Inferno - Max Hastings [36]
It was all for nothing: immediately after capturing the town and burying their dead, the Allies began to reembark, recognising that their position was strategically untenable. The Norwegians were left to contemplate hundreds of wrecked homes and dead civilians. Their monarch and government sailed for Britain on 7 June aboard a Royal Navy cruiser. Some Norwegians undertook epic journeys to escape from German occupation and join the Allied struggle, several being assisted by the Soviet ambassador in Stockholm, the remarkable intellectual Aleksandra Kollontai, to travel eastwards around the world and eventually reach Britain.
The evacuation of central Norway, under heavy air attack, shocked and dismayed the British public at home. A student, Christopher Tomlin, wrote on 3 May: “I am stunned, very disillusioned and afraid of our retreat … Mr. Chamberlain … made me believe we would drive the Germans out of Scandinavia. Now the wind is out of my sails; I feel subdued and expect to hear more bad news … Haven’t we, can’t we find, more men of Churchill’s breed?” In truth, the first sea lord bore substantial responsibility for the rash and muddled deployments in Norway. Britain’s armed forces lacked resources to intervene effectively; their bungled gestures mocked the tragedy of the Norwegian people. But Churchill’s rhetoric and bellicosity, in contrast to the prime minister’s manifest feebleness of purpose, prompted a surge of public enthusiasm for a change of government, which infected the chamber of the House of Commons. On 10 May, the prime minister resigned. Next day King George VI invited Churchill to form a government.
THE GERMANS SUFFERED the heaviest casualties in the Norwegian campaign—5,296 compared with the British 4,500, most of the latter incurred when the carrier Glorious and its escorts were sunk by the battle cruiser Scharnhorst on 8 June. The French and a Polish exile contingent lost 530 dead, the Norwegians about 1,800. The Luftwaffe lost 242 planes, the RAF 112. Three British cruisers, seven destroyers, an aircraft carrier and four submarines were sunk, against three German cruisers, ten destroyers, and six submarines. Four further German cruisers and six destroyers were badly damaged.
The conquest of Norway provided Hitler with naval and air bases which became important when he later invaded Russia, after which he exploited them to impede the shipment of Allied supplies to Murmansk. He was content to leave Sweden unmolested and neutral: his strategic dominance ensured that the Swedes maintained shipments of iron ore to Germany, and dared not risk offering comfort to the Allies. Yet Hitler paid a price for Norway. Obsessed with holding the country against a prospective British assault, until almost the war’s end he deployed 350,000 men there, a major drain on his manpower resources. And German naval losses in the Norwegian campaign proved a critical factor in making a subsequent invasion of Britain unrealistic.
The British were chiefly responsible for conducting Allied operations in Norway, and must thus bear overwhelming blame for their failure. Lack of resources explained much, but the performance of the Royal Navy’s senior officers was unimpressive—the shocking incompetence of Glorious’s captain was chiefly responsible for the carrier’s loss; the weakness of British warships’ antiaircraft defences was painfully exposed. The 10 and 13 April attacks on German destroyers at Narvik, and later evacuations of Anglo-French ground forces, were the only naval operations to be creditably handled. British conduct