BRITISH LANDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 April 1940, Page 5

BRITISH LANDING

— ' OPERATIONS IN NARVIK : REGION • TROOPS BEGINNING TO DRIVE GERMANS BACK. ENEMY REPORT DENIED. ; By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) •I LONDON, April 18. i The British United Press special correspondent on the SwedishNorwegian frontier says the entire British force assigned to recapture Narvik has landed and made contact with the Norwegians, and has begun to drive back the Germans down the road from Heriang Fiord to Elvegard. Another British force, moving on the south side of Ofoten Fiord, is reported to have gained a foothold in the village of Ankenes, on the west side of Narvik Bay. The main British landing took six hours and was carried out on April 16 at an unnamed fiord 12 miles from Narvik, from which there is a road direct to Narvik. The force, which is well situated for an assault on the Rombaks heights, is fully equipped. Its armament includes light mountain artillery. The accompanying fleet sailed immediately in order to conceal the point of debarkation. The correspondent adds that a German report of a British landing at Harstad is authoritatively denied. Some reports credit the British forces with gaining a commanding situation in the Narvik area, but they must not be regarded as conclusive until they are officially confirmed. The correspondent says superior German forces captured the Rombaks heights, overlooking Rombaks Fiord, after resistance which extended over a week by heroic Norwegians, amid bloodstaned mountain snows. The Stockholm radio this morning announced that the British were advancing across the railway from Narvik to Sweden, along which the Germans are fighting desperately. There is no official news of fighting in Norway Daventry reports. Agency reports say that British and Norwegian troops are gaining the upper hand in the north. It is reported that a landing was completed within six hours 20 miles from Narvik, the ships withdrawing immediately so as not to be spotted from the air. The British are then said to have joined the Norwegian forces in driving the Germans back from positions they had occupied on . the hills. , , r The Germans are now in control ol , most of Oslo Fiord.