FALL OF NORWAY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21204, 29 August 1940, Page 11

FALL OF NORWAY

PEOPLE NOT DISLOYAL “NEVER ASKED FOR HELP” NEW YORK, July 14. The story of the debacle of Norway is not one of “fifth column” treachery save as this charge was inspired by Nazi propaganda, according to Mr C. J. Hambro, President of the Norwegian Parliament, the Storting, for 15 years. In his first interview after arrival in the United States from Montreal by air yesterday, Mr Hambro absolved his countrymen of disloyalty in the fateful weeks of April and May that brought the collapse of the Government of King Haakon.

“The truth is that Hitler works the fifth column idea for all it’s worth,” he said. “He wants to establish the impression that there are thousands, even millions, of Nazi sympathisers everywhere. “It should be remembered that we never expected to be attacked. We lacked military equipment, had no fighting planes, no antir-aircraft guns. We had neither asked Allied help nor received any promise of assistance.”

Mr Hambro accompanied the Norwegian King to London on June 9, two months after the start of the German invasion, and left him there to board a Norwegian freighter at Glasgow, Scotland, for Canada. “As far as Norway is concerned,” he declared here, “I can prove that the occupation was not made easy by Norwegian connivance.”