Evening star., 1940-04-21
On Fiqhtinq Fronts

Along Norway's fjord-jagged Atlantic
coast British transports landed troops
last Monday at many points. In the
sea outside roamed the British Navy
throwing blockade around Narvik, the
ore port supplying German iron needs
until the Scandinavian war opened, and
London reported a piece of British sea
daring-the laying of mine field under
German noses along the German Baltic
coast from Kiel Bay to Lithuania.
German naval warriors sank two Brit
ish destroyers in Skagerrak, and the
British doughty subma-
Navel rine Spearfish, which
Warfare once hid on ocean bot
tom from German vessels
dropping depth bombs, torpedoed pocket
battleship Admiral Scheer, sister of late
Graf Spec, sent in December by it's own
German crew to the floor of Montevideo
Harbor. Other British submarines
brought down two German transports.
BY sea and by air the Germans were
sending 1000 soldiers day to Norway
the British soldiers-held apart since
September by the impregnability of the
Maginot Line and the West Wall-to
meet.
Pursuing conquest (Which they called
'protectorate'D methodically, the Ger
man invaders famed out from the CEN
ters they seized in first attack on Nor
way: Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and
Trondheim. Norwegian Army organized
resistance, although Germans held that
no state of war existed between then.
and their protected" Scandinavians
until Friday, when Norway's Minister to
Berlin was handed his passports-a tacit
admission of ruptured relations if not
Of war itself
British bombers dropped death on
Stavanger. Girding for battle, Britain
called the class of 27-year-olds to the
colors for May Is registration. While
additional troops of the British expedi-
tionary corps for Norway crossed the
North Sea for the seat of battle, other
troops of Britain landed in Farce Is
lands, north of Scotland, held by the
Danes until German invasion of Den
mark, and prepared to hold them against
possibility of German claim.
First British land objective in Norway
was Narvik, port above the Arctic Circle.
BY Thursday Germans
British had retreated from Mar
In koryik vik before British landing
forces of marines and
soldiers, although Berlin insistently de-
MED any British success around Narvik
beyond establishment of blockade
Comdr. Heinrich Gerlach, wounded in
Narvik naval engagement told in Berlin
on way to hospital of successfully with
standing two British sea assaults on the
ore port. Germans moving out of Mar
vik took possession of the ore railway
between Narvik and Swedish border.
Southwark from Narvik for 400 miles
Norway is thin tongue, fattening where
the terrain bulges into the Atlantic at
the 63d parallel. At the tongues end is
Trondheim, seaport and railroad juno
ton, on long, deep, rocky ford, barring
the way to South Norway and its in
dustries and fertile areas A few miles
north OF Trondheim on Thursday British
troops made contact with Norwegian
forces, after British planes bombed
Trondheim and downed two airplanes
and damaged two others in an air fight
with Germans over Stavanger. In Ber-
lin it was reported that Stavanger and
Bergen were being prepared by German
occupants as bases for air raiding against
British Isles.
The setting for land battle was laid
Friday. Troop ships brought British
soldiers to Namsos, 100 miles
Troops north of Trondheim. Ger
CIosh man planes flew German
soldiers to the landing site,
where German soldiers f1oated to ground
by parachute. The parachute soldiers
were repulsed, and the Norwegian SOL
diery, headquartered at Steinjker, 80
miles south of Namsos, sent ski patrols
across the breadth of Norway to the
Swedish border to bar German north
ward penetration. Chief German con-
Germ was to hold its gate to the south,
Trondheim, and chief allied and Nor
wegian task was to penetrate the south.
That was the setting for battle.
BY weeks end Germans had 10000
troops in Norway, the allies, how many?
On sea the problem remained same
problem confronting both allies and
Germans since Scandinavian engagement