“SHOCKING STORY”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 May 1940, Page 6

“SHOCKING STORY”

INEPTITUDE IN NORWAY

DENOUNCED BY SIR R.

KEYES

SAYS TRONDHEIM COULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN.

BY SEA & LAND ATTACK

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) LONDON. May 7. In the House of Commons debate on the Norway campaign, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes said: “It was a shocking story of ineptitude and should never have happened. The Naval Staff astoundingly would not realise that an attack on Namsos was doomed if German ships controlled Trondheim Fiord. I importuned Cabinet to let me take all the responsibility, organise and lead an attack. The Gallipoli tragedy -has been followed step by step.”

Sir Roger Keyes added that Trondheim could easily have been captured if a few ships had entered Trondheim Fiord immediately the army was ready to co-operate. “Naval officials told me.” he said, “that there was no difficulty about entering the fiord but that it was unnecessary, as the Army was making progress and the Mediterranean situation had made the risking of ships undesirable. "If our sea power had been used vigorously and courageously,” Sir Roger Keyes continued, "the Germans would have been in the most dangerous position and would eventually have been defeated. Committees cannot win a war. Those responsible must be fully empowered to act without delays or conferences.” Colonel J. C. Wedgwood said one lesson from the Norwegian experience was that the Fleet could save us from starvation, but not from invasion. Apparently the Government was not prepared to combat invasion, which was easier now than in 1914. "We need all the help we can get,” he said. "The sooner we get Russian or American aid the better. I hope we may gel a Government which takes the war seriously. We must use the lightning stroke, the essence of which is doing something illegal and unexpected.”