8 Norwegian ambush. After the surprise invasion of the German forces on April 9th, the Norwegian forces were temporarily scattered as they were overrun by the superior Wehrmacht. They were loyal to the King, however, and refused to accept the Quisling government’s submission to German rule. They regrouped and prepared to fight, accepting thousands of young Norwegian recruits who joined the units taking up positions along the narrow mountain roads. One of these young Norwegians was a recruit by the name of Eiliv Hauge, a clerk by trade. On April 11th, he saw action for the first time when a column of German buses filled with troops wound its way inland towards his unit’s position. The Norwegians had blocked the road with tree trunks and, as the Germans began to leave the buses, the Norwegians opened fire. “Within minutes, Hauge later recalled, the buses were ablaze. Dead and wounded Germans lay in the road. White flags of truce were waved – in vain.” The historian of this episode wrote, “Coming shamefully of age, Hauge and his comrades fired on these too, until two hundred Germans lay silent in the snow.” (The Second World War, Martin Gilbert, p 49)
-This is an actual event that took place on April 11th in the mountains of Norway. I maintained the event and the details in their entirety, neither to glorify the act nor defend it, but only to illustrate the desperation and horror that the men and women in Norway faced in those dark days as German forces overran their country.
9. Landing at Namsos. On April 14th, two cruisers and ten destroyers sailed into Namsos, landing Royal Marines in Norway. However, everything else surrounding the town and events in the book is fictional. To my knowledge, no civilians were taken off shore, and none of the ships left immediately. They remained and, on the 15th, were under heavy fire from the German Luftwaffe. Namsos itself was bombed relentlessly in the following days.
10. King Haakon. When the Oscarsborg Fortress at Drøbak fired on the leading German ship, Blücher, the resulting battle and retreat of the remaining ships enabled King Haakon to escape Oslo with the Royal family and his entire government. They fled to Hamar, but the rapid advance of the German troops forced them to move to Elverum. They met with the German ambassador in Nybergsund on the 10th, a small town outside Elverum where the government was staying. When the King famously refused to appoint a government with Quisling as head, the Luftwaffe attacked the town the following day, destroying the village, but failing to kill any member of the government or royal family. Neutral Sweden was only 16 miles away, but the Swedish government had decided that it would “detain and incarcerate King Haakon if he crossed their border” (something King Haakon never forgave). With Sweden closed to him, the King and his son, the Crown Prince, fled north with their ministers. What followed was two months of harrowing travel around Norway as they tried to stay ahead of the Germans, and their bombers. Under fire and almost caught several times, they continually moved to avoid being captured or killed. One hundred highly trained German paratroopers were ordered to pursue the royals, capture the government, and kill the King. Hitler knew that without their King, the Norwegians would end resistance. King Haakon’s desperate flight finally ended when the King and his party were taken onboard the British cruiser HMS Glasgow at Molde and transported 620 miles north to Tromsø, where a provisional capital was established on May 1st. The Royal Family and Norwegian Government were evacuated from Tromsø on June 7th aboard HMS Devonshire with a total of 461 passengers.
-This evacuation became extremely costly for the Royal Navy when German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau attacked and sank the nearby aircraft carrier HMS Glorious with its escorting destroyers HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent. Devonshire did not rebroadcast the enemy sighting report made by Glorious as it could not disclose its position by breaking radio silence. No other British ship received the sighting report, and 1,519 British officers and men and three warships were lost. Devonshire arrived safely in London, and King Haakon and his Cabinet set up a Norwegian government in exile in London.
-Unlike in the book, the Swedish did not refuse to allow the King to cross the border. However, they advised him that both he and his son would be detained and interned. Wishing to continue his rule and to lead his country, the King chose to remain in Norway with the Crown Prince. Interestingly, Crown Prince Olav’s wife, Crown Princess Martha and the three royal children (including today’s King Harald) were driven over the border to her homeland of Sweden, where they were allowed refuge. (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_VII_of_Norway)
(News in English.no: https://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/04/08/the-kings-defiance-and-chaotic-escape/)
About the Author
CW Browning was writing before she could spell. Making up stories with her childhood best friend in the backyard in Olathe, Kansas, imagination ran wild from the very beginning. At the age of eight, she printed out her first full-length novel on a dot-matrix printer. All eighteen chapters of it. Through the years, the writing took a backseat to the mechanics of life as she explored other avenues of interest. Those mechanics, however, have a great way of underlining what genuinely lifts a spirit and makes the soul sing. After attending Rutgers University and studying History, her love for writing was rekindled. It became apparent where her heart truly lay. Picking up an old manuscript, she dusted it off and went back to what made her whole. CW still makes up stories in her backyard, but now she crafts them for her readers to enjoy. She makes her home in Southern New Jersey, where she loves to grill
