The desperate naval struggle for an ice-free harbour that defined the Norwegian campaign.
In April 1940, the remote town of Narvik became the site of a brutal naval and land conflict. As Allied and German forces fought to control vital iron ore shipments, the Kriegsmarine lost half its destroyer strength in a series of desperate, fuel-starved battles within the treacherous, snow-covered Ofotfjord.
Narvik was a strategic prize because it offered an ice-free North Atlantic harbour for iron ore transported by rail from Kiruna, Sweden. Both the Allies and Germany sought to secure this supply, leading to a massive confrontation. On 9 April 1940, German forces launched Operation Weserübung, sending ten destroyers to occupy the port. The initial defense fell to two aging Norwegian coastal ships, Eidsvold and Norge, which were quickly overwhelmed and sunk by German torpedoes, resulting in the deaths of 175 and 101 sailors respectively.
The British Royal Navy responded with two major sorties. On 10 April, the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla surprised the German fleet, sinking two destroyers and several merchant ships before losing two of their own vessels. By 13 April, Vice Admiral William Whitworth arrived with the battleship HMS Warspite. In a decisive engagement, the remaining German destroyers—already crippled by fuel shortages and low ammunition—were either sunk or scuttled by their own crews. During this action, a Fairey Swordfish launched from Warspite sank the U-64, marking the first time an aircraft from a battleship destroyed a submarine.
Despite these naval victories, the Germans maintained control of the town. The surviving 2,600 German sailors formed an improvised unit called the Gebirgsmarine, fighting alongside mountain troops using weapons captured from a Norwegian supply base. While the Allies eventually outnumbered the Norwegians in the region, the broader Allied evacuation from Norway in June 1940, triggered by the Battle of France, ultimately handed the strategic advantage to the Germans. By the time the campaign ended on 8 June, the fighting had seen five nations involved in a conflict that, for a brief period in May, represented the only active land theatre of the Second World War.
Source: Battles of Narvik
