The Gathering Storm: The Second World War (95 page)

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In order to delay to the utmost the northward advance of the enemy towards Narvik, we were now sending special companies raised in what was afterwards called “Commando” style, under an enterprising officer, Colonel Gubbins, to Mosjoen, one hundred miles farther up the coast. I was most anxious that a small part of the Namsos force should make their way in whatever vehicles were available along the coastal road to Grong. Even a couple of hundred would have sufficed to fight small rear-guard actions. From Grong they would have to find their way on foot to Mosjoen. I hoped by this means to gain the time for Gubbins to establish himself so that a stand could be made against the very small numbers which the enemy could as yet send there. I was repeatedly assured that the road was impassable. General Massy from London sent insistent requests. It was replied that even a small party of French Chasseurs, with their skis, could not traverse this route. “It was [seemed] evident,” wrote General Massy a few days later in his dispatch, “that if the French Chasseurs could not retire along this route, the Germans could not advance along it…. This was an error, as the Germans have since made full use of it and have advanced so rapidly along it that our troops in Mosjoen have not had time to get properly established, and it is more than likely that we shall not be able to hold the place.” This proved true. The destroyer
Janus
took a hundred Chasseurs Alpins and two light A.A. guns round by sea, but they left again before the Germans came.

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We have now pursued the Norwegian campaign to the point where it was overwhelmed by gigantic events. The superiority of the Germans in design, management, and energy were plain. They put into ruthless execution a carefully prepared plan of action. They comprehended perfectly the use of the air arm on a great scale in all its aspects. Moreover, their individual ascendancy was marked, especially in small parties. At Narvik a mixed and improvised German force, barely six thousand strong, held at bay for six weeks some twenty thousand Allied troops, and though driven out of the town lived to see them depart. The Narvik attack, so brilliantly opened by the Navy, was paralysed by the refusal of the military commander to run what was admittedly a desperate risk. The division of our resources between Narvik and Trondheim was injurious to both our plans. The abandonment of the central thrust on Trondheim wears an aspect of vacillation in the British High Command for which, not only the experts, but the political chiefs who yielded too easily to their advice, must bear a burden. At Namsos there was a muddy waddle forward and back. Only in the Andalsnes expedition did we bite. The Germans traversed in seven days the road from Namsos to Mosjoen, which the British and French had declared impassable. At Bodo and Mo, during the retreat of Gubbins’ force to the north, we were each time just too late, and the enemy, although they had to overcome hundreds of miles of rugged, snow-clogged country, drove us back in spite of gallant episodes. We, who had the command of the sea and could pounce anywhere on an undefended coast, were outpaced by the enemy moving by land across very large distances in the face of every obstacle. In this Norwegian encounter, our finest troops, the Scots and Irish Guards, were baffled by the vigour, enterprise, and training of Hitler’s young men.

We tried hard, at the call of duty, to entangle and embed ourselves in Norway. We thought Fortune had been cruelly against us. We can now see that we were well out of it. Meanwhile, we had to comfort ourselves as best we might by a series of successful evacuations. Failure at Trondheiml Stalemate at Narvikl Such in the first week of May were the only results we could show to the British nation, to our Allies, and to the neutral world, friendly or hostile. Considering the prominent part I played in these events and the impossibility of explaining the difficulties by which we had been overcome, or the defects of our staff and governmental organisation and our methods of conducting war, it was a marvel that I survived and maintained my position in public esteem and parliamentary confidence. This was due to the fact that for six or seven years I had predicted with truth the course of events, and had given ceaseless warnings, then unheeded but now remembered.

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“Twilight War” ended with Hitler’s assault on Norway. It broke into the glare of the most fearful military explosion so far known to man. I have described the trance in which for eight months France and Britain had been held while all the world wondered. This phase proved most harmful to the Allies. From the moment when Stalin made terms with Hitler, the Communists in France took their cue from Moscow and denounced the war as “an imperialist and capitalist crime against democracy.” They did what they could to undermine morale in the Army and impede production in the workshops. The morale of France, both of her soldiers and her people, was now in May markedly lower than at the outbreak of war.

Nothing like this happened in Britain, where Soviet-directed Communism, though busy, was weak. Nevertheless, we were still a Party Government, under a Prime Minister from whom the Opposition was bitterly estranged, and without the ardent and positive help of the trade-union movement. The sedate, sincere, but routine character of the Administration did not evoke that intense effort, either in the governing circles or in the munition factories, which was vital. The stroke of catastrophe and the spur of peril were needed to call forth the dormant might of the British nation. The tocsin was about to sound.

Immediate Assault on Narvik Abandoned — The Landings in May — General Auchinleck Appointed to the Chief Military Command — The Capture of the Town, May
28 —
The Battle in France Dominates All — Evacuation — The Homeward Convoys — Apparition of the German Battle Cruisers — The Loss of the “Glorious” and “Ardent” — The Story of the “Acasta” — Air Attack on German Ships at Trondheim — One Solid Result — The German Fleet Ruined.

I
N DEFIANCE OF CHRONOLOGY
, it is well to set forth here the end of the Norwegian episode.

After April 16, Lord Cork was compelled to abandon the idea of an immediate assault. A three hours’ bombardment on April 24, carried out by the battleship
Warspite
and three cruisers, was not effective in dislodging the garrison. I had asked the First Sea Lord to arrange for the replacement of the
Warspite
by the less valuable
Resolution,
which was equally useful for bombarding purposes. Meanwhile, the arrival of French and Polish troops, and still more the thaw, encouraged Lord Cork to press his attack on the town. The new plan was to land at the head of the fiord beyond Narvik and thereafter to attack Narvik across Rombaks Fiord. The 24th Guards Brigade had been drawn off to stem the German advance from Trondheim: but by the beginning of May, three battalions of Chasseurs Alpins, two battalions of the French Foreign Legion, four Polish battalions, and a Norwegian force of about thirty-five hundred men were available. The enemy had for their part been reinforced by portions of the 3d Mountain Division, which had either been brought by air from southern Norway or smuggled in by rail from Sweden.

The first landing, under General Mackesy, took place on the night of May 12/13 at Bjerkvik, with very little loss. General Auchinleck, whom I had sent to command all the troops in Northern Norway, was present and took charge the next day. His instructions were to cut off the iron-ore supplies and to defend a foothold in Norway for the King and his Government. The new British commander naturally asked for very large additions to bring his force up to seventeen battalions, two hundred heavy and light anti-aircraft guns, and four squadrons of airplanes. It was only possible to promise about half these requirements.

But now tremendous events became dominant. On May 24, in the crisis of shattering defeat, it was decided, with almost universal agreement, that we must concentrate all we had in France and at home. The capture of Narvik had, however, to be achieved both to ensure the destruction of the port and to cover our withdrawal. The main attack on Narvik across Rombaks Fiord was begun on May 27 by two battalions of the Foreign Legion and one Norwegian battalion under the able leadership of General Béthouart. It was entirely successful. The landing was effected with practically no loss and the counter-attack beaten off. Narvik was taken on May 28. The Germans, who had so long resisted forces four times their strength, retreated into the mountains, leaving four hundred prisoners in our hands.

We now had to relinquish all that we had won after such painful exertions. The withdrawal was in itself a considerable operation, imposing a heavy burden on the Fleet, already fully extended by the fighting both in Norway and in the Narrow Seas. Dunkirk was upon us, and all available light forces were drawn to the south. The battle fleet must itself be held in readiness to resist invasion. Many of the cruisers and destroyers had already been sent south for anti-invasion duties. The Commander-in-Chief had at his disposal at Scapa the capital ships
Rodney, Valiant, Renown,
and
Repulse.
These had to cover all contingencies.

Good progress in evacuation was made at Narvik, and by June 8 all the troops, French and British, amounting to twenty-four thousand men, together with large quantities of stores and equipment, were embarked and sailed in three convoys without hindrance from the enemy, who indeed now amounted on shore to no more than a few thousand scattered, disorganised, but victorious individuals. During these last days valuable protection was afforded against the German air force, not only by naval aircraft, but by a shore-based squadron of Hurricanes. This squadron had been ordered to keep in action till the end, destroying their aircraft if necessary. However, by their skill and daring these pilots performed the unprecedented feat – their last – of flying their Hurricanes on board the carrier
Glorious,
which sailed with the
Ark Royal
and the main body.

To cover all these operations, Lord Cork had at his disposal, in addition to the carriers, the cruisers
Southampton
and
Coventry
and sixteen destroyers, besides smaller vessels. The cruiser
Devonshire
was meanwhile embarking the King of Norway and his staff from Tromso, and was therefore moving independently. Lord Cork informed the Commander-in-Chief of his convoy arrangements, and asked for protection against possible attack by heavy ships. Admiral Forbes dispatched the
Valiant
on June 6, to meet the first convoy of troopships and escort it north of the Shetlands and then return to meet the second. Despite all other preoccupations he had intended to use his battle cruisers to protect the troopships. On June 5, reports had reached him of two unknown ships apparently making for Iceland, and later of an enemy landing there. He, therefore, felt compelled to send his battle cruisers to investigate these reports, which proved to be false. Thus, on this unlucky day our available forces in the North were widely dispersed. The movement of the Narvik convoys and their protection followed closely the method pursued without mishap during the past six weeks. It had been customary to send transports and warships, including aircraft carriers, over this route, with no more than anti-submarine escort. No activity by German heavy ships had hitherto been detected. Now, having repaired the damage they had suffered in the earlier encounters, they suddenly appeared off the Norwegian coast.

The battle cruisers
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau,
with the cruiser
Hipper
and four destroyers, left Kiel on June 4, with the object of attacking shipping and bases in the Narvik area and thus providing relief for what was left of their landed forces. No hint of our intended withdrawal reached them till June 7. On the news that British convoys were at sea, the German Admiral decided to attack them. Early the following morning, the eighth, he caught a tanker with a trawler escort, an empty troopship
Orama,
and the hospital ship
Atlantis.
He respected the immunity of the
Atlantis.
All the rest were sunk. That afternoon the
Hipper
and the destroyers returned to Trondheim, but the battle cruisers, continuing their search for prey, were rewarded when at 4
P.M
. they sighted the smoke of the aircraft carrier
Glorious,
with her two escorting destroyers, the
Acasta
and
Ardent.
The
Glorious
had been detached early that morning to proceed home independently owing to shortage of fuel, and by now was nearly two hundred miles ahead of the main convoy. This explanation is not convincing. The
Glorious
had enough fuel to steam at the speed of the convoy. All should have kept together.

The action began about 4.30
P.M
. at over twenty-seven thousand yards. At this range the
Glorious,
with her four-inch guns, was helpless. Efforts were made to get her torpedo-bombers into the air, but before this could be done, she was hit in the forward hangar, and a fire began which destroyed the Hurricanes and prevented torpedoes being got up from below for the bombers. In the next half-hour she received staggering blows which deprived her of all chance of escape. By 5.20 she was listing heavily, and the order was given to abandon ship. She sank about twenty minutes later.