NARVIK’S EARLY FALL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 130, 2 May 1940, Page 9

NARVIK’S EARLY FALL.

PREDICTED IN SWEDEN. TROMSO EVACUATED. LONDON, May 1. Swedish sources predict that Narvik will fall to the Allies within a week. Tlio! Allies are not making any such definite promises, but German sympathisers in Sweden are suggesting that the German forces at Narvik have fulfilled their, purpose, which they claimed to be to distract the Allies while the other German positions were consolidated in Southern Norway. The Germans have apparently evacuated Troinso, about 100 miles north of Narvik. The Dagens Nyheter says the Allies have also driven the Germans from Gratagen, midway between Tromso and Narvik, inflicting heavy losses. Allied 'planes • have damaged a large number of German 'planes in Narvik. Refugees reaching Sweden say the German commander at Narvik has slipped away and the remaining Germans are under the command of subalterns. Provisions ha.ve run down to the lowest. /Ihe Stockholm Aftonbladet's correspondent, on the-Swedish frontier declares that the- Allied plan is completed for,,-ian .encirclement of .the German positions at Narvik. The Germans are reported to have withdrawn from the heights near the town and to be now entrenched on the shore. British warships .are. reported to have silenced all the heavier 'German guns. . . The German News Agency claims that the Germans are strongly resisting every British attempt to capture Narvik. Outside the main areas of the conflict, the Germans, according to reports, have reached Gudvangen, on one arm of Sogne Fiord. GERMAN CLAIMS DENIED. German claims to have established contact between the forces from Trondheim and both the Gudbransand Oster Valleys, and to have occupied Doml>as are contradicted by other reports of the situation in Central Norway. These support a British War Office statement that the British forces in the Giidbrans Valley withdrew to a point covering Dombas. A Paris message says that the British have taken up a new position at Brennhaugh, 12 miles southward of Dombas. German claims of possession of the line between Dombas and Storen are again denied. Fighting is proceeding at Opdal and Jerkin. In the Oster Valley, a Swedish report declares, the Germans have withdrawn from Roros.