Unternehmen Weserübung - Norway Attacked

(Source)

Offiziersanwärter¹ Jürgen von Lüttwitz was with his squad in rugged terrain to the northwest of the Norwegian capital of Oslo. He had been sent to this division to gain more combat experience as part of his officer training. The 163rd was short of men, some of them had been aboard the Blücher when she went down on the approaches to Oslo in the early morning hours of the ninth of April. Jürgen was supposed to have been on that ship but had been swapped with another man at the last minute. So instead of drowning in a fjord, he was now shivering on a Norwegian hillside.

The men had left their greatcoats behind at the command of their company commander who had said, "We need to travel light and fast, leave your greatcoats and packs behind, we'll get them later."

Jürgen remembered seeing Oberfeldwebel Kurt Hartknoch grimace when the captain had said that. Later he had heard one of the other veterans mention that if they were lucky, their belongings might come up with the field kitchen in a day or two, more often then not, they wouldn't see those items for a week or more.

Though the weather was fairly mild, occasional snow squalls reminded them that winter wasn't quite finished in the Norwegian hills.

Jürgen was in charge of his squad's machine gun team, which consisted of him, a machine gunner, and two assistant gunners. It was their job to lay down fire while the rifle section maneuvered. So far they hadn't run into any Norwegian opposition outside of the terrain and the weather. Though, as Jürgen thought, that was more than enough to slow them down.

That was about to change.

Premierløitnant² Morten Henriksen was watching the small German column making its way up the valley, he estimated that it was company strength, which meant the Germans outnumbered his men by more than two to one. The Germans were also first line soldiers, young and fit, whereas his fifty men were reservists for the most part, in their forties and unused to military life.

But they were fit, one had to be to farm in these hills.

"Yngvar! Take your team down by the bend in the road where Olufsen's farm starts. Hold your fire until we start the party, greit?³"

"Sure thing!" With that, Yngvar Enger led his Madsen machine gun team down the hill, using a small gully to mask his men from German observation. Enger would peer up over the edge occasionally as they moved, when they reached the beginning of the Olufsen farm he had the men set up. Sure enough, about 150 meters away was the head of the German column. For some reason they had stopped.

One man, obviously an officer, was looking at a map and looking around. It was also obvious that the man was lost.

"Eivind, think you can hit that fellow with the map?"

Eivind Gandrud looked down the sights of his Krag–Jorgensen rifle, adjusted the back sight for the range, then nodded, "I can hit that man Yngvar, he's dead if you want that."

"Greit, boys get ready, after Eivind kills the officer, shoot the rest of those Germans, as many as you can. Go ahead Eivind, take your shot."

Hauptmann Claus König looked up from his map, recognized a landmark to his west, as he turned to tell his 1st Platoon what he wanted them to do, he stumbled and gasped. Leutnant Christian Möller watched in shock as his company commander coughed and blood poured down the front of his tunic. What the Hell was going on?

Jürgen was just behind the lead element of the column with his machine gun team, these men were all new to combat, only he had any experience. He saw the captain fall on his face in the middle of the trail, so he bellowed out, "COVER! Enemy to the right! Return fire!"

Möller was about to chastise the young Offiziersanwärter for giving commands when he heard the chatter of an enemy machine gun. Möller died confused as the Norwegian gunner walked his fire right into the group clustered around Hauptmann König's body.

Henriksen's first thought had been that Gandrud's ambush, though hastily set up was nearly perfect. The Germans were milling about on the farm track, obviously confused. As he prepared to have his men begin advancing in short rushes under the cover of Gandrud's gun he heard a sound familiar to many a veteran. The ripping sound of a German MG 34 machine gun.

Some of the Germans knew their business.

Hartknoch yelled at Jürgen to take his squad to the right and set up along a slight berm. From there he figured they'd be able to bring down fire on the Norwegian gun which had gutted the company's leadership. Von Lüttwitz looked around, saw that his squad leader was one of those men lying dead on the track. He immediately took action.

"3rd Squad! To me, wheel right, take up position along the berm!"

Within moments a rising volume of fire went out to the company's right flank, even as Hartknoch had 2nd Squad's MG 34 laying down fire to their front.

Halvard Bronstad grunted then dropped to the ground, other men were also hit when the German gun began returning fire. Enger realized immediately that the Germans were reacting far quicker than he thought they would. The loss of so many officers would have paralyzed a Norwegian unit.

Now Enger realized that if he wanted to save the remainder of his men, they had to withdraw. As they fell back, again using the gulley as cover, Enger looked towards where Henriksen had been advancing, there were a lot of men down, the rest were throwing down their arms and surrendering.

Time to head into the mountains, Enger thought. We've lost this battle.

Little did he know that Norway was rapidly losing the war as well.

"Well done von Lüttwitz!" Hartknoch slapped Jürgen on the back as he said that. For the moment Hartknoch was the acting company commander, all of the officers were down, two of them dead, the third badly wounded. The only survivor was Leutnant Thomas Herrmann who was still at battalion and hadn't come along on this patrol.

The company, which had taken twelve killed and seventeen wounded, was in the village which had been their original objective. The rumors of it being occupied by a Norwegian reserve company had been true, all save fifteen of them were now prisoners of war, or dead on the field.

"Schmitz!" Hartknoch bellowed for one of the company messengers.

"Jawohl Herr Oberfeldwebel!" Schmitz reported.

Hartknoch was scribbling a message on a slip of paper, when he was done he handed it to Schmitz, "Take this to battalion, the paper has the details but tell Major Neumann that we have secured the objective."

As Schmitz turned to head back down the track, Hartknoch said, "Also ask if we could please have our f**king rucksacks and greatcoats brought up. We have no rations and it's getting colder. Now go! Go!"

Jürgen waited for a moment before telling Hartknoch, "One of the men found a bakery, just a street over, they have bread."

Hartknoch grinned and clapped Jürgen on the back again, "Officer? Hell, they should make you a f**king field marshal! Good job, let's get the boys set up and get that bread distributed. It's going to be a long night!"

¹ Officer candidate at the Gefreiter (acting corporal) level

² First Lieutenant (Norwegian Army)

³ Okay? (Norwegian)