The Norway Campaign in World War Two

Page 4 of 7

• 1. Hitler's gamble
• 2. German troops land
• 3. Attack and counter-attack
• 4. Narvik
• 5. Evacuation
• 6. Britain's strategic failure
• 7. Find out more
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Narvik

These sank two of the German destroyers in Narvik harbour and damaged three others, but were engaged by the remaining five German ships. The British flotilla leader Hardy was sunk (Warburton-Lee was awarded the first Victoria Cross of World War Two) as was HMS Hunter. Whitworth led in a more powerful force in the battleship Warspite three days later. She and the nine accompanying destroyers annihilated the rest of the German flotilla.

Whitworth had this kind of freedom of action because German air power had still not reached so far north. Less happy was Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, who first encountered Fliegerkorps X on the afternoon of 9 May, off southern Norway. Although during this attack only one ship, the destroyer Gurkha, was sunk, Forbes thought that the danger was such that he could not operate his surface forces in these waters. His carrier Furious had no fighters, and the anti-aircraft guns of the fleet provided insufficient protection, contrary to what pre-war thinking had led him to expect.

'The troops had to be evacuated, with two Allied destroyers, one British and one French ...'

The main Allied counter-attack came at Trondheim, with a two-pronged attack from Namsos in the north and Andalsnes in the south. But reinforced by Stuka dive bombers, Fliegerkorps X dominated the region, supporting the better equipped German ground forces in defeating the Allies. The deployment of fighters from the carriers Glorious and Ark Royal, as well as RAF Gladiator fighters from a frozen lake, could do little to help. The troops had to be evacuated, with two Allied destroyers, one British and one French, being sunk off Namsos and a British sloop at Andalsnes.

It was still hoped that northern Norway might be held, to deny the Germans their iron ore. Narvik was occupied by a mixed force of mountain troops, reinforced by the crews of the destroyers that had landed them, and a parachute battalion dropped in from the air. An Allied force of British, French, Norwegian and Polish troops was built up, and land-based air cover was provided by a squadron of Gladiators and one of Hurricanes, flown from carriers.

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Published: 2004-06-07