ATTACK AT DAWN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1941, Page 6

ATTACK AT DAWN

MORE ABOUT THE RAID ON NORWAY ROCKY ISLET STORMED. ■SOME FIERCE STREET FIGHTING. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, December 29. Describing the landings in Norway, Reuter’s special correspondent with the commandos says two minor vessels carrying the commandos, and also flatbottomed landing craft or barges, stealthily approached a rugged fiord and took up positions in the darkness on either side of the fiord. As daylight came, the barges were lowered and cast off. This was the'signal for furious broadsides from the warships against a four-gun Nazi coastal battery situated on Maaloy, a small islet off Port Vaagso. The naval guns, with a fire-power of nearly fifty shells a minute, pulverised this lump of rock, setting sheds and. ammunition dumps on fire. Meanwhile the commando barges went to the islet and the men in them, within half an hour, climbed the rocky slopes, stormed the guns, shot many Germans and took some prisoners. 1 Simultaneously with this assault, the main landing occurred south of Vaagso. Heavy fighting took place in the main street of the town. One British officer was killed while trying, with a corporal, to storm a hotel from which a number of Germans were firing. Another officer was sniped in the back. Many Germans were incinerated in homes they had made strong points, and from which they refused to emerge. The three chief captives were the commanding officer of the Nazi garrison, the German naval captain of the port and its chief Quisling, who was chairman of a local canning factory supplying food for the Nazis in Russia. A wireless station used for jamming the 8.8. C. Continental programmes was destroyed. Many of the commandos engaged participated in the Lofoten Islands raid.

NEWS WITHHELD NO DETAILS MADE PUBLIC IN NORWAY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1 p.m.) STOCKHOLM, December 29. No details of the British landings were allowing to leak out in Norway beyond an official communique and admission that some damage was done, some bloody fighting occurred and that several unspecified Norwegian coastal vessels were sunk.