TOWARDS NARVIK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 135, 8 May 1940, Page 8

TOWARDS NARVIK

ALLIED REINFORCEMENTS. RUTHLESS AIR RAIDS. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, May 6. Among hazardous mountain tracks northward of Mo (midway between Namsos and Narvik), Hitler’s Alpine troops are pushing towards Bodo. Informed circles in Germany have hinted that the objectives are not only Bodo and the relief of Narvik, but the establishment of air bases from which bombers could operate and air transports refuel en route to the north in attempts to occupy Hammerfest and Kirkenes. The occupation of Kirkenes would give the Germans a new line of communication with Russia, because of the Russians’ right to transit to Norway under the Russian-Finnish Treaty. The battle of Narvik continues with ruthless German air raids. The Germans are reported to be strengthening their entrenchments. Norwegian and Allied strength of men and material here is reported to have increased ten to twenty-fold since the withdrawal from Namsos.

The Norwegians east from Sioren (in the Oster Valley) are fighting desperately, but their retreat and dispersal are regarded a sa matter of days. . . The British Air Ministry, denying that two Blenheims were shot down at Terschelling (one of the Frisian Islands off the Dutch coast), said that two Sunderlands were damaged by gunfire off the Norwegian coast. A German 4000-ton steamer and a Swedish trawler have been sunk in the Kattegat by mines. The German radio announces that Hitler has assumed control of Norway’s foreign policy and members of Professor Koht’s staff quartered in the Royal castle at Oslo are presumably virtually under arrest. The German News Agency announces that Hitler and King Gustav of Sweden exchanged letters late in April confirming an agreement on future policy in conformity with recent Swe-dish-German declarations.