Hitler’s Pre-Emptive War: The Battle for Norway, 1940 (18 page)

Instead, only minor precautionary measures were taken. At 1820 hours, Admiral Diesen ordered the 1st Naval District to call up additional personnel for the forts. A request for two infantry companies to protect the Bergen and Trondheim forts was passed to the army at 2215 hours but it could not be acted on in time. On recommendations from the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Naval Districts, Diesen ordered the lighthouses from the Swedish border to the entrance of Bergen extinguished. A statement over the national broadcasting system announced this action at 2218 hours. The lighthouses in the 3rd Naval District (and the rest of the 2nd Naval District) were not included in this order, even though the British had reported that German naval forces could be expected in Narvik before midnight.

The acting commander of the 3rd Naval District pointed out to Admiral Diesen at 2345 hours that there were 14 German merchant ships in Narvik harbor and asked for instructions in case of a British attack on these ships. Admiral Diesen answered 10 minutes later that a British attack on German shipping in Narvik was to be met with force. Similar messages were not sent to the 1st and 2nd Naval Districts but the fact that such messages were even considered necessary tells much about the irresolute nature of the Norwegian Government and its military officials.

Diesen did not order his forces to the highest state of alert. The 1st Naval District gave a second-stage alert warning to its forces after it was told by Diesen not to activate the highest state of alert “because it would just scare people.” Some lower echelons misinterpreted the 1st Naval District order and proceeded to the highest state of alert. The 2nd Naval District had already ordered its ships to their assigned war stations after the British mining.
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Crisis Provoked by the British Mining of Norwegian Waters

Some of the lethargy of the Norwegian authorities can be explained by the fact that they were already trying to manage another crisis, Allied mining of Norwegian waters. The rapidly unfolding events of April 8 were propelling the country precipitously into a war it wanted to avoid at all costs. These events were so confusing that even those who had concluded that the country would find itself at war within a very short time did not know before midnight on April 8 whether they would be fighting the British or the Germans.

Information about British mining operations in Norwegian territorial waters reached Norwegian authorities at 0420 hours on April 8. Norwegian naval vessels intercepted the British destroyers in territorial waters off the coast near Molde. No armed clashes took place, despite the Norwegian Foreign Minister’s earlier warning to the British that future violations would be met with force. The British action was different from earlier violations of the country’s neutrality: it was an act of war. Norwegian officers protested the mining and the British destroyers left Norwegian waters before noon after Norwegian assurances that they would assume responsibility for warning merchant traffic. The Norwegians received sketches of the simulated minefield.

At 0600 hours, the British and French Naval Attachés delivered notes to the duty officer at the Norwegian Naval Staff that Norwegian territorial waters had been mined in three places. Only one minefield was actually laid but the Norwegians did not know this until later.

The British and French diplomatic representatives in Oslo also delivered simultaneous notes to the Norwegian Foreign Office about the mining operations. Koht called the Prime Minister at 0630 hours and requested an emergency meeting of the cabinet. Prime Minister Nygaardsvold decided to consider the problem first at a Foreign Relations Committee session despite Koht’s protest that this would lead to delay.

Admiral Diesen and Defense Minister Birger Ljungberg met between 0900 and 1000 hours. Diesen recommended that the minefield in Oslofjord be laid as quickly as possible. This act required defense department approval. Commodore Corneliussen, the Admiralty Chief of Staff, was also present. He noted that the Hague Convention required that the mining by neutrals of their territorial waters had to be announced well beforehand and that it would present risks to merchant traffic since there was an insufficient number of patrol vessels available. Why this had not been recognized as a problem earlier is not explained. While two of the nine patrol boats assigned to the 1st Naval District were undergoing repairs, the district had eight torpedo boats and some of these could have filled the void temporarily. Ljungberg did not make a decision but said he would bring the matter to the attention of the cabinet. Diesen raised the issue again later in the day but he was never given authority to mine the approaches to Oslo.

A joint meeting of the cabinet and the foreign relations committee of the parliament began at 1000 hours, breaking up at 1130. This was about the time that the Norwegians began receiving reports of German naval units on a northerly course through the Great Belt and Kattegat. However, it appears that these events were not discussed. The focus was on what to do about the British mining operations. A decision was made to lodge strong protests against the Allied action and to clear the minefields. Diesen was ordered to prepare to sweep the mines. It was obvious to those present at this meeting that such action could draw Norway into the war, since clearing the minefields would probably lead to clashes with British forces; but if the steps announced were not taken the Germans would have good grounds to take strong measures. The underlying tone at this and subsequent meetings of the Norwegian Government on April 8 was that whatever happened, war with Great Britain was to be avoided. The instructions for clearing the minefields cautioned that force should not be used against overwhelming odds and that the navy should not engage in armed conflict with British destroyers near the minefields except in self-defense.

The Norwegian protest to the British and French governments was approved at a cabinet meeting that began immediately after the joint meeting of the cabinet and foreign relations committee broke up. The protests were sent to all Norwegian overseas embassies and released to the press at 1255 hours. The Parliament met in open session from 1715 to 1735 hours to hear a report by Foreign Minister Koht. He stated that the Allies were apparently trying to expand the war to Norway and reported on the protests that had been made. The parliament expressed unanimous support for the actions.

A closed meeting of the parliament started at 1800 hours and lasted until 1915. The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, the Commanding General of the Army, and their respective chiefs of staff were present. There was a discussion about what do if the neutrality policy failed and Norway was forced to enter the war. This meeting also reached consensus that the Norwegian Government should seek to avoid being drawn into a war against the British. The results of the various meetings appear to give some authority to the conclusions reached by the various political and military leaders in Germany that the Norwegian Government was not willing to enforce its neutrality and that it would probably not offer any meaningful resistance to Allied attempts to occupy strategic points on the Norwegian coast. However, it should be borne in mind that occupation was a very different matter to the mining of waters, and it is possible that the Norwegian Government’s reaction to such an invasion would have been more forceful.

Warnings Received by the British

Operations
Wilfred
(the Allied mining of territorial waters) and
R4
(the occupation of designated cities) were originally scheduled to begin April 5 but were postponed to April 8.

Part of the mining operation was carried out, so what of Allied plans to occupy portions of Norway? To answer this question we must go back and look at the intelligence received by the Allies about German movements, and the consequent decisions that were taken.

The British received many reports about concentrations of German forces in Baltic and North Sea ports. They also knew that a German intelligence collection ship,
Vidar
, was positioned off the Norwegian coast. The British decided to leave the ship alone in the hope of breaking the German radio code. As in the case of the Norwegians, the British did not properly piece together the various items of information arriving at the Foreign Office and the three services. This failure properly to coordinate, correlate and interpret the various warnings was a major blunder.

On March 26, the British Ambassador in Stockholm reported that the Germans had concentrated air forces and naval shipping in Baltic harbors and that their plans might involve the occupation of Norwegian air bases and ports. This was followed by a report by Admiral Darlan that the Germans had assembled shipping for an expedition against ports in southern Norway and Sweden. The Swedish military attaché in Finland, Curt Kempff, had a discussion with his German colleague on April 2 about the German activities in the Baltic. The German assured him that he had no knowledge about German plans in the Baltic and that all the activity had to do with Norway.
¹⁰
A report of this conversation was forwarded to Stockholm and the Swedes provided the information to the British.

On April 3, the British War Office received a report that there was a large buildup of German troops near Rostock and that 200,000 tons of shipping had assembled in Stettin and Swinemünde with troops on board. Their alleged purpose was the invasion of Scandinavia. The British concluded that the Germans had taken these steps in order “to deliver a counter-stroke against a possible attack by us upon Narvik or other Norwegian ports,”
¹¹
which was precisely the response Churchill was hoping for. Part of the British failure to take these reports as an indication that Germany was preparing to invade Scandinavia can be traced back to the estimate made by the intelligence branch of the British War Office in December 1939, which concluded that 25-30 German divisions would be required for an attack on Norway and Sweden. Intelligence reports about the assembly of a few divisions in northern Germany were discounted since such force levels appeared inadequate for an invasion.

The most important and accurate report received by the British was one on April 6 from a neutral observer in Copenhagen. The report stated that a German division had embarked on ten ships and that the troops were to land at Narvik on the night of April 8-9. Even this report failed to energize the British. The Admiralty did not believe its accuracy and did not seriously consider the possibility that the Germans might reach Narvik before them. Consequently, the report was not forwarded immediately to the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Forbes.

The British continued to believe that any German operation would be in reaction to their own operations and did not consider it possible that the Germans might be planning the first strike. This mistaken evaluation based on faulty interpretation of intelligence, underestimation of German capabilities, and an uncompromising belief that the vastly superior Royal Navy ruled out any possibility of a German attack in North Norway had serious consequence for the development of the situation in Norway. This attitude is well illustrated by a notation by Laurence Collier, a high Foreign Office official on a report about German intentions and preparations, “I wish I could believe this story. German intervention in Scandinavia is just what we want.”
¹²

The British Cancel
R4
and Sail to Intercept the German Navy

British aircraft made the first sighting of German forces in the North Sea at 0848 hours on April 7. They reported seeing one cruiser and six destroyers escorted by eight fighters. A partial report reached Admiral Forbes at 1120 hours and the full report 30 minutes later. At about this same time, Forbes was given the intelligence report that the British Admiralty had received the day before from the neutral observer in Copenhagen. However, the message from the Admiralty ended on an unhelpful note, “All these reports are of doubtful value and may well be only a further move in the war of nerves.”
¹³

Admiral Forbes also received a report about three German destroyers near the same position observed by the aircraft in the morning, and on a southerly course. He began to doubt the objective of the German thrust and remained in Scapa Flow while ordering the fleet to be ready to sail on an hour’s notice. He was also awaiting results of a bombing attack against the German naval units.

The attack by 12 Blenheim bombers took place at 1330 hours. The German ships were now 78 nautical miles north of where they were sighted earlier. The attack was unsuccessful but the aircraft reported that the German naval force consisted of one ship of the
Scharnhorst
class, two cruisers, and ten destroyers. Repeated radio reports by the aircraft giving the German strength, course, and speed did not reach Forbes and he did not receive their report until 1730 hours, after the planes had landed.

One is entitled to ask why Admiral Forbes remained in harbor after the first sighting. The explanation that he awaited the results of the bombing is not convincing. He could easily have received that report while at sea. With what appeared to be a sizable German foray into the North Sea (complemented by previous intelligence reports), it would seem prudent for the admiral to have taken his fleet to sea and await developments in a more central North Sea location. Whatever the German intentions, this would have placed him in a much better position to take action and could have changed the outcome of the German operations against ports in northern and central Norway.

The British concluded, from the new position of the German ships, that they were directed against a northerly goal but they could not be certain what that goal was. It could be part of a German attack against Norway, but it could also be an expedition against shipping in the Norwegian Sea or the Atlantic. They did not rule out the possibility that the Germans intended to carry out a bombardment against the southern coast of England. This would seem extremely unlikely since the Germans would not only face vastly superior British naval forces but they would also be exposed to British air power. While they were uncertain about the objective of the German force, the British military leaders, like their Norwegian counterparts, failed to settle on the one potential German course of action most detrimental to their interests.