World War: A. E. F.

Any doubt in Scandinavian minds that the Allies would strike quickly in their behalf, any doubt in German minds that the Allies would strike hard, were swept away last week. In addition to Great Britain’s ships and men at Narvik, Allied Expeditionary Forces swarmed into western fjords of Norway at six more points. Planes, warships and minesweepers cleared the way for troopships, out of which marched men of the West to avenge the people of the North. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had promised that Allied troops will “use this summer to purge and cleanse the soil of the Vikings, the soil of Norway, from the filthy pollution of Nazi tyranny.”

As the sponsor of the Allied expedition at Gallipoli 25 years ago—turned into a blood bath by poor planning—Mr. Churchill this time took no chances on lack of preparation, manpower, support. Germany’s initial invading forces outside the Oslo area could not be more than 15,000 men, scattered from Narvik to Stavanger, of which perhaps one-third were based on Trondheim. Observers in London estimated the Allied Expeditionary Force’s first wave as at least three divisions (30-45,000), exclusive of naval and marine personnel. All these were reported landed in the Trondheim area. But if it was true that the Allies had 100,000 men ready to start for Finland last March, it was possible that a second A. E. F. wave equal to the first was ready last week in reserve.

On the theory that they would stand the climate best, Canadians and rugged Scots regiments made up the initial British force. At their head was Major General Adrian Carton de Wiart, a 60-year oldster chosen not merely because he is Belgian-born and can thus speak freely to his French allies, but because he has a long record of commanding where shot & shell are thickest. A Boer and World War I veteran, he has won a V. C. and lost an eye and a hand in the King’s service. The General has every reason for wanting another crack at the Germans. Seventeen years ago he retired to an estate in Poland which he will not see again until World War II is settled.

Paris confirmed that at least one division of French troops was included in the A. E. F., probably Alpine Chasseurs (“Blue Devils”), who rank among the world’s most skilled mountain fighters, to match the Austrian Jäger from the other side of the Alps. A brigade of Poles was also sent. London affirmed that heavy artillery, tanks, motorized equipment were plentiful in the armadas moving north. While Germany belittled the entire expedition and claimed to wreak violence upon it from the air, Mr. Churchill’s Admiralty claimed to have landed the first Allied wave without losing a life.

Since the Germans had invaded Norway from the bottom up, the Allied plan was to sweep them out from the top down. If this sweep should force Germany to violate Swedish neutrality, so much the better, perhaps, for the Allies. For then the Northern Front would be a front indeed, with one more Ally on it, with Germany’s Scandinavian iron supply entirely cut off, and with potential bases extending southward to within 200 miles (one hour by bomber) of Berlin.

The A. E. F.’s seven little footholds, and how they grew:

At Narvik, after the battleship Warspite and attendant destroyers blasted the remaining Nazi warships to the bottom and silenced all German firing from the shore last fortnight, the British marines and sailors present did not at once follow-up their advantage. The German forces ashore, numbering some 2,500, returned to the town, retained their hold on the iron-ore railroad as far as the Swedish border. Reinforced with mountain artillery flown in, they even began spreading up & down the coast. Northward they encountered British land forces 15 miles away, at Gratangen. These troops were from the main Allied landing point at Harstad, on an island at the head of Vest Fjord. Meantime, this week British warships returned to Narvik and, after due warning, started blasting the Germans out of it once more.

At Bodö & Mo, towns below Narvik in Norway’s long, slender, north-central neck, Allied landings were made to command the road (but no rail) connections into Sweden and the northern terminus of the one road into Norway’s waist.

Namsos. The Germans’ stronghold at Trondheim (Norway’s capital when Olaf Tryggvasson was King, circa 996), commands mid-Norway’s big railhead for transit across to Sweden and down to Oslo. Just east of it, at Varnes, lies mid-Norway’s only big land air base. As the German invaders hustled to consolidate their position around Trondheim and establish a defense line across to the Swedish border, the Allies landed at Namsos, 100 miles north. The Namsos contingent soon made contact with Norwegian troops massing above Steinkjer, near Trondheim Fjord’s head. These wiped out a “suicide” force of Germans landed by plane on the nearby ice.

Molde & Åndalsnes. One hundred twenty-five miles southwest, other landings put the Allies in position to send a force north to attack Trondheim from the opposite side. But here there were also bigger stakes to play for. Presumably from these landings came the force that was reported to have cut its way across country to Hamar, there rallied the retiring Norse 65 miles outside Oslo.

Laerdal. Boldest Allied penetration was at Laerdal at the head of deep Sogne Fjord, 90 miles northeast of German-held Bergen and 140 miles northwest of Oslo. This was the landing closest to Germany, also closest (130 miles) to Stavanger, Norway’s biggest air base, now German.

Overhead the northern war also accelerated. For six hours Nazis rained death on Namsos, which went up in flames. The stations at Åndalsnes and Dombäs (between Åndalsnes and Oslo) were fired, too. British air fleets retaliated with more raids on Stavanger, Kristiansand, and a new troop-ferry air terminal at Aalborg in Denmark. Apparently the northern war’s turning point still hinged on dominance of the air.