NORWEGIAN WAR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 130, 2 May 1940, Page 8

NORWEGIAN WAR

HOW WE SHALL WIN. ‘ 1 :■ U.'.". \ ■ FORECAST OF STRATEGY. CTJT NAZI COMMUNICATIONS The following forecast of the strategy of the Army and Navy in tho Norwegian war front was contributed in the Daily Express by George Malcolm Thomson four days after the German invasion. LONDON, April 14. Dismiss from your mind any idea that direct naval attack will be developed by Britain against the Norwegian seaports now in German hands. Any such offensive operations are out of the question. They, would be pure madness. Most of these Norwegian ports he at the end of fiords ten or fifteen miles long and narrowing in places to a hundred yards or so. They are defended by coast artillery and by underwater torpedo tubes operated from the shore. These defences are now in German hands. And the Germans are strengthening them. How, then, are we going to deal with the German garrisons now established in Norway P They number, I estimate, 40,000 men. Of these, 4000 are in Narvik. They must be reduced by attack from the landward side. For this purpose we shall have to count on the Norwegian Army, with which the British Navy will co-operate where required. For instance, there are 25,000 Norwegian soldiers concentrated near Tromso in the far north. They are the Sixth Division. Crack soldiers. If the Navy can bring them by sea to a point' on the coast where they can strike at the Narvik garrison, we shall be setting about the business or recovering Narvik in the only sensible way. But, until the land batteries are silenced by military attack, anv nava approach to these , German-held porta is impossible. The gun on land h as ways an advantage over - the gun on shipboard. The advantage of a steady platform to fire from. We found that at Gallipoli. The main task of the Navy must be to cut off supplies and reinforcements coming by sea from Germany. Thia operation will require all the resources we can deploy at sea. And, if we accomplish it, we shall have made certain that, sooner or later, the German occupation, of Norway is brought to an end. What is the .nature, of that occupation? The German garrisons are not connected with one another. They are separate detachments, divided by mountains and fiords. EASY TO ISOLATE. Norway is not a continuous territory. It is a series of distinct human settlements. There are a few railways and a few roads. But the sea is the real medium of communication. Ninetenths of the internal traffic of the country is carried by ships. And the Germans musL rely on the sea to maintain communications between one garrison and another. How are they to do that ? They cannot expect to command the coastal waters of Norway because of the British Fleet. And even if they are not disturbed in their coastwise traffic by British warships they cannot navigate the inner waters- along the coast without Norwegian pilots. If the coastal lights are darkened, as is likely, the Germans cannot navigate at night, pilots or no pilots. It will be too. hazardous. It is true that there is a railway between Oslo, which the Germans hold, and Bergen, which is also in their hands. These are the two main centres of population. But the Germans have a poor prospect of keeping that railway line open. Even if the Norwegian troops in the interior do not cut it, the British Navy lias an excellent chance of doing so.

An hour or so out of Bergen the railway runs along the fiord for about 40 miles. It can be brought under the fire of naval vessels, which have two possible entrances to this fiord. Further north, a long fiord, as narrow as a fair-sized river, but as deep as the ocean, curls a forked tail of water southward towards the railway line. From the tip of one fork of the tail a hard afternoon’s march along a rough road would take a landing party to a point on the railway line one hundred miles from Bergen. At this point the railway emerges from a long tunnel blasted through the mountains. To the south of Bergen another deep fiord juts into the country, approaching close to the railway at two points. And this fiord cuts the road leading towards Oslo. Motor cars must travel forty miles across it on a ferry. THE BATTLE FOR, TRONDHEIM. The prospects of isolating the German garrison of Bergen are therefore admirable. Small parties of determined men landed from warships could cut it off from its hinterland altogether. Or -warships could destroy the railway line by gunfire, while remaining free from attack by the German ships in Bergen Harbour. Tile railway from Trondheim to the south can also be cut fifteen miles south of that city by naval detachments making rise* of a fiord. By such means the British Navy can best supplement the Norwegian Army. The main body of that army appears to be retreating north along the 250-mile-long Osterdal, which leads to Trondheim, the historical capital and the heart of . Norwegian nationalism. Trondheim is in German hands. It will be a main purpose of the Norwegian troops to recover it and thus re-establish their communications with thp outside world. When they attempt this, the enterprise will be watched with eager hope by the Swedes. For, now_ that the Germans have shut the Kattegat to Swedish commerce. the railway which leads from Trondheim into Sweden becomes a matter of vital concern to that country. Therefore, the forecast of opera- k tions in Norway takes the following form: (1) No attack by naval forces on German strongholds. (2) Land operations against the German garrisons for the purpose of silencing the defences protecting the harbours. (3) Interfering with and destroying German communications with their outposts by. land and by rail. ,