Evening star., 1942-12-26
Thinks Nurvik Road
May Lead to Germany
Army Officer Discusses
Rugged Norwegian Coast
As Bose for Allied Attuck

~sssSSs ShSS0SSSS
Rugged Norwegian Coast
As Bose for Allied Attuck
By Maj. Gen. John N. Greely, U.SA.
In the first year of this great war and
even before the invasion of France, Ger
many moved suddenly and in strength
to protect its northern flank by occu-
pying Norway. The long indented coast,
with its sheltered fjords and air fields
behind them is even more important now
than it was then to German defense,
and Allied armies may yet have to fol-
low that bleak and rocky road toward
Berlin.
The mountains of Norway rise abruptly
from the North Atlantic to form bar
rier for the whole of Northern Europe.
From them the land slopes down to
Sweden, Finland, Russia, and across
the Baltic to Germany itself. This is
the home Of the Vikings, and their his
tory shows now utterly dependent on
control of the seas are armies moving to
or from these shores. The great days of
the Norsemen were before Columbus
came out of the Mediterranean world to
rediscover America. Eric the Red and
his son Lief Ericsson, sailing west from
Iceland, had been here first.
The Scandinavian peninsula is the
cradle of the tall blond Aryan whom
Hitler has adopted as the model for the
herrenvolk of his new order This is
characteristic of his swing backward to-
ward paganism and away from the
teachings of Christianity and the BROTH
erhood of man. The gods of the Morse
men, Wodin and Thor. were gods of war
Death in battle was the ultimate glory
The world belonged to him who could
seize it, and more peaceful peoples were
flt only for slaves. The Swedish branch
of this same race spread into North Ger
many, the Baltic states and Russia as
far south as Kiev The Vikings from
Norway in great dragon boats raided the
British Isles, the coasts of France and
even the Mediterranean region from the
sea. And 1t is from the sea again that
Germany in Norway must be attacked.
The most essential part of Norway for
the present is the ford which leads into
Narvik and the bleak coast farther
north. The British we're able to take
and hold Narvik briefly against the Ger
man invaders, and it may have to be
taken again to protect shipping on the
northern route to Russia against at
tack from sea and air. From Narvik a
railroad runs south into Sweden and
all the way to Stockholm on the Baltic.
Control of this road through the noun
tains alone would be a constant threat
to German domination of Sweden as
source of supply. Control of the coast
line to the north would secure contact
with Russia at Murmansk -and be a
step at least toward driving Finland
away from its painful alliance with Ger
many.
Even more important to the solution
of our shipping problems in general
would be the capture of the Norwegian
coast farther south. Trondheim, Bergen
and Stavanger are all bases for German
planes, ships and submarines which
menace our great base in the British
Isles and take dangerous toll in ship
ping losses. Closure of the northern exit
from the North Sea as we'll as the Eng
lish Channel would be more valuable
than the building of new tonnage in the
millions; it would cut of Germany it
self completely from the oceans of the
world. But it would take lot of ships
to invade Norway; our only approach is
from the sea.
The Atlantic shore of Norway is that
of drowned mountain chain. It's is
lands and fjords lend themselves to de-
fense, but once firmly held are ideal as
safe anchorages for shipping, warmed
by the Gulf Stream and with air fields in
the immediate hinterland Roads to
the east are difficult, but from Trond-
helm south gives access to the lower and
more sheltered area of Norway around
Oslo, and even into Sweden. Here we
would find ourselves just across narrow
waters from Northern Germany, which
Gustavus Adolphus took and held from
his base in Sweden, during the Thirty
Years War.
These narrow waters are no easy bar
riers to cross. Germany controls them
at present, of course; and all her
strength can be massed along her own
Baltic coast. But Hitler moved into
Norway by sea and air in spite OF British
control of the North Sea, and before
Allied air power was worn down in fight
ing over Holland, Belgium and Northern
France. The threat to Germany would
be most dangerous, If later developments
should bring in Sweden as even passive
ally against the Nazis.
Today Norway is suffering in sullen
silence like so much of the rest of Europe.
It's only salvation lies in Allied invasion
or in Allied victory. Its pride is in the
mud under the rule of Quisling and the
German Gestapo. The great feasts for
which 1t has so long been famous are
cut down to iron rations now, and the
cities are close to starvation. Sweden,
cut off from anything like normal trade,
is cold and hungry, too. It's people are
short on food, short of coal, short even
of labor, with the army mobilized. It is
hard to find men to cut the wood which
is piled in city streets to serve instead of
coal through the bitter northern winter.
Nowhere has the orderly progress Of