033 - The Invasion of Norway and Denmark - WW2 - April 13 1940

No, it was really smooth. Not even 50 altogether. April 13th, 1940 At 1.30 a.m. on April 9th, 1940, King Haakon of Norway is awakened by an aide who says, Majesty, we are at war. The King responds with a question. Against whom? I'm Indy Neidell. This is World War Two. Last week, the British sent ships out to mine Norwegian coastal waters. They were also making plan for a raid in the Caucasus to cut Soviet and German oil supplies. The Germans equipped for an invasion of Norway, and indeed, it is that invasion King Haakon's aide is talking about. The German invasion fleet leaves Germany for Norway April 7th. When news of the German ships leaving harbor reaches the British Admiralty, they don't believe it. They receive a Danish intel report that Denmark is to be occupied and a German division to land at Narvik on the 8th and conclude, all these reports are of doubtful value and may well be only a further move in the war of nerves. The Norwegian Admiralty gets word of an armada of German ships passing Denmark, but when they ask the German naval attache in Oslo, he says that he figures they're sailing to protect the German coast. The Norwegian Admiralty and Norwegian government are totally ignorant of the invasion until late evening the 8th. Okay, one person has been expecting it. Colonel Hatledal, Norwegian army chief of staff, has been pushing for mobilization since the 5th, but no dice. The Norwegian army isn't really a powerhouse anyhow, but still. In theory, they have a 6th division army that could have mobilized 56,000 men and then maxed it to 100,000 with territorial units, but it has never been done in practice, and they can't put anywhere near this many men in the field, and they no longer even do field training exercises. Anyhow, they are completely deficient in armor, anti-armor, and modern fighting aircraft, and everything they do have is obsolete. Norwegian Commander General Christian Laake doesn't make it any easier by only ordering a partial mobilization and sending out the mobilization notices by post. For the Germans, the risks of passing through British patrolled waters are well known. Losses of up to 50% of forces engaged are acceptable. A big chunk of the U-Boat fleet are also part of the campaign, but they won't do much since they're using magnetic detonating torpedoes, and it turns out they don't work right at such high latitudes near the pole. There are three divisions of men total for this first wave of the attack. Three more are to come. Only one, the 3rd Mountain Division, is regarded by German high command as a top quality unit. 500 transport planes are sent out, 300 bombers and 100 Fido's are also in the air, but for air support to be effective, they must quickly take the Norwegian and Danish airfields. This is of prime importance. On the 8th, the British destroyer Gloworm meets part of the German fleet off Trondheim Fjord. Gloworm rams the heavy cruiser Hipper, but then bursts into flames and sinks. The Polish submarine Orgel, now with the British, sinks the German transport Rio de Janeiro in the Skagerrak. Many German sailors are rescued by Norwegian fishermen. In spite of this, the Norwegian authorities only alert their coast guard in the evening that something might be up. The British are too far out to sea to intercept any landing force, and they're guarding against a breakout into the Arctic, which is what they think is going to happen. There are troops at Rossai about to head out for the planned Anglo-French-Narvik landing, and they could easily have made it there before the Germans, but they are sent back ashore and the cruiser transport sets sail without them. On the 9th, the German landings begin. Two divisions under General Kaupisch invade Denmark, and Denmark surrenders during the day. The actual campaign on the ground takes less than six hours, with the Danes taking 49 casualties and the Germans 20. As for all of the Norwegian landings, at Oslo things do not go as planned for the Germans. The heavy cruiser Blucher, leading the convoy into Oslo Harbor, is sunk with a thousand men aboard, including most of the headquarters staff. It takes the whole day for Oslo Fjord to be opened for passage. At Fornebu Airfield, the German plans are saved basically by two men. Lieutenant Werner Hansen's eight Bf 110s escort Captain Richard Wagner's infantry battalion, that is to secure the airfield just after paratroopers first go in to seize it, right? The paratroopers air squadron turns back because of the fog, though. Now, Hermann Göring had ordered that if the paratroopers do not seize Fornebu, the rest of the mission is to abort, and General Geissler does in fact order Wagner to abort. He ignores this order. His transport planes arrive in Fornebu, but ground fire prevents them from landing. Well, Hansen manages to land his planes and use them as mobile machine guns to drive off the defenders. At Stavanger they take the airport, but most of the airborne unit supplies are sunk by a Norwegian destroyer. The landings at Bergen and Trondheim go more closely as planned. There's fog, though, at Kristiansand that hides the entrance to the fjord, and this thwarts even torpedo boats trying to bring men ashore. And an island fortress off the coast is dangerously accurate with its guns. According to Hitler's Arctic War, eventually Captain Rive of the cruiser Karlsruhe sends a message to the Norwegians to hold fire because they are British and French ships coming in. The Norwegians can't make out who they were in the fog, and supposedly recognizing the French tricolor, let them in. Narvik is the part that can possibly go the most wrong. But in bad weather and with good luck, the Germans manage to pass the British patrols and make it up the fjord. In general, the Germans do a great job getting their men ashore at the various landing points. Taking Stavanger airport will turn out to be a great thing, because already the German air power is limiting British operations. On the 9th, the bad weather really helps the Germans. British naval patrols are forced to remain close to shore. There is a big naval encounter this day, though, between the British battlecruiser Renown and the German ones Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. First, both Gneisenau and Renown score hits on each other. But when her rear turret is disabled and several crewmen are killed, Gneisenau tries to disengage. Scharnhorst comes under fire as well, but with greater speed, the German ships break away from Renown. A bomber force from Germany's 10th Air Corps attacks the British off Bergen, sinking a destroyer and damaging a battleship and two cruisers. By the end of April 9th, all important Norwegian ports are in German hands. Another thing, Norwegian resistance is going to be hampered from the very get-go, because since the Germans take so many major towns, they take loads of Norwegian arms from mobilization centers. Also on the 9th, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud goes to London with his Foreign Minister Edouard Daladier, and the Allied Supreme War Council agrees to send strong forces to Norway. They also ask Belgium to invite the British and French armies onto Belgian soil, but Belgium says no. They will remain absolutely neutral. April 10th is the date of the First Battle of Narvik. British Captain Warburton Lee and five destroyers head up Narvik Fjord. Ten German destroyers are in inlets up there. Both sides lose two ships in the fighting. Warburton Lee loses his life. The British also have another ship heavily damaged, the Germans two heavily damaged and two with lighter damages. On this day, British naval aircraft dive-bomb and sink the cruiser Königsberg in Bergen Harbor. This is the first time a major warship is sunk by that kind of attack. It's not likely to be repeated anytime soon, though, since the British only have one aircraft carrier with the home fleet. The rest are all in the Mediterranean. You may be wondering what the German plans are for administration of the conquered territory. Vidkun Quisling, leader of Nationalsamling, sort of a Norwegian version of the Nazi Party, but one that has never got 3% of the vote, nor elected a single candidate to the Norwegian legislature, is told already on the 9th that if he sets up a government, it will have Hitler's approval. He draws up a list of ministers and accuses the actual Norwegian government of fleeing, though they've only gone 50 kilometers inland. Quisling thus proclaims a new government with him as prime minister that evening over the radio. Hitler does indeed recognize the Quisling government, and a lot of people think that setting up a puppet state has been the German plan all along, but a Quisling coup was only just decided on, and it is not what the German foreign ministry prefers. In fact, German Ambassador Kurt Brauer goes to Elverum to meet with the legitimate government, already the 10th, and demands that King Haakon officially appoint Quisling head of a new government to make a peaceful transfer of power. Haakon refuses and says he'd rather abdicate than appoint any Quisling government whatsoever. The cabinet backs the king, and so Quisling has no popular support at all. So he is no real use to the Germans. So already in the first week of the invasion, Germany is withdrawing support for his government and planning on building up an independent government commission. The Norwegians do make one change in high commando. On the 11th, General Otto Ruge replaces General Laake as commander-in-chief. On the 12th, German forces begin pushing out from Oslo. Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Hipper are attacked by land and carrier based British aircrafts, but the attacks fail. The British do occupy the Faroe Islands, though. The 13th sees the Second Battle of Narvik. All eight German destroyers there are sunk by the British battleship Warspit and nine British destroyers. So far this campaign, while the actual landings have gone very well, the German navy has been badly mauled. By this time, the British war cabinet has decided to try an actual landing at Narvik, push out the Germans, get together with the local Norwegian forces, and cross the border to Sweden to destroy the Yalovari ironworks. That's the main reason for their being involved, really. You know what's interesting? To note the contrast between the action around Norway and the British lassitude on the Western Front. I read in Martin Gilbert that Ronald Cartland, officer and MP stationed in France, writes on the 12th, We've settled in again to a comparatively peaceful war existence. The season is with us. I give smart lunch parties and dine out twice a week. In London, though, there are new plans afoot for actual war making. On April 10th is the first meeting of the MAUD committee, formed after the Frisch-Piaris memorandum I mentioned weeks ago, that detailed how one might make a practical nuclear weapon using uranium-235. MAUD is to determine if this is feasible. Niels Bohr sends a telegram to Frisch the 9th that ends cryptically with Tell Cockroft and Maud Ray Kent, which people immediately think is some sort of code anagram for sensitive nuclear information. It actually refers to John Cockroft and Bohr's housekeeper Maud Ray, who is from Kent. And though the initials MAUD stand for nothing, that is the committee's name from the telegram, with all capital letters. Neither Frisch nor Piaris are on the committee, as they are German and thus considered a security threat despite their work. And the week ends with a full-on German invasion of Norway that has taken all of its initial land objectives, even though at sea the Germans have big troubles. And no one saw this invasion coming, certainly not the King, despite a fair number of warning signs. But Germany needs that Swedish iron, and so a neutral country is again invaded without provocation, with all the bloodshed and death of thousands of its citizens and the destruction of its property that military invasion entails. Neutrality is supposed to prevent that from happening, but that's not working so well these days. I wonder if other neutral European nations are taking note. Maud was exploring the possibility of making a nuclear weapon. Some 20 years later, the Soviets made the largest one ever. Check out our Cuba crisis episode about Tsar Bomba right here. Rob Aitken is our Patreon supporter of the week. Please join the TimeGhost Army and support us on Patreon so we can continue this series and produce other awesome content. Join us at timeghost.tv or patreon.com. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.