Namsos Campaign - Background

Background

When World War II broke out in September 1939 Norway followed a policy of neutrality, as it had successfully done in World War I, hoping to stay out of the war once again engulfing Europe. So Norway was at peace in April 1940 when it was suddenly attacked by naval, air and military forces from Nazi Germany. Unlike the case during the First World War, the Norwegian military was only partially mobilised, with the Royal Norwegian Navy and the coastal artillery being set up with skeleton crews. The Norwegian Army activated only a few battalions in North Norway (amongst others the Alta Battalion) as a precaution in connection with the Soviet Winter War invasion of Finland. Although the Norwegian government had carried out a hurried modernisation of the military in the second half of the 1930s the armed forces were still in a shambles. Effects of the wide ranging budget reductions carried out during the pacifist policies of the late 1920s and early 1930s were still apparent. In 1940 the Norwegian armed forces were among the weakest in Europe.

There were several reasons for the German attack. Not least was a desire to secure the flow of iron ore from mines at Kiruna in the north of Sweden to Germany's war industries. The northern part of the Baltic Sea, called the Gulf of Bothnia, had a principal Swedish port called Luleå from where in the summer a quantity of ore was shipped. It was frozen in winter, so for several months each year the Swedes shipped most of their iron ore by rail through the ice-free port of Narvik, in the far north of Norway. In a normal year, 80% of the iron ore was exported through Narvik. The only alternative in winter was a long rail journey to Oxelösund on the Baltic, south of Stockholm, which was not obstructed by ice. But, British information suggested that Oxelösund could ship only one fifth the weight Germany required. Without the Swedish steel shipments through Narvik, the German war industry could not have produced as many tanks, guns, submarines and other weapons.

The British Admiralty was investigating the possibility of introducing a Royal Navy fleet into the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1940, to interdict German seaborne trade during the summer months in that inland sea, Project Catherine. This, however, would be ineffective if the Narvik route remained open. But events overtook the Baltic scheme.

The Germans rightly suspected that the British were planning to mine the Norwegian coastal waters used by German ore ships. British plans were well under way, spearheaded by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. The Germans got to Norway first.