Special Operations in Norway by Ian Herrington

Author:Ian Herrington [Herrington, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Western, Military, World War II, Modern, 20th Century
ISBN: 9781350192645
Google: ftV7zQEACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2021-01-28T01:12:58+00:00

Chapter 8

SOE and the Liberation of Norway, 1944–5: Operations in the Shadow of Overlord

The nature and scale of the SOE’s operations in Norway changed significantly in the months leading up to the German capitulation in May 1945. By the summer of 1944, Norway was firmly entrenched in the shadow of events on the mainland of Europe, which meant it remained sidelined and isolated. Consequently, uncertainty continued over its eventual liberation, especially while over 300,000 German military and civilian personnel remained in the country. Alongside this, with the end of the war in Europe in sight, post-war considerations also became significant. Norway’s future economic prosperity and the transition to lawful, constitutional government, therefore, became additional factors that had an important impact on the make-up of special operations in the country during the final year of its occupation.

From the summer of 1944, the contribution of sabotage changed and instead of preparing the way for Overlord it became directly supportive to Allied operations on the continent. Anything considered of immediate importance in sustaining German resistance or a potential threat to the Allied campaign became a target, including the units of the 20th Mountain army that began to withdraw from Norway in the autumn of 1944.

Moreover, from September 1944, SHAEF decided that precedence should be given to arming, equipping, preparing and preserving resistance groups as a local force for protection and law and order during the potentially uncertain period after a collapse of German authority either centrally or in Norway, and before the arrival of regular troops from the continent. Consequently, through SFHQ, in collaboration with the Norwegian High Command (FO) and Milorg, a major effort was made to prepare the resistance, put in place a huge array of operations designed to protect industrial and economic sites from destruction and help facilitate a peaceful transfer of power back to the Norwegian authorities.

Political factors also had a particular significance during the final months of the occupation. Relations between SOE and the Norwegian authorities had by this stage become extremely close and the leadership of Milorg looked to FO for direction. All parties were committed to the shared aim of assisting Norway’s liberation and therefore SOE operations in 1944 and 1945 were built on a solid collaborative basis. Furthermore, events within Norway, the emergence and growing authority of Hjemmefrontens ledelse, the Home Front leadership, preparations for the approaching liberation, German backdoor efforts to conscript young Norwegians and the actions of Communist groups, all contributed to a decision to allow the direct involvement of Milorg units in sabotage. This resulted in a major intensification in attacks against military targets during the final months of the occupation. Nevertheless, the outcome of all these activities, especially preparations for the liberation, continued to be plagued by local and logistical difficulties and therefore despite a huge increase in the flow of resources to this theatre from the autumn of 1944, a fully armed, trained and prepared secret army was never fully created in Norway. The country’s marginal position ultimately meant that the whole process was left too late.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.