The Namsos Campaign, in Namsos, Norway, and its surrounding area involved heavy fighting between Anglo-French and Norwegian naval and military forces on the one hand, and German military, naval and air forces on the other in April and early May 1940. It was one of the first significant occasions during the Second World War when British and French land forces fought the German Army.
Namsos (help·info) is a municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Namdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Namsos. Some of the villages in the municipality include Bangsund, Klinga, Ramsvika, Skomsvoll, Spillum, and Sævik.
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe whose territory comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula; the remote island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard are also part of the Kingdom of Norway. The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land.
Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party (NSDAP) controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is also known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Nazi regime ended after the Allies defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.
When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Norway followed a policy of neutrality, as it had successfully 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 SovietWinter War invasion of 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 still in a shambles. 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.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
The Royal Norwegian Navy is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for naval operations of the state of Norway. As of 2008, the RNoN consists of approximately 3,700 personnel and 70 vessels, including 5 heavy frigates, 6 submarines, 14 patrol boats, 4 minesweepers, 4 minehunters, 1 mine detection vessel, 4 support vessels and 2 training vessels. The navy also includes the Coast Guard.
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications.
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% 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. But, British information suggested that Oxelösund could ship only one fifth the amount Germany required. Without the Swedish steel shipments through Narvik, the German war industry could not have produced as many tanks, guns, submarines and other weapons.
Kiruna is the northernmost town in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality in Norrbotten County.
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million of which 2.5 million have a foreign background. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre (57/sq mi). The highest concentration is in the southern half of the country.
The Baltic Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, northeast Germany, Poland, Russia and the North and Central European Plain.
The British Admiralty was investigating the possibility of introducing a Royal Navy fleet into the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1940 (Operation Catherine) to interdict German seaborne trade during the summer months in that inland sea. This, however, would have been ineffective if the Narvik route remained open. But events overtook the Baltic scheme.
The Admiralty, originally known as the Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs, was the government department responsible for the command of the Royal Navy first in the Kingdom of England, later in the Kingdom of Great Britain, and from 1801 to 1964, the United Kingdom and former British Empire. Originally exercised by a single person, the Lord High Admiral (1385–1628), the Admiralty was, from the early 18th century onwards, almost invariably put "in commission" and exercised by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, who sat on the Board of Admiralty.
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years War against the Kingdom of France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is known as the Senior Service.
Operation Catherine was a proposed Baltic Sea offensive by the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom to be undertaken in the spring of 1940. It aimed at interdicting German seaborne commerce with the Soviet Union, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. In particular, an objective was to stop the flow of Swedish iron ore to Germany.
The Germans rightly suspected that the British were planning to mine the Norwegian coastal waters used by German ore ships. British plans were well under way, spearheaded by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, but the Germans got to Norway first.
The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the Royal Navy who was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs and responsible for the direction and control of Admiralty Department as well as general administration of the Naval Service of the United Kingdom, that encompassed the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and other services. It was one of the earliest known permanent government posts. Apart from being the political head of the Royal Navy the post holder simultaneously held the title of the President of the Board of Commissioners for Exercising the Office of Lord High Admiral. The office of First Lord of the Admiralty existed from 1628 until it was abolished when the Admiralty, Air Ministry, Ministry of Defence and War Office were all merged to form the new Ministry of Defence in 1964.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a British politician, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament (MP). Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but from 1904 to 1924 was instead a member of the Liberal Party.
Allied counter-attack plans
Narvik, Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen and other major Norwegian towns were seized on the first day of the campaign in a surprise attack. Elements of the Norwegian army were fighting the Germans north of Oslo. Both 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 interdict much of Germany's iron ore supplies. A bonus would be air and naval bases in northern Norway.
Trondheim is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. It has a population of 193,501, and is the third-most populous municipality in Norway, although the fourth largest urban area. Trondheim lies on the south shore of Trondheim Fjord at the mouth of the River Nidelva. The city is dominated by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF), St. Olavs University Hospital and other technology-oriented institutions.
Oslo is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. Founded in the year 1040 as Ánslo, and established as a kaupstad or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada, the city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814 reduced its influence, and with Sweden from 1814 to 1905 it functioned as a co-official capital. After being destroyed by a fire in 1624, during the reign of King Christian IV, a new city was built closer to Akershus Fortress and named Christiania in the king's honour. It was established as a municipality (formannskapsdistrikt) on 1 January 1838. The city's name was spelled Kristiania between 1877 and 1897 by state and municipal authorities. In 1925 the city was renamed Oslo.
Bergen, historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Hordaland on the west coast of Norway. At the end of the first quarter of 2018, the municipality's population was 280,216, and the Bergen metropolitan region has about 420,000 inhabitants. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers 465 square kilometres (180 sq mi) and is on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, 'the city fjord', and the city is surrounded by mountains; Bergen is known as the 'city of seven mountains'. Many of the extra-municipal suburbs are on islands. Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland, and consists of eight boroughs: Arna, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Ytrebygda, Årstad, and Åsane.
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.
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 artillery forts at the entrance, recently captured by the Germans. Then 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 military 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.
But the chiefs of staff of the British armed forces got cold feet. 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 very disappointed, but faced the combined opposition of his naval advisers as well as the heads of the army and air force. He 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. See the Norway Debate for particulars.
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 18 to 30 feet and lengths from 320 to 770 feet. This made it suitable for smaller warships and transports to dock and to land troops and supplies for the recapture of Trondheim. In addition, Namsos was on a branch line connecting to the Nordland Line. A gravel road led some 40 miles south to Trondheim.
Screening force
Captain Frank Pegram of the cruiser HMSGlasgow, accompanied by the cruiser HMSSheffield 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. They soon attracted German aircraft. Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, V.C., designated force commander, flew in the next day and had a foretaste of what was to come when his Short Sunderland flying boat was machine-gunned by German aircraft as it landed. His aide was wounded and had to return to the United Kingdom. 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 100 miles northwards to Lillesjona in Nesna, where they would be offloaded to destroyers for a fast run into Namsos. He himself arrived there on 16 April to supervise the trans-shipment. 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. HMSAfridi, Nubian, Matabele, Mashona and Sikh 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 pm on 16 April.
Ashore and south
British PoWs in Trondheim April 1940.
Carton De Wiart showed considerable vigour in managing the landing and dispersal of troops and supplies in such a way as to get them off the ships and into the hills during the five hours of darkness prevailing in Namsos in late April. On several occasions, German reconnaissance aircraft were unaware 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 in an attempt to reach Beitstadfjorden, at the head of Trondheimsfjord.
De Wiart realised that the quicker he got his forces south, the better were his chances of taking Trondheim from the Germans. The first priority, he felt, was to reach Steinkjer, where the two roads south met, before the Germans got there from Trondheim.
In the meantime, the naval commander, Admiral 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 Empress of Australia, much time was wasted with further trans-shipping, and the Chrobry, accompanied by HMSVanoc got into Namsos just before sunrise on 17 April. In the mad hurry to get away before the German bombers arrived, the soldiers landed without much of their kit. But De Wiart succeeded in getting the troops dispersed before a reconnaissance aircraft arrived.
At this time, Carton De Wiart was not aware that the attack directly into Trondheimsfjord had been called off. Throughout his time at Namsos, he was left completely uninformed of what was happening elsewhere in Norway.
French arrival
Two battalions of French Alpine troops landed on 19 April under heavy 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 put in Namsos, enduring air bombardment against which they had little protection. The French cruiserEmile Bertin was damaged by bombing during the disembarkation (no casualties) and was replaced by the Montcalm. In total, some 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.
By 21 April, British forces had advanced quickly as far south as the hamlet of Verdal, where both 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 lacking in field artillery. Some German troops were diverted to Hegra, where an improvised force of 251 Norwegians was holding out in an old border fort.[2] They began pushing up the fjord, and forward patrols reached Verdal on 16 April.
The Verdal bridge was defended by some 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. But the Germans landed forces at several points behind them in an attempt to outflank them, drawing the attention of the main British forces. 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 by going around them 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.[3] Although 80% of the town was destroyed in the attack, no lives were lost in the bombing.[4]
Air attacks
HMSBittern ablaze in Namsos Fjord after having suffered a direct hit in the stern by an aerial bomb.Allied troops examine an unexploded German bomb at Grong Station in April 1940
German bombers destroyed much of the wood-constructed town of Namsos on 20 April. Attacks lasted throughout the day, and most of the wood houses, as well as the railway terminal, a church, the French headquarters and the two wooden wharves were burned. The stone wharf was damaged. The Norwegians paid dearly for the help the Allies had brought. Only one Allied ship was present in the harbour when the attack occurred. Fourteen German bombers went after the tiny anti-submarine trawlerHMT Rutlandshire and badly damaged it just down the bay from Namsos. The ship was beached, and the survivors machine-gunned in the water. None were killed and only two injured. They were later rescued by the destroyer HMSNubian, sister ship of HMS Afridi.
Air attacks on Namsos continued throughout the campaign.
The British felt the need to provide protection from submarine attack for their ships entering and leaving Namsos. Lacking air cover, the small, slow anti-submarine sloops and trawlers used were very vulnerable to air attack. On 30 April, the sloopHMSBittern was sunk by Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers off Namsos. On 1 May, three British anti-submarine trawlers at the entrance to the Namsfjord, HMS Gaul, HMS St. Goran and HMS Aston Villa were destroyed by aircraft, the latter managing to make it back to Namsos, where she burned. HMT Arab evacuated the crew of St. Goran. From 28 April to 2 May, Arab endured 31 air attacks; her captain, Richard Been Stannard, Royal Naval Reserve, received the Victoria Cross for his actions during those five days.
The Norwegian Army Air Service and Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service had no units in the vicinity. The only Allied air presence to counter the Luftwaffe was during the first British landings. A brief patrol was mounted well offshore by several obsolete biplane fighters, Gloster Gladiators, operating from the aircraft carrier HMSGlorious. They claimed three German planes shot down. Some eighteen Gladiators were flown off the Glorious and briefly operated from the frozen Lake Lesjaskogsvatnet at Lesjaskog, but these were too far south to help Namsos.
Evacuation
British troops gathered for evacuation from Namsos on 2 May 1940
General De Wiart received orders on 28 April to evacuate Namsos, and on 29 April, an evacuation convoy of destroyers, three British and one French, left Scapa Flow in Scotland under the command of Lord Louis Mountbatten. A larger naval force followed at a distance to protect them against attack by German battle cruisers. They were bombed on 1 May as they crossed the North Sea. That evening, they encountered thick fog 40 miles short of their rendezvous point at Kya Lighthouse, which was 40 miles by sea from Namsos. Plans to evacuate that night had to be cancelled. Meanwhile, German troops were closing in on the rearguard in the hills outside Namsos, and the convoy ships were vulnerable to air attack if the fog lifted in daylight.
Rather than wait for the evening, Mountbatten took his ships in on 2 May, moving from fog bank to fog bank. This was a very dangerous enterprise on a rocky coast. Despite the fog, the ships were bombed. The ships' masts were sticking out above the fog, giving the German bombers an approximate target. When they reached Namsos, the fog lifted, revealing a burning town and swarms of German bombers. Since it would have been suicidal to enter in these conditions, the British ships ducked back into the fog and returned down the bay.
The next day, 3 May, the last possible for evacuation, dawned as foggy as before. Admiral John H. D. Cunningham, in overall command of naval forces in the area, screened the evacuation convoy with two cruisers and four destroyers at Kya Light and sent the cruiser, HMSYork, five destroyers and three transports in. Mountbatten led in HMS Kelly at 26 knots as the sun was going down. When they rounded the last bend of the fjord, they saw Namsos on fire. Mountbatten at this point did not know if the Germans were in possession of the town. A burning anti-submarine trawler, HMS Aston Villa, lay just ahead. As he closed the wharves, Mountbatten could see that everything was ablaze. But Carton De Wiart was there with 5,500 troops lined up in good order, waiting to get off.
Evacuation began at 10:30 pm. Two of the transports were able to get alongside the damaged quay and embark troops. The destroyers took off the other men and ferried them to the York and the third transport, before taking a last load themselves. Meanwhile, the rearguard was engaging the Germans to cover the evacuation. A tricky disengagement followed and a rush for the last ship, HMSAfridi. There was no time to destroy supplies left on the wharves, so the Afridi shelled the equipment as she pulled away from Namsos. It was 2:20 am, 4 May.
They knew to expect trouble when day broke and the German bombers sought them out. At 4:30 am the rear of the British convoy was sighted by German reconnaissance aircraft and bombers soon followed. The force was attacked continuously until late afternoon.
During the third attack of the day, the French destroyer Bison was hit in the forward magazine and exploded with 136 killed. The other destroyers turned back to pick up survivors who were being machine-gunned in the water. After the Afridi had picked up some of the French sailors and Allied soldiers, she was hit by two heavy bombs and capsized with the loss of a hundred men, including some of the rearguard and the wounded from the Bison.
British anti-aircraft fire destroyed a number of German aircraft. The convoy reached Scapa Flow on 5 May, Carton De Wiart's 60th birthday.
British and French medical officers and a Norwegian nurse care for British wounded in Namsos hospital, April 1940.
The Battles of Narvik were fought from 9 April to 8 June 1940 as a naval battle in the Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian city of Narvik as part of the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War.
The German operation for the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April 1940 was code-named Weserübung, or "Weser Exercise." Opposing the invasion were the partially mobilized Norwegian military, and an allied expeditionary force composed of British, French, and Free Polish formations. The following list formed the order of battle for this campaign.
HMS Afridi was a Tribal-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She served in the Second World War and was an early casualty, being sunk in an air attack off Norway in May 1940.
The Norwegian Campaign was the attempted Allied liberation of the Scandinavian nation of Norway from Nazi Germany during the early stages of World War II and directly following the German invasion and occupation of the Norwegian mainland and government. It took place from April 9, 1940, until June 10, 1940. The Allied campaign did not succeed, and it resulted in the fleeing of King Haakon VII along with the remainder of the royal family to Great Britain.
Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart was a British Army officer born of Belgian and Irish parents. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries. He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."
The Norwegian Campaign, lasting from 9 April to 10 June 1940, led to the first direct land confrontation between the military forces of the Allies — United Kingdom and France — against Nazi Germany in World War II.
Operation Juno was a German naval offensive late in the Norwegian Campaign. The German ships involved were the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and the destroyers Z20 Karl Galster, Z10 Hans Lody, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck and Z7 Hermann Schoemann.
HMS Punjabi was a Tribal-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that saw service in the Second World War, being sunk in a collision with the battleship King George V. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name "Punjabi" which, in common with the other ships of the Tribal class, was named after various ethnic groups of the world, mainly those of the British Empire.
HMS Havant was an H-class destroyer originally ordered by the Brazilian Navy with the name Javary in the late 1930s, but was bought by the Royal Navy after the beginning of World War II in September 1939. The ship was initially assigned to escort duties in the Western Approaches, but was transferred to the Home Fleet when the Norwegian Campaign began in April 1940. She was only peripherally involved in the campaign as she escorted ships carrying troops that occupied Iceland and the Faeroe Islands as well as convoys to Narvik. Havant was evacuating troops from Dunkirk when she was badly damaged by Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers on 1 June and had to be scuttled.
Rösselsprung was a plan by the German Kriegsmarine to intercept an arctic convoy in mid-1942. It was the German navy's largest operation of its type, and arguably the most successful, resulting as it did in the near destruction of Convoy PQ 17. Ironically, this success was entirely indirect, as no Rösselsprung ship caught sight of the convoy or fired a shot at it. PQ 17's losses were instead due to U-boat and aircraft attacks. Despite not making contact with the convoy a number of the Rösselsprung ships were damaged in the course of the operation, notably the heavy cruiser Lützow, which ran aground in thick fog, necessitating three months of repairs.
Events in the year 1940 in Norway.
HMS Kimberley was a K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She served in the Second World War and survived it, being one of only two of the K-class to do so. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Kimberley, after the town of Kimberley, Northern Cape, site of the Siege of Kimberley in the Second Boer War. She was adopted by the civil community of Eastwood, Kimberley and Selston, Nottinghamshire in 1942 after a successful Warship Week campaign for National Savings.
The French destroyer Bison was a Guépard-class destroyer (contre-torpilleurs) built for the French Navy during the 1920s.
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for "Operation Weser-Exercise", the Weser being a German river.
The German destroyer Z2 Georg Thiele was one of four Type 1934-class destroyers built for the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during the mid-1930s. She was named after Georg Thiele, a Korvettenkapitän who commanded the Seventh Half Flotilla of torpedo boats. Completed in 1937, two years before the start of World War II, the ship spent most of her time training although she did participate in the occupation of Memel in early 1939. At the beginning of World War II, the ship was initially deployed to blockade the Polish coast, but she was quickly transferred to the German Bight to lay minefields in German waters. During the early stages of the Norwegian Campaign, in April 1940, Z2 Georg Thiele fought in both naval Battles of Narvik, on 10 and 13 April 1940, and had to be beached to allow her crew to abandon ship safely after she had been severely damaged by British fire. The ship, having broken up, is now a popular diving site.
Narvik is a town and the administrative centre of Narvik Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The town is located along the Ofotfjorden in the Ofoten region. The town lies on a peninsula located between the Rombaken fjord and the Beisfjorden. The European route E06 highway runs through the Beisfjord Bridge and Hålogaland Bridge crossing the two small fjords surrounding the town.
SS Nordnorge was a Norwegian steamship built in 1923–24 by Trondhjems mekaniske Værksted, for the Narvik-based Norwegian shipping company Ofotens Dampskibsselskap. First employed on the company's Narvik-Trondheim route, she was transferred to the longer Hurtigruten route in late 1936. Seized by the Germans following their April 1940 attack on Norway, she was used as covert troop ship and was sunk shortly after delivering her cargo of German troops behind Allied lines on 10 May 1940.
Trondheim Airport, Jonsvatnet was a water aerodrome located at Valset on the lake of Jonsvatnet in Trondheim, Norway. The airport was built as the first permanent airport serving Trondheim and initially was used for Norwegian Air Lines' (DNL) routes which commenced in 1935. Ahead of the 1936 season the airport was equipped with permanent installations, including wharfs and a small terminal building. In 1937 the airport was used by Widerøe, before DNL returned the following year.
The Actions in Nordland were part of the Norwegian Campaign of World War II. They were a subsidiary part of the Allied attempt to recapture Narvik.
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