ALLIES LEAVE NAMSOS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 188, 6 May 1940, Page 9

ALLIES LEAVE NAMSOS

Withdrawal Without Loss

SAID TO BE GOING TO NARVIK

Norwegian Troops Remain

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, May 3.

The War Office announced that the Allied troops at Namsos reembarked last night without suffering loss. The Stockholm correspondents of the British United Press and the. Associated Press of Great Britain say that the British and French troops were completely withdrawn from the Namsos district. Norwegian troops remained to face the oncoming Germans. The only Allied forces now remaining in Norway are those stationed in the Narvik region. It is reported from Paris that the Allied troops from central Norway are going to Narvik.

A correspondent of the British United Press at Roros says that a German force from Trondheim captured Storen and is now advancing toward Roros from both sides, with the Norwegians bitterly fighting, delaying actions at Os and Rogues. The Norwegians are also still fighting at Stenkjaar and at Namsos. The Stockholm newspaper “Aftonbladet” says that German planes attacked the Allied troops embarking at Namsos, hitting a British destroyer with a bomb. The Copenhagen radio announced that Norwegian troops in the Trondelag area (Trondheim) have already laid down their arms and that only small leaderless patrols are resisting. German Claim. The Berlin High Command reports: “The last of the British have evacuated the Andalsnes district, and the town itself is in German hands. Naval forces sank two more enemy submarines in the Skagerrak.” The British communique announcing the withdrawal from Namsos added: “Allied troops advancing in the Narvik area -were counter-attacked on May 1 and 2by the enemy. Both attacks were repulsed. Many dead were left in front of our positions, and some prisoners were taken by the Allied troops.” The German High Command announces increased Allied pressure at Narvik and says that the Allies arc slowly approaching the German positions under cover of fire from warships, but that attacks against the German outposts were repulsed. The Norwegian Legation in Stockholm stated today that King Haakon and his family and the Norwegian Government are still in Norway, and have no intention of leaving the country.-

Reports that peace negotiations are going on between Norway and Germany are denied. Norway, it is stated, will fight on. Norwegian Commander.

The Norwegian Oommander-in-Chief, who has been directing the Norwegian troops in the south, has transferred his headquarters to another region.

That the Germans were unable to interfere with the embarkation of the Allied troops is regarded •in London as indicating that they must have received rough handling from the troops, who had been marching and fighting for a fortnight. German claims to have captured “inestimable quantities of war materials are obviously very much exaggerated. It is generally known that the supply of artillery and tanks to support the troops was limited owing to the difficulties of landing in improvised ports. There is no ground for the fear that the Allies had to abandon equipment. The lack of interference from the air with the withdrawal from Andalsnes may be due to the bombing of the German air bases by the R.A.F., but it is believed that the Germans are again using the Trondheim aerodrome.

The Germans’ hold over their conquests will be an uneasy one, and one on which they -will still have to exhaust energies that might be more useful elsewhere. It is not easy to see them consolidating important air or submarine bases in Norway in the circumstances, and except as an air and submarine base southern Norway is more a liability than an asset.