Battles of Narvik (1940): The Fight for Norway's Iron Ore Port

The Battles of Narvik were a series of naval and land engagements fought for the northern Norwegian port of Narvik between 10 April and 8 June 1940, during the German invasion of Norway. The Royal Navy destroyed a German destroyer flotilla in two battles in Ofotfjord, and Norwegian, British, French and Polish troops later retook the town. It was the Allies’ first significant land victory of the Second World War, but events in France forced them to abandon it within days.

Background: iron ore and neutral Norway

Narvik mattered because of iron. Ore from the mines at Kiruna and Gällivare in Sweden ran by rail to Narvik, an ice-free port, and was shipped south along the Norwegian coast to Germany. Both sides knew that this traffic was important to the German war economy, especially in winter.

Britain planned to mine Norwegian waters to stop the ore ships, and laid minefields on 8 April 1940. Germany had its own plan, Operation Weserübung, and on 9 April launched the German invasion of Norway. At Narvik, ten German destroyers under Commodore Friedrich Bonte landed about 2,000 mountain troops commanded by Generalmajor Eduard Dietl. Two elderly Norwegian coastal defence ships, Eidsvold and Norge, were torpedoed and sunk with heavy loss of life, and the town was taken.

The first naval battle, 10 April

At dawn on 10 April five British destroyers led by Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee in HMS Hardy entered Ofotfjord in a snowstorm. They surprised the Germans in the harbour, sinking two destroyers and several merchant ships. Bonte was killed.

As the British withdrew, other German destroyers from side fjords attacked them. HMS Hunter was sunk and Hardy was run aground; Warburton-Lee was mortally wounded. He received a posthumous Victoria Cross, the first gazetted in the war.

The second naval battle, 13 April

Three days later Vice-Admiral William Whitworth led the battleship HMS Warspite and nine destroyers up the fjord. The surviving eight German destroyers, short of fuel and ammunition, were all sunk or scuttled. A Swordfish floatplane from Warspite sank the submarine U-64 in Herjangsfjord. Germany lost half of its destroyer force at Narvik, a blow felt in the summer of 1940.

The land campaign

Dietl’s troops, reinforced by surviving sailors and later by paratroops, held the town and the railway. Against them were the Norwegian 6th Division under General Carl Gustav Fleischer, British troops, French Chasseurs alpins and Foreign Legion units under General Antoine Béthouart, and the Polish Podhale Brigade. Command was divided and progress slow in deep snow and mountainous terrain.

Over May the Allies gradually tightened their grip. Norwegian troops pushed the Germans back in the mountains north-east of the town, while French and Polish units advanced along the fjords. Dietl’s position became precarious, and German plans were made for his men to cross into neutral Sweden if necessary. Lieutenant-General Claude Auchinleck took over command of the Allied land forces in the area in mid-May.

On 28 May 1940 Allied troops landed and retook Narvik, driving the Germans east towards the Swedish border. By then, however, the German offensive in the west had broken through in France, and the Dunkirk evacuation was under way.

Withdrawal and the loss of HMS Glorious

The Allies decided to withdraw. Between 4 and 8 June about 25,000 troops were evacuated in secret. On 8 June the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau caught the carrier HMS Glorious and the destroyers Ardent and Acasta, sinking all three; more than 1,500 men died. Norway’s government and King Haakon VII left for Britain, and the Norwegian forces in the north capitulated on 10 June. Dietl’s troops reoccupied Narvik.

Consequences and legacy

The Norwegian campaign as a whole was a defeat for the Allies, and the political fallout contributed to the fall of Neville Chamberlain’s government in May 1940. Yet the naval battles cost Germany heavily, and the losses in destroyers and damaged cruisers reduced the forces available for any invasion of Britain later that year.

Narvik itself was badly damaged and remained under German occupation until 1945. The town’s war museum and the wrecks still lying in the fjord recall the fighting, and many Norwegian, British, French, Polish and German dead are buried locally.

Timeline

• 1940, 8 April: British destroyers lay mines in Norwegian waters.
• 1940, 9 April: German destroyers land troops at Narvik; Eidsvold and Norge are sunk.
• 1940, 10 April: First naval battle; Warburton-Lee’s destroyers attack the harbour.
• 1940, 13 April: Second naval battle; Warspite’s force destroys the remaining German destroyers.
• 1940, 28 May: Allied troops recapture Narvik.
• 1940, 4–8 June: Allied forces evacuate northern Norway.
• 1940, 8 June: HMS Glorious, Ardent and Acasta are sunk.
• 1940, 10 June: Norwegian forces in northern Norway capitulate.

Why it matters

Narvik showed both the power of the Royal Navy in confined waters and the weakness of poorly coordinated Allied land operations in 1940. Its German destroyer losses had a lasting effect on the naval balance, while its brief recapture became a symbol of Allied cooperation in a year of defeats.