SWIFT & SECRET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 September 1941, Page 5

SWIFT & SECRET

THE ALLIED LANDING IN SPITZBERGEN HAZARDOUS VOYAGE MADE IN SAFETY. IMPOSING NAVAL FLOTILLA. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, September 9. A Canadian eyewitness of the landing in Spitzbergen said that the Allied formation, commanded by a Saskatchewan officer, struck swiftly and secretly. The Canadians made the first landing from warships and troopships and garrisoned the settlements. Some of them are. now back in England, bringing with them large numbers of Norwegian miners and their families. Throughout the whole hazardous voyage from Britain there was not a single Nazi raid on the expedition, which comprised a formidable flotilla of warships with Fleet Air Arm planes. Detachments of British and Norwegian troops supported the Canadians, who manned the island’s guns and defence positions. Before leaving Britain the troops were told that they were going on army exercises somewhere in Britain, and only a few senior officers knew more than this. First of all they went to a special coastal training area, where the units were instructed in invasion tactics and beach assaults. The flotilla eventually sailed, but it was not till the troops were inside the ships that they were told whore they were going, and then they cheered lustily. One day out from Spitzbergen the officers were handed their operational orders. It was not known whether Germans were on the island, so plans were prepared for opposed and unopposed landings. The imposing flotilla reached Spitzbergen at 6 a.m., after destroyers and aircraft had reconnoitred ahead. The troops crowded the rails as the ships moved down a long fiord. A lieutenant and some signalmen, armed to the teeth, made the first landing from small boats, with Bren guns in the bows, to take over a wireless station, and the next party ashore took over another wireless station. Norwegians rushed from their shacks to greet them. | FRIENDLY RUSSIANS. After these initial moves the commander and interpreters went ashore for an official landing at a Russian town. A score of stolid Russians, including the town’s officials, surrounded them, and there was no sign of animosity as the troops entered the center of the community, where they were ceremoniously greeted by a Russian commissar. A British officer passed round Russian cigarettes, and negotiations were rapidly carried out under large pictures of Stalin and other Soviet leaders. Within an hour the Russians and Canadians were fraternising. The destroyers, trawlers and Russian lighters and motor-boats plied between the ships and the dock bringing ammunition, explosives and supplies ashore. Tn the meantime a destroyer took a Norwegian detachment and a Canadian landing party to a Norwegian settlement down the fiord, where the Norwegian mayor, representing the Norwegian Government in London, read a proclamation informing the people of the landings. The Norwegians seemed glad to leave Spitzbergen. They held farewell parties and also, on the last night, a dance, when British, Canadian and Norwegian troops danced with Norwegian girls. Next morning hundreds of evacuees boarded a destroyer, which took them to a troopship to sail for Britain. The journeytwas uneventful.