May 9, 1940. British Newsreel. On April 14, Captain F. H. Pegram of the cruiser HMS Glasgow, accompanied by the Cruiser HMS Sheffield and ten destroyers, landed a small party of Royal Marines in Namsos, north of Trondheim. They soon attracted German aircraft. Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, V.C., designated force commander, flew in the next day ( April 15). De Wiart was an energetic and competent commander who inspired his troops by his bravery during air attacks. But no Allied aircraft were available over Namsos to provide protection against the Luftwaffe.De Wiart made the decision, because of unopposed enemy air activity, to divert his large, slow and vulnerable troopships one hundred miles northwards to Lillesjona in Nesna where they would be offloaded to destroyers for a fast run into Namsos. He himself arrived there on April 16 to supervise the trans-shipment. Less than an hour into the process, German bombers arrived, and the British naval commander ordered the destroyers to sail with the troops and equipment they had on board. HMS Afridi, Nubian, Matabele, Mashona and Sikh got under way for Namsos carrying De Wiart with 36 officers and 1,208 other ranks. Though repeatedly attacked during their voyage, they arrived unscathed, and got into Namsos on April 16th. On several occasions German reconnaissance aircraft were unaware that landings had occurred the previous night. Carton De Wiart realized that the quicker he got his forces south, the better were his chances of taking Trondheim from the Germans. The first priority, he felt, was to reach Steinkjer where the two roads south met, before the Germans got there from Trondheim.In the meantime, the naval commander, Admiral Layton, decided that taking his destroyers into Namsos was too risky. He would send troops and supplies in on the Polish transport SS Chrobry. Since most of the remaining troops at Lillesjona were aboard the SS Empress of Australia, much time was wasted with further trans-shipping, and the Chrobry, accompanied by HMS Vanoc got into Namsos just before sunrise on April 17th. In the mad hurry to get away before the German bombers arrived, the soldiers landed without much of their kit. But, De Wiart succeeded in getting the troops dispersed before a reconnaissance aircraft arrived.At this time, Carton De Wiart was not aware that the attack directly into Trondheimfjord was called off. Throughout his time at Namsos, he was left completely uninformed of what was happening elsewhere in Norway.Two battalions of French Alpine troops landed on April 19 under heavy air attack. One of the transports conveying the French was too long to enter the harbour and returned to the United Kingdom without landing many of the French supplies, leaving the troops without straps for their skis or the mules they used for transport. The French stayed put in Namsos, enduring air bombardment against which they had little protection. The French cruiser Emile Bertin was damaged by bombing during the disembarkation (no casualties) and was replaced by the Montcalm. In total some 6,000 Allied troops were put ashore.The French troops, for the most part, were not used in the short campaign, because of a lack of supplies. Towards the end, they were engaged somewhat as the Allied troops fell back on Namsos, preparatory to evacuation.By April 21, British forces had advanced quickly as far south as the hamlet of Verdal where both road and railway bridges crossed the River Inna, a few miles inland from Trondheimsfjord. This was about halfway between Trondheim and Namsos, some miles down the fjord. Ominously, they spotted a German gunboat, two armed trawlers and a destroyer in the fjord, on their flanks, well able to land troops behind them and direct fire at them, to which they lacked the means to respond.When De Wiart landed at Namsos on April 15, the Germans had about 1,800 troops in the Trondheim area, some in the city and some along the railway to Sweden. Their possession of the Værnes airfield enabled them to fly extra troops in daily, and by April 18th, they had 3,500 men available in the area, the next day 5,000. They were generally well equipped, but lacking in field artillery. Some German troops were diverted to Hegra, where an improvised force of 251 Norwegians were holding out in an old border fort. They began pushing up the fjord and forward patrols reached Verdal on April 16.
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Namsos - Otterøya (Husvika) på 6 minutter (240km/h)by JohannesAarmo3,455 views
støgge nazifucks
quattro94x 3 years ago 4
Me too! Æ å!
Cabby7800 3 years ago 3