![]() ![]() They were no longer free.īritain responded immediately, sending the battleship Warspite and a flotilla of destroyers to the northern port of Narvik and landing an Anglo-French expeditionary force farther south.īut despite reinforcements and a delaying action by stubborn Norwegian forces, the invasion rapidly progressed. Within days the survivors were marching with dejected stares, two abreast, on country roads. ![]() The Norwegian army, only partially mobilized, was caught unprepared and overmatched in the mostly rural, mountainous countryside. That same day Adolf Hitler’s military machine overran Denmark in a matter of hours, and by sunset it was well on its way toward securing a foothold in Scandinavia. Behind them in successive waves came more than 1,000 Luftwaffe aircraft, six army divisions and a Kriegsmarine armada that included two of Nazi Germany’s most powerful battleships. German Fallschirmjägers, making the first opposed airborne assault in history, landed at desolate Sola Air Station just after dawn on April 9, 1940. ![]() The Wehrmacht invaded Norway with the swiftness of a spring wind and violence of an eagle rending its prey. How John Steinbeck Inspired the Resistance in WWII Close ![]()
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