Early on April 9, 1940, ten German destroyers pushed through heavy snow into the Ofotfjord in northern Norway. Their commander, Commodore Bonte, detached two of them to deal with the batteries presumed to guard the entrance to the ore town.

About a day later, five British destroyers felt their way up the same channel. Their orders, too, gave two ships one special job: to engage the batteries reported on Framnes point.

Both sides were looking for it. The Norwegian investigating commission's account of the fighting, published in 1947, lists Narvik's garrison: a rifle company and a machine-gun platoon, two blockhouses, a pioneer company building more of them, four 40 mm anti-aircraft guns, and one 10.7 cm gun mounted on a railway wagon. There is no coastal battery on the list.

Two weeks later, Grand Admiral Raeder, head of the German navy, went over the battle with Hitler. The coastal battery assumed to be at the harbour entrance, he said, had not been there, and that had made the situation particularly unfavourable.

Ships and soldiers of several nations fought over this small town for two months. Yet the people of the time could not even agree on what it was worth.

I. Several Reckonings

Narvik was one of the ports that shipped Swedish iron ore. The ore came over the border by rail and was loaded here.

In January 1940, Bull, secretary-general of the Norwegian foreign ministry, went to Stockholm to ask whether less ore could go through Narvik and more across the Baltic. The Swedes told him that 20 percent of Swedish ore now went via Narvik. Technically, another 10 percent could go by the Baltic route, which would cut Narvik's exports by half.

On March 28, Scheel, the Norwegian minister in Berlin, wrote home that as far as was known, about half of Sweden's iron ore exports to Germany passed through Narvik.

Two days later, Colban, the minister in London, was told to give the British press a set of statistics, and they said something else. Perhaps more than nine-tenths of the Swedish ore bound for Germany went through Luleå and other Swedish ports. Of Narvik's exports, the share going to Britain had risen from 99,000 tons in February 1939 to 475,000 tons in February 1940, while the share going to Germany had fallen from 132,000 to 70,000 tons.

The German navy's estimate was that occupying Norway would cost at most two and a half to three and a half million tons a year. Raeder gave it to Hitler in person on February 23.

There was a fifth view as well. In a book published in 1940, Hambro, president of the Norwegian parliament, wrote that Narvik's importance had been grossly misrepresented in popular propaganda. It mattered not for its ore but for its communications: the railway to Sweden and Finland started there, and so did the whole road system of northern Norway.

II. Raeder's Arithmetic

Hitler asked Raeder: once Norway was occupied, could the ore still be shipped from Narvik?

Raeder's answer is in the record of that day's conference. The best thing was for Norway to stay neutral. Britain must never be allowed to occupy Norway, because then all ore from Sweden would stop. But if Germany occupied it, the ore traffic from Narvik would be completely suspended, at least for a time, because the 800-mile passage was very hard to protect, even along the inner island route. The loss would be about two and a half to three and a half million tons a year. That was still better than having the British cut off everything.

On March 26 he said it again. One British aim had always been to cut off Germany's imports from Narvik. Those imports would be cut off, at least for a time, even if Operation Weserübung went ahead.

In other words, the German navy's own reckoning was that invading Norway would itself stop the ore from Narvik first.

On March 29 the two men discussed something else. Hitler wanted destroyers to stay behind at Narvik to help the landed troops set up their guns. Raeder went through his objections one by one: at Narvik, destroyers were helpless and would be destroyed if superior forces came. Hitler gave up the idea.

Yet the German memorandum sent from Berlin on April 7 to the minister in Oslo, meant to be handed to the Norwegian government on the morning of the attack, told a different story. Britain and France, it said, had really aimed to occupy Narvik and cut Germany off from its northern ore.

III. Ships in the Snow

At about 8 p.m. Norwegian time on April 8, Bonte left the two battleships covering him from the open sea and led his ten destroyers into the Vestfjord. They carried about 2,000 men of the 3rd Mountain Division, to be landed at around 4 the next morning.

In Narvik harbour lay Norway's two old coastal defence ships, *Eidsvold* and *Norge*. During the day, naval headquarters for the Third District at Tromsø had passed on word that the British Admiralty expected a German operation against Narvik, possibly arriving around midnight.

Commander Askim, in charge of the two ships, had three patrol boats out at the mouth of the fjord. At about 3:20 a.m., the patrol boat *Kelt* reported nine German destroyers coming in.

The alarm sounded and the guns were loaded with live rounds. *Eidsvold* had been lying outside the harbour mouth since evening. *Norge* had stayed at the quay to keep her telephone line as long as possible; now she cast off too. At the last moment a telephone message came through: German vessels were to be fired on, but not British ones.

Bonte's ships entered the fjord in line ahead. Three went to Herjangen to seize the army camp at Elvegårdsmoen inland. Two more went after the presumed batteries at the entrance.

The snow came in squalls. Only at 1,000 metres did *Eidsvold* and the German leader see each other. The Norwegian ship hoisted the signal to stop and fired a warning shot. Two German destroyers turned away and headed straight into the harbour. Bonte stopped with the other three and signalled that he was sending a boat with an officer.

A German officer came aboard *Eidsvold* and demanded that the Germans be allowed to pass. Her captain, Commander Willoch, conferred with Askim on *Norge* and refused. As the German left the ship, he flashed a light signal. The order to open fire had just been given on *Eidsvold* when two torpedoes struck her.

The Norwegian official account says the ship was literally blown to pieces. Of the 194 men aboard, 8 were saved.

IV. Norge

About twenty-five merchant ships lay in the harbour, ore carriers and tankers. The German crew of one of them thought it was a British attack, set their own ship on fire and ran her ashore.

*Norge* now caught sight of one of the German destroyers that had entered the harbour and opened fire: five rounds from her 21 cm guns and seven or eight from her 15 cm guns. The Germans answered with gunfire and three salvos of two torpedoes each. The last two struck her amidships. *Norge* rolled over to starboard and sank in ten to fifteen seconds. It was about 5 a.m. Of the 199 men aboard, 97 were saved.

Hambro's book tells it quite differently. In his account a shell went straight into *Eidsvold*'s ammunition chamber. *Norge* sank one destroyer with two 21 cm shells and drove another aground before she herself went down in less than a minute.

The official account written seven years later records how many shells *Norge* fired. It records no German ship sunk by them.

V. The Colonel and the General

Shortly before the Germans landed, Colonel Sundlo, commander in Narvik, had received an order from General Fleischer, his division commander: hold the town.

During the night more troops were brought in from Elvegårdsmoen. At about 1 a.m. the battalion commander was ordered to man the positions facing the sea with one rifle company and one machine-gun company. The rest waited in reserve in the school on the western edge of town.

In the snow no one could see what was happening in the harbour. Soon word came that the Germans had landed. Major Spjeldnes was forming up his battalion to advance.

Sundlo arrived. At almost the same moment the first Germans came up, and among them was General Dietl. Dietl gave a rough account of the occupation of Denmark and Norway and told him that Elvegårdsmoen had been taken, that ten destroyers were in the harbour and battleships outside.

Sundlo surrendered the town.

About that morning, Hambro wrote in 1940: there was no garrison at Narvik and, of course, no commander; the story that the commander was a traitor who handed the town over to the Germans was purely fictitious.

On the German side, however, there is another document. In December 1939, the Nazi party ideologue Rosenberg wrote in a memorandum that Quisling had shown him the original of a letter recently received from "Colonel Sunlo," the commanding officer in Narvik. If present conditions continued, the letter said, Norway would be destroyed; the present generation was doomed, and rightly so. He would do nothing for two named cabinet ministers, but it could be good and useful to risk one's bones for the national uprising. It was signed Konrad Sunlo.

The same memorandum called Hambro the greatest enemy of Germany.

The letter was produced by Quisling and recorded by Rosenberg; where its original is today, this article could not find out. It may show where Sundlo stood beforehand. It cannot show what he thought in those few minutes on the morning of April 9, facing a general and ten destroyers. The two records each cover one part, and they do not fit together.

VI. "You Alone Can Judge"

On the afternoon of April 9, Britain's Second Destroyer Flotilla was ordered to Narvik. Earlier reports had said the place was only lightly held. At about 4 p.m. the flotilla stopped off Tranøy to gather information and learned that the Germans held the town in force.

At 17:51 (as recorded in the British reports, time zone not stated), Captain Warburton-Lee, the flotilla's commander, sent a "Most Immediate" message: "Norwegians report Germans holding Narvik in force also 6 destroyers and 1 submarine are there and channel is possibly mined. Intend attacking at dawn, high water."

The captain of *Hotspur*, who later wrote the narrative of the battle, added a line of his own: no permission to attack was asked or further instructions sought.

At 01:36 the Admiralty replied: "Norwegian coast defence ships EIDSVOLD and NORGE may be in German hands. You alone can judge whether in these circumstances attack should be made. We shall support whatever decision you take."

By then both ships were already on the bottom of the harbour.

The fifty miles from Tranøy to Narvik were run in continuous snow, with visibility seldom more than two cables. Twice merchant ships passed through the line and broke it up; on the one occasion land was seen, the whole flotilla nearly ran aground. At 4:15 the five destroyers arrived off Narvik.

*Hardy* went straight into the harbour, backing and filling among the anchored merchant ships, and fired her torpedoes. Surprise was complete; the enemy had not yet opened fire. Two more destroyers followed her in. *Havock* later learned from the crew of the British ship *North Cornwall* that four German destroyers had been in the harbour: two alongside the oiler, one alongside the ore pier and one at anchor.

In a little over an hour the flotilla fired twenty-four torpedoes into the harbour. By its estimate, the enemy ships inside were sunk or damaged, and probably only two were somewhere outside. Warburton-Lee decided to attack once more.

As they turned, *Hardy* sighted German warships to the north, and then two large destroyers crossing ahead. At 5:55 Warburton-Lee made his last signal: "Keep on engaging enemy."

A shell burst on *Hardy*'s bridge and he was mortally wounded. Everyone on the bridge and in the wheelhouse was killed or wounded. His secretary, Stanning, wounded himself, struggled down to find the wheelhouse empty, took the wheel for a while, and finally had the ship beached. *Hunter* caught fire and sank; *Hotspur*, out of control, collided with her. *Hostile* and *Havock*, already clear, turned back to cover the retreat.

On the way out they met the German ammunition ship *Rauenfels*. She took them for German destroyers and was stopped and blown up by *Havock*.

From *Hardy*, 160 men got ashore. They reached the village of Ballangen and were picked up by *Ivanhoe* three days later.

VII. The Tanker That Did Not Come

At noon on April 10, Raeder reported to Hitler. At 6:04 that morning a garbled radio message, not in code, had come in: the destroyers had been attacked in Narvik by enemy forces, probably destroyers and several cruisers. The situation was serious, because the troops ashore had no artillery. No supply ships had arrived. He asked for reinforcements and material to be sent at once on the Swedish railways.

On April 11, Churchill told the House of Commons about the battle. The Admiralty had thought the operation so hazardous, he said, that at one in the morning it had told the flotilla captain he must be the sole judge. In this hard fight, he added, half the combatant vessels on each side had been knocked out.

On April 13, Vice-Admiral Whitworth went up the fjord again with the battleship *Warspite* and a force of destroyers. His report says that seven or eight enemy destroyers and one submarine, the whole German naval force present, were sunk without the loss of a British ship.

That evening he signalled that the enemy in Narvik had been thoroughly frightened and recommended that the main landing force, then at sea, occupy the town without delay. As for the moment, all he could put ashore was fewer than 200 tired seamen and marines, against not less than 2,000 professional German soldiers. He did not land them.

On April 22, Raeder looked back. He had always opposed leaving destroyers in the northern ports, he said, and he had been proved right. On the first day the destroyers at Narvik had not finished refuelling, because the second tanker, delayed by the Norwegians, had not arrived. From then on their fate was sealed.

Earlier he had called the destroyers helpless at Narvik, as a reason not to leave them there. In the end they stayed anyway, because their tanks were not yet full.

VIII. Retaken in Order to Leave

The British then sent a combined naval and military expedition. Lord Cork, appointed to command the naval force, remembered the government's wish clearly: to turn the enemy out of Narvik at the earliest possible moment.

The fighting went on for more than a month. On the night of May 24, Cork received orders from the Chiefs of Staff: the forces in northern Norway were to be evacuated as soon as possible, because the troops, ships and guns were urgently needed to defend the United Kingdom. Evacuation would be easier, the message went on, if the enemy were largely destroyed or captured. Moreover, the destruction of the railways and the Narvik port facilities made the town's capture highly desirable.

On the night of May 27 to 28, covered by the fire of three cruisers and five destroyers, a Norwegian battalion and two battalions of the French Foreign Legion crossed the fjord and landed. Narvik was freed that day. At 10 p.m. the French commander, General Béthouart, reported that Narvik was in his hands, with about 200 prisoners, a number that later rose to 350 or 400.

The town had been taken back. The order to leave had already come.

Epilogue

On June 7, Norwegian troops began their attack on Dietl's last mountain positions. The first day went well. At this point the official account adds a remark in brackets: from the Norwegian positions you could see the Swedes marking the border with flags.

That was where the ore railway ran.

That night the brigades, without any warning, were ordered to break off the offensive and withdraw north for demobilisation. The same day the King and the government left for Britain. At midnight on June 10 the fighting stopped.

The battery that both navies had gone looking for never appeared on the Norwegian garrison list.

Sources and Editorial Boundaries

1. Norwegian official account of the fighting: J. H. Nordlie, "Kort oversikt over kampene i Norge våren 1940," in Innstilling fra Undersøkelseskommisjonen av 1945, Bilag, vol. 1 (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1947), appendix no. 2, pp. 94–97, 116, read page by page in the Internet Archive scan (page images of PDF pp. 47, 48 and 58 checked against the OCR): https://archive.org/details/InstillingUnderskelsesKommisjonen1945Bilag1 . Used: Bonte leaving the battleships at about 20:00 Norwegian time on April 8 with ten destroyers, to land mountain troops at about 4 a.m., the battleships staying off Lofoten; the warning passed via the Third Naval District at Tromsø that the British Admiralty expected a German operation against Narvik around midnight; Askim's three patrol boats, Kelt's report at about 3:20 of nine German destroyers; Eidsvold outside the harbour mouth, Norge at the quay to keep the telephone; the last-minute telephone order to fire on German but not British ships; three destroyers to Herjangen for Elvegårdsmoen and two for the "presumed" (formodede) batteries protecting the entrance to the ore town; sighting at 1,000 m in snow squalls, stop signal and warning shot, the parley with Willoch, refusal after conferring with Askim, the German light signal, two torpedoes, 194 aboard and 8 saved, and Askim's report of April 20, 1940 supposing the magazines exploded; about 25 merchant ships, ore carriers and tankers, and the German crew who fired and beached their own ship; Norge's 5 rounds of 21 cm and 7–8 of 15 cm, three torpedo salvos of two, capsizing in 10–15 seconds at about 5 a.m., 199 aboard and 97 saved; Sundlo's order from Fleischer to hold the town; the garrison list; reinforcement from Elvegårdsmoen; the 1 a.m. order; Spjeldnes; Dietl's account to Sundlo and the surrender; p. 116, the crossing on the night to May 28 and liberation that day, the Polish attack at Ankenes, the June 7 attack and the bracketed remark about the Swedes marking the border with flags, the order on the night to June 8, the King and government leaving on June 7, and the end of fighting at midnight on the night to June 10.

2. Same volume, appendix no. 1, Helge Sivertsen, "Tysklands planer om overfall på Norge," p. 82 (page image checked): group 1, Narvik, Commodore Bonte, 10 destroyers with about 2,000 men of the 3rd Mountain Division. From p. 44: the German memorandum annexed to the directive of April 7 for the German minister in Oslo, Bräuer, to be handed to the Norwegian government on the day of the attack, including the aim attributed to Britain and France "durch die Besetzung von Narvik [Deutschland] von seiner nördlichen Erzzufuhr abzuschneiden" (read from OCR and context; used only for its sense).

3. Same volume, appendix no. 3, Arne Bergsgård, "Utrikspolitikk," pp. 237, 260–261 (page images checked). P. 237: Bull's question in Stockholm and the Swedish answer that 20 percent of Swedish ore went via Narvik (the OCR reads 30; the page image reads 20), another 10 percent could go by the Baltic, halving Narvik's exports; Colban's comment is footnoted January 30 (London no. 208), so the talk took place in January 1940. P. 260: Colban's statistics for the British press on March 30, "kanskje meir enn 9/10" of Swedish ore for Germany via Luleå and other Swedish ports, Narvik exports to Britain up from 99,000 to 475,000 tons and to Germany down from 132,000 to 70,000 tons between February 1939 and February 1940. Pp. 260–261: Scheel's letter from Berlin of March 28, "Såvidt vites, går ca. 50 % av den svenske jernmalmeksport til Tyskland over Narvik."

4. Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945, Admiralty translation, in Brassey's Naval Annual 1948, read in the Internet Archive OCR text: https://archive.org/details/brasseys-naval-annual-1948-ocr . Used: report of February 23, 1940, item 5 (Hitler's question and Raeder's answer, with the 2.5–3.5 million tons); March 9 (ore transport from Narvik interrupted until further notice); March 26 (British aim to cut off imports from Narvik, cut off at least for a time even if Weserübung is carried out); March 29 private conference ("In Narvik destroyers are helpless"; Hitler gives up the idea); April 10, noon (the garbled message at 06:04, troops without artillery, no supply ships, Swedish railways); April 22 (the refuelling and the second tanker; "The absence of the coastal battery assumed to be at the entrance to Narvik rendered the situation particularly unfavourable"); Rosenberg's memorandum of December 1939 on Quisling's visit, with the letter attributed to "Colonel Sunlo" and its signature "Konrad Sunlo," and the remark about Hambro. All are English translations; the German originals were not read. The editors' own ore statistics in that volume are not used.

5. London Gazette supplement no. 38005 (July 3, 1947): Commander H. F. Layman's narrative of the First Battle of Narvik, forwarded by Rear Admiral R. H. C. Hallifax on April 25, 1940; Lieutenant-Commander R. E. Courage's report from HMS Havock; Vice-Admiral W. J. Whitworth's report on April 13. Scan at https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/LondonGazette/38005.pdf . Used: the stop off Tranøy at about 16:00; the 17:51 message; "No permission to attack was asked or further instructions sought"; the Admiralty reply 0136/10; the orders for Hotspur and Havock against batteries "reported on Framnesodden"; the passage, the arrival at 04:15; Hardy's attack and complete surprise; 24 torpedoes; the estimate of enemy ships; the 05:51 enemy report and the 05:55 signal "Keep on engaging enemy"; the shell on the bridge, Stanning, the beaching, Hunter and Hotspur; Hostile and Havock turning back; Rauenfels; 160 men ashore, Ballangen and Ivanhoe; North Cornwall's crew on the four destroyers, one alongside the ore pier; Whitworth on seven or eight destroyers and one submarine sunk without loss of a British ship, fewer than 200 seamen and marines against not less than 2,000 German soldiers, "thoroughly frightened," and his recommendation to occupy the town with the main landing force.

6. London Gazette supplement no. 38011 (July 10, 1947), Lord Cork's despatch of July 1940, pp. 3167, 3175–3176: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/LondonGazette/38011.pdf . Used: his appointment on April 10 and the government's wish "to turn the enemy out of Narvik at the earliest possible moment"; the Chiefs of Staff message received on the night of May 24/25 ("Moreover, destruction of railways and Narvik port facilities make its capture highly desirable"); Béthouart's 22:00 report, about 200 prisoners, later 350–400.

7. London Gazette supplement no. 34868 (June 7, 1940), p. 3502, Warburton-Lee's Victoria Cross citation: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34868/supplement/3502/data.pdf . The citation gives the last signal as "Continue to engage the enemy," while Layman's narrative has "Keep on engaging enemy." The narrative uses Layman's wording; both are recorded here. Warburton-Lee was born on September 13, 1895 (per the UK National Archives catalogue entry for ADM 196/117/112; the record itself not read: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7615910 ), at Broad Oak, Redbrook, Maelor, Flintshire (per the VC and GC Association web page https://vcgca.org/our-people/profile/1626 , transcribing The Victoria Cross and George Cross: The Complete History, vol. 3; the book itself not checked).

8. Hansard, HC Deb 11 April 1940 vol 359 cc733–64, "The War at Sea": https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/apr/11/the-war-at-sea . Used: Churchill on the 1 a.m. message and "half the combatant vessels were knocked out on each side."

9. C. J. Hambro, I Saw It Happen in Norway (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1940), Internet Archive scan: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.536852 , pp. 193–196. Used: Narvik's importance misrepresented in propaganda, its weight as a hub of communications; his accounts of Eidsvold and Norge; "There was no garrison at Narvik, and, of course, no commander. The story that the commander was a traitor and handed the town over to the Germans is purely fictitious."

10. Boundaries: (1) The battery: "reported" (Layman), "formodede" (Nordlie), "assumed" and absent (Raeder, April 22), and small batteries firing (Hambro). Nordlie's garrison list has blockhouses at Framnesodden. The narrative says only that the list contains no coastal battery; it does not claim that no gun fired from shore that night. (2) German destroyers: 10 (Sivertsen), 9 (Kelt), 6 (Warburton-Lee's message), seven or eight present on April 13 (Whitworth). Each is given as its source has it. (3) Losses: Eidsvold 194 aboard, 8 saved (Nordlie) or over 200, 8 saved (Hambro); Norge 199 aboard, 97 saved (Nordlie) or about 200, about 90 saved (Hambro). The two also differ on how the ships were sunk and on German losses. (4) The ore figures (20 percent, about 50 percent, under one-tenth, 2.5–3.5 million tons a year) measure different things and are not converted. (5) Sundlo: the letter was produced by Quisling, recorded by Rosenberg and read here only in the Admiralty's English translation; neither the German memorandum nor the letter was seen. Sundlo's postwar case was not checked and is not discussed. The translation spells him "Sunlo." (6) Times: British report times carry no stated zone; the German 06:04 is German time (Germany was then on summer time, one hour ahead of Norwegian time) and is not converted. (7) Bonte's death and the names and fates of individual German destroyers are not recorded in the primary sources read here and are not described. (8) Whitworth's "without the loss of a British ship" is his wording; his report also gives 28 killed and 55 wounded on the British side, not used in the narrative.

11. Rights: the Norwegian commission's appendices, the London Gazette and Hansard are official publications; the Admiralty translation in Brassey's and Hambro's 1940 book are used for facts and brief quotation only; the narrative is original. Translations of Norwegian are the author's.