GERMANS AT NARVIK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 138, 11 May 1940, Page 8

GERMANS AT NARVIK

TROOPSSTREAM NORTH. NORWEGIANS ACTIVE. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, May 9. German sources are hinting a withdrawal trom Narvik and the consolida-. tion of the defence line to Mosjon, about 180 miles to the south, pointing out that Narvik is '■ not important strategically and the Germans could blow up the railway to Sweden and the docks, necessitating years for repairs. Nevertheless, air transports . continue to stream north, landing forces by parachute north and ' north-east of Narvik for the purpose of taking the Norwegian forces from the rear. A Norwegian patrol wiped out a German party placing dynamite in a tunnel on the railway to Sweden. German bombers continue to strafe the Norwegian and Allied lines. Small British air units are also operating. It is revealed that British troops saved King Haakon from capture in the Gudbrands Valley., After the Norwegians had exhausted their ammunition, the British arrived in the nick of time and delayed the Germans long enough for King Haakon to embark on a warship. Interviewed in Paris, Professor Koht (Norwegian Foreign Minister) said the Norwegians had lost over four divisions killed, taken prisoner, captured, or interned in Swede'n. The remnants of the Fifth Division are fighting their way northward, and the Sixth Division is fighting around Narvik. King Haakon is oil Norwegian soil, where “he will remain, and where he will fight.” AIR POWER. importance” stressed. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 9. Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar LudlowHewitt, referring in a broadcast to the recent operations in Norway, saill they contained a warning regarding the importance of air power which Britain could not afford to ignore, hut he added: “Though we cannot regard them with any satisfaction, there is certainly no need for pessimism. “The German air force, which is certainly, operated efficiently, has scored another spectacular success, but we need remember that up to the oresent it has triumphed only where it has met with no resistance. It has achieved very little in the air against the French or ourselves; while —and this is important—in air fighting it unquestionably has had much the worst of the exchanges. In this fighting our pilots and crews, whether in bombers or fighters, have definitely proved themselves the better men—and that is really what matters.” GERMAN LOSSES. Figures relating to aerial activity in Norway show that Royal Air Force losses comprised 55 aircraft out of more than a thousand employed in the operations, which included sixty-four attacks on enemy bases—fifty-four in Norway, nine in Denmark, one on Sylt, The German losses were considerably higher, the destruction of 163 aircraft being confirmed, while it is probable that some forty more will never fly again.