1/15th Inf, an artillery battery, two mortar platoons, and an engineer platoon. Brigadier Gubbins had promised Roscher-Nielsen that he would send his chief of staff to the latter’s headquarters to arrange details of future cooperation. The chief of staff never appeared.

The Luftwaffe attacked Bodø in strength on May 27, in a continuation of a series of bombing raids that began on May 20. The Germans began by dropping heavy explosive bombs and thereafter a large number of incendiary bombs. The attack lasted for two hours. The two remaining Gladiators were quickly put out of operation and the Germans reduced the town to rubble. Fortunately, most of the civilian population had evacuated when German air raids began a week earlier, and as a result, only 15 civilians were killed. Nothing was spared, including the hospital where a large number of wounded Scots Guards were located.

Roscher-Nielsen had a telephone conversation with Brigadier Gubbins after the German raid and when asked about the situation, Gubbins gave an ambiguous answer. Roscher-Nielsen came away from the conversation with the understanding that the British were still holding their positions in Fauske but he noted that Gubbins also made it clear that the Norwegians should remove their own units as quickly as possible.

Colonel Finne, the Norwegian liaison officer at the British headquarters in Harstad, was finally told on May 29 that the British were about to evacuate Bodø. General Ruge sent an immediate message to Colonel Finne directing him to appeal the evacuation decision, since a German occupation of Bodø meant that German fighters would soon dominate the skies over Narvik. He also pointed out that the surrender of the Bodø area to the enemy would have a detrimental impact on Norwegian morale after the operations there had resulted in the destruction of the city.

Roscher-Nielsen asked Fleischer to prevail on the British to delay their evacuation by three days to allow him to withdraw his troops safely. Fleischer did this through General Ruge’s headquarters on May 29. Derry and Hovland write that the request to delay the evacuation from Bodø for three days was accepted. This is misleading. The final evacuation took place in the evening of May 31, two days after the request. Furthermore, the withdrawal from Fauske was completed before May 30, when Roscher-Nielsen reported that he was alone on the isthmus.

The Irish Guards and the two independent companies had actually departed the isthmus in the morning of May 29. To the Norwegians, it was not important when the British evacuated the town of Bodø but when they evacuated the Fauske area. This would leave the Norwegians in the untenable position of facing the Germans alone. Ash agrees, writing that Gubbins withdrew his forces during the promised three-day delay and that the Norwegians were cut off long before the time was up.

The Norwegian Navy assembled over 100 fishing vessels and these were sent to Røsvik to evacuate the Norwegian troops. Roscher-Nielsen decided to hold the Djupvik positions with units from 1/15th Inf while the Reserve Battalion, 14th Inf was sent to Røsvik for evacuation. This battalion was successfully evacuated to the Lofoten Islands on May 30. Only one platoon from the company at Sulitjelma reached Røsvik. The rest of the company found its route of withdrawal to Røsvik blocked by German detachments and it was demobilized.

General Feurstein had to make a quick decision as his lead elements approached Fauske. He was presented with the same dilemma as had faced Admiral Lütjens, almost two months earlier. It was tempting to let battle groups Sorko and Schrantz aggressively pursue the retiring British troops. There is little doubt that large elements of the British brigade-size force would have been destroyed or captured if he had selected that course of action. However, Feurstein did not lose sight of the main objective, the relief of General Dietl’s forces in Narvik.

Feurstein split his forces when he reached Fauske. The forces approaching that location consisted of two and one-half mountain infantry battalions, two companies of bicycle troops, and one mountain artillery battery. Lieutenant Colonel Nake commanded these forces. Feurstein allowed one part of this force, under Nake, to follow the British while the remainder, under Sorko, continued its trek northward to Røsvik. The forces sent westward did not press their pursuit and there were no significant engagements between them and the retreating Guards. Between May 28 and 31, the British successfully evacuated their forces in two destroyers and the old cruiser
Vindictive
, under the cover of aircraft operating from Bardufoss. They faced little German interference. Two of the independent companies were taken directly to Great Britain aboard
Vindictive
, while the other forces were brought to Harstad. The British destroyed most of their heavy weapons, vehicles, and the oil storage facilities in the harbor.

British operations in Nordland Province, which had begun with considerable optimism three weeks earlier, ended as the last destroyer pulled away from Bodø. British losses in the Nordland Campaign, according to Derry, amounted to 506 killed, wounded, and captured. This included a small number from the South Wales Borderer’s on Ankenes Peninsula at Narvik.

The 1/15th Inf, under Major Omdal, fought an effective delaying action from their position at Djupvik. The first German attack was repelled. The position held until the early afternoon of May 31 when a withdrawal was ordered, covered by the machinegun company. The last engagement took place three kilometers south of Røsvik. The evacuation was carried out during a period of fog that prevented German air operations. Horses and vehicles were left behind but the floating depot was towed away. The rear guard managed to hold the Germans at a distance until the last unit had embarked at 1800 hours on May 31.

Operation
Büffel
(
Buffalo
)

With the British and Norwegian forces out of his way, Feurstein could begin what was perhaps the most difficult part of his effort to relieve Narvik. His forces had covered about 700 kilometers under difficult conditions in 27 days. These forces were still over 150 kilometers from Narvik and ahead of them lay a roadless mountain wilderness that the OKW had declared impassable even by mountain troops. There were several efforts underway to bring assistance to Narvik but the connection through the mountains was viewed by some as the only effective way.