Battles of Narvik - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Allied offensive started slowly. Unlike the Germans, they did not have a clear operational objective in Norway and therefore did not steer their operation with as much decisiveness. The British had drafted plans to land in Narvik before the German invasion and troops and supplies had even been loaded onto ships when they executed their mining operation on 8 April. These had been hastily unloaded when German ships were spotted northbound. The British thought that the German ships were trying to break into the Atlantic to avoid being trapped in German ports. Following this rationale, they wanted all their own ships available to intercept the German fleet. The consequent confusion would dog the troops for weeks: troops and materiel were shipped to Norway separately without clear landing sites and orders were changed while en route. It was as if the Allies were confused by the many small and large fjords and bays and could not decide where it would be best to start. In addition, British, French and Polish units would rapidly relieve each other.

The cold and snow was a common enemy for all troops at Narvik, but most of the Allies were poorly prepared for it. The Norwegians were the only ones fully equipped with skis and able to use them. The British attempted to use skis, but their troops were largely untrained and supply was scarce. German sailors faced the same problems. Even within the German and French mountain specialists, only a few units were equipped with skis. The Polish mountain brigade had no mountain training in fact.

Most troops were untested in battle. The German mountain specialists had participated in the invasion of Poland and some of the troops that had been air dropped over Bjørnfjell had fought in the Netherlands. Some of the French Foreign Legioneers came directly from fighting in North Africa and most of the Polish officers and many of the soldiers had participated in the defence of Poland, some even in the Spanish Civil War, and were highly motivated.

The Allies had sea and air superiority until the very last stage of the operation, but did not take full advantage of that.

The Germans lost the naval battle, but achieved the main goal of their operation: the successful invasion and occupation of Norway.

Around Narvik, German naval losses were high: they lost 10 destroyers (50% of their entire destroyer force), one submarine and several support ships. In exchange, they sank two Allied destroyers and damaged several others. The reason for this defeat lay in the German plans which made it impossible for the destroyers to retire quickly, even if they had had adequate supplies. This was compounded by the design of German destroyers: despite their relatively large size and armament they had inadequate fuel and ammunition storage.

On the other hand, British forces—while achieving an indisputable local naval victory—were unprepared to follow it up with any land operation. This allowed the Germans to consolidate their foothold in Norway and made the subsequent Allied counter invasion more difficult.