CLOSING IN ON GERMANS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 132, 4 May 1940, Page 7

CLOSING IN ON GERMANS

BRITISH FORCES IN NORTH (British Official Wireless. ) t Received May 4, 9.50 a.m. RUGBY, May 3. There is no fresh news to-day from Narvik, where the British troops.are closing in on the German forces. It is revealed that the Government of Norway is still in being in Norway, although the Berlin radio announced that Rino' Haakon of Norway had escaped to Sweden, lhe Norwegian Commander-in-Chief, who lias been directing the Norwegian troops in the (south, has transferred his headquarters to another region. The fact that the Germans were unable to interfere with the embarkation of the Allied troops is regarded here as indicating- that they must have received a rough handling from the troops, who were marching and fighting for a fortnight, lhe German claims to have captured “inestimable quantities of war materials are obviously very much exaggerated.

NO ABANDONMENT. It is generally known that the supply of artillery and tanks to support the troops was limited owing to the difficulties of landing in the improvised ports. There is no ground for fear that the Allies had to abandon their equipment. . Lack of interference from the air with the withdrawal from Anaalsnes may be due to the bombing of the German air bases by the Royal Air Force, but it is believed the Germans are again using Trondheim aerodrome.

It has now become known that on the day before the Germans occupied Denmark the German Naval Attache at Copenhagen solemnly assured the Danish Foreign Office that there was no truth whatever in the rumours of the projected German invasion. BITTER CONFLICT.

The British United Press representative at Roros (between Trondheim and Oslo) says the Germans from Trondheim have captured Storen and are now advancing towards Roros from both sides, with the Norwegians bitterly fighting delaying actions at Os and' Rognes. The Norwegians are also still iignting at Stenkjaer and Namsos. The Stockholm Aitonbladet says German ’planes attacked Allied troops embarking at Namsos, hitting a British destroyer with a bomb. The Stockholm correspondent of the Associated Press says the acting Norwegian commander in the Trondheim area (Colonel Obgetz) has announced the cessation of hostilities for the purpose of negotiating peace “because the British and French have withdrawn.” (A Daventry report says that any such negotiations are announced without authority: The commander of the Norwegian forces ha 3 made no such It is authoritativelv stated that King Haakon is still in Norwr/ the Norwegian Commander-in-Chief. who has been directing operations in Southern Norway, has transferred his headquarters to another region.