by Tony Insall
The role of Milorg in the liberation of Norway
In late 1942 and early 1943, the Norwegian High Command began to consider what sort of role Milorg should play in the future liberation of Norway, in whatever form that might take place. There needed to be agreement about the command structure, too. These issues were debated in London and then discussed at a meeting in Sweden in May 1943 between representatives from Milorg and the Norwegian High Command. Milorg agreed that its future activities would be determined by the Allied Supreme Command, through the Norwegian High Command, whose authority it accepted. Its role would be to prepare, train and arm units for assistance to an Allied liberation force, and to maintain law and order after the German surrender in Norway.
The consequence of this was that Milorg’s involvement in sabotage actions would be restricted. Under the influence of its leader, Jens Chr. Hauge, it concentrated on improving its organisation and training, as well as developing a decentralised district structure. It had already been divided into fourteen districts (which later split into twenty-three) and further improved both control and security after earlier setbacks. Sabotage and raids would be carried out – but by groups operating from Britain against targets agreed by the Anglo-Norwegian Collaboration Committee (ANCC). This was a policy which was unlikely to appeal to war-weary young activists, impatient to be involved in opposing the occupiers. And it appealed to the communists even less.
Concerns about activities of the Communist resistance
While the Norwegian High Command was developing a closer relationship with Milorg, with policies which focused on more passive forms of resistance, the same was not true of the Norwegian communists. Although their numbers were small, they were well organised and disciplined. For much of the occupation, they kept their distance from other resistance groups. There were a few exceptions – Ole Halvorsen, the leader of SOE’s Wagtail, was a communist who with other members of the group unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the collaborator Henry Rinnan in 1943. SOE’s Razorbill, based in Bergen from September 1944, worked with both Milorg and the local communist organisation Saborg.4 There were, moreover, several communist sabotage groups. The most prominent was the Osvald group, led by Asbjørn Sunde, which operated mainly in the Oslo region. Attempts at coordination with Milorg only rarely achieved anything. There were some exceptions, though. For example, when consulted, Milorg supported the attack by Sunde’s group on the labour office in Pilestredet in Oslo in April 1943, in which Sunde himself was injured.5 But in general, the Norwegian government advised Milorg against negotiating with communist groups.6
The latter carried on alone. Some of their acts of sabotage led to reprisals against the rest of the population. A group led by Sunde attacked a train near Drammen in October 1943, killing both Germans and Norwegians. The Germans arrested sixty hostages, and though the local population responded to their demands by endorsing an appeal to denounce such acts, they still executed five of them.7 During the campaign to destroy labour records to prevent German attempts to force young Norwegians to mobilise, the communists also destroyed an office in Wergelandsveien in Oslo in May 1944. Three civilians were burned alive when the building was destroyed by fire, and another run down and killed by a vehicle driven by an escaping member of the group. When informing the Foreign Office, Wilson commented that Milorg had also selected the building as a target, but ruled out arson as they feared exactly what happened. ‘The result, however, was satisfactory in that the records were destroyed.’8 The communists were responsible for some very effective acts of sabotage, particularly an action in Oslo harbour in November 1944, which sank or badly damaged nearly 50,000 tons of shipping. They also put out of action the only loading crane in Norway which was capable of handling heavy tanks and artillery pieces.
Trygve Lie first brought up his concerns about communist sabotage with Collier in September 1942. At that time, he supported a passive policy on sabotage carried out by local resistance groups, and complained about the isolated sabotage activities of the communists. They needed to be coordinated, and moreover, this was not the right time to start such a campaign. He intended to raise the subject with the Russian embassy.9 But his approach had no effect. Their sabotage continued.
Communist resistance activities continued to cause concern both in London and also in Stockholm. Worried that their activities were increasing, the legation there suggested to the Foreign Office that it might be worth asking the Norwegian government to take steps to initiate a more active resistance, and to instruct Milorg to cooperate with the communists. Observing that SOE were providing them with small amounts of arms, Nutting concluded that the differences between the communists and Milorg were too deep for this to be feasible. SOE also pointed to concerns of German penetration of the communists. (Chapter 4 described how GC&CS were reading Abwehr reports of intercepted communist messages. SOE were presumably briefed about this in some form.) Nonetheless, Wilson thought that it would be worth asking Øen to explore this when he met the Milorg leadership in Sweden. Before he could do so, the Foreign Office learned that the communists had come out openly against the Milorg leadership, attacking them mainly for their opposition to intensified sabotage. Collier observed that Lie was not disturbed about this, as he would be pleased that Milorg were being pushed into an attitude of more positive opposition to German conscription measures. Nutting agreed, noting that the result of the campaign to oppose German mobilisation measures had encouraged Milorg to be drawn into closer cooperation with both the Norwegian government and SOE. ‘There now appears at long last to be a fusion of effort and policy such as we have not seen before.’
It is not easy to reconcile the conflicting statements given at the beginning of this chapter about SOE support for the communist resistance. References in Foreign Office files are scarce, though recently released papers dated three months later contain some additional details confirming what Nutting was told.10 No evidence is available in surviving SOE files to show how SOE may have delivered supplies to the communists, or in what terms they may have briefed the Norwegians about their activities.* Since Øen’s meeting took place later in 1944, after these comments by Northern Department, it seems quite feasible that SOE had made deliveries earlier than that, but stopped when it became apparent that they would not be supported by the resistance leadership in Oslo. Although the wording of the SOE history supports that interpretation, there is insufficient evidence to make a judgement. Records also show that the Foreign Office considered making its own protest to the Russians in May 1944. They asked SOE to establish the extent to which the Russians might have been supporting or controlling communist sabotage attempts. SOE reported that there was ‘no evidence of any Russian connection with this business’ and the Foreign Office decided not to take it further. We know (from Venona reporting after the war – see Chapter 3) that there was indeed evidence, but SOE could not have been aware of it then.
Øen reported in June on his meetings with Milorg. They were indeed worried about the activities of the communists. They had no contact with them, and were worried about the extent of their ability to recruit disaffected young Norwegians, particularly those who might have gone into hiding to avoid labour mobilisation, the device used by the Quisling government in an unsuccessful attempt to provide as many as 75,000 Norwegians to the Germans for service on the eastern Front in Russia. These concerns, and those of the Norwegian government, gradually diminished over the next few months, not least once Milorg was itself more engaged in organising active resistance and sabotage.11
Wider issues in Anglo-Norwegian relations
The change of staff at senior levels and the establishment of the ANCC in 1942 had led to significant progress in improving relations between SOE and the Norwegian High Command. But the improvement went beyond that into other areas. Collier informed Eden in June 1943 that Lie had commented favourably on the greatly improved prestige enjoyed by Norwegians in Britain, to such an extent that Norwegian officers in Scotland preferred to be attach
ed to British units, where they learned more and suffered less from personal jealousies, than to remain with Norwegian Army units.12 Collier also wrote a ‘very confidential’ and flattering appreciation of the position and influence of King Haakon, the importance of his position as a rallying point for Norwegians both at home and in exile, and the frankness with which he discussed the issues which concerned him. This gave Collier some valuable insights into current political issues, relations with Sweden (for King Haakon remained suspicious of King Gustav and Swedish motives) and the possibilities for post-war Atlantic collaboration.13
There were, of course, still difficulties. Air services remained a perpetually awkward issue, because it was never possible to provide sufficient aircraft to carry the large numbers of Norwegians who wanted to travel over to Britain, and probably frustrated the Foreign Office as much as it irritated the Norwegians. Nutting observed, ‘Lie forgets that unless we put a hundred aircraft on the route, we won’t solve the problem. One or two more won’t do.’14 There were tensions too when Lie sought Norwegian participation in third-party negotiations which affected Norwegian interests, such as the termination of German transit traffic through Sweden to Norway and the supply of Swedish locomotives to German-controlled Norwegian railways, or his reaction when he discovered that increased rates had been agreed for Swedish ships under charter to the British government, which could affect the interests of Norwegian shipping. An exasperated Orme Sargent commented that ‘Mr Lie is becoming a nuisance and must not be encouraged.’15 Lie was on rather firmer ground with his irritation at British obfuscation over Norwegian attempts to obtain materials for the rebuilding of industrial plant at Herøya and Rjukan, badly damaged by American bombing. These foundered because the Swedes would not grant export licences without Anglo-American agreement. The United States refused to agree, because it would be counter to Allied blockade policy, but the Foreign Office was not willing to divulge to the Norwegians that the Americans were the cause of the blockage.16 The issue which caused greatest Norwegian concern, of course, was the damage inflicted by Allied bombing raids which caused what they considered to be unnecessary civilian casualties in Rjukan and Bergen, as examined in Chapter 9.
Special Forces headquarters: amalgamation of FO.IV and SOE/OSS
As planning for D-day developed, the staffs of both SOE and OSS grew, as did their workloads. It was eventually agreed in May 1944 that the directorate of SOE concerned with northwest Europe would be integrated with its OSS counterpart as Special Forces headquarters (SF HQ). This revived the question of whether the Norwegian section FO.IV should also be included – something which Tronstad had long argued for, but which had previously been resisted on the grounds of restrictive security. Work was being impeded since the Norwegian office was south of Hyde Park, while SF HQ was to the north of Regent’s Park, some distance away. The only convenient meeting place was in the FO.IV flats in Chiltern Court, used mainly by the Linge Company. This led to serious congestion, with meetings having to be held not only in bedrooms, but also in kitchens and bathrooms too. In the end, common sense prevailed. When the Norwegian section of SF HQ moved to a larger building in Oxford Square in July 1944, it was agreed that FO.IV could also be accommodated there. Coordination improved significantly.
Preparations for liberation
Norwegians on both sides of the North Sea naturally wanted to see their country liberated as soon as possible. Some members of the resistance harboured unrealistic aspirations about how quickly this might happen. And Norwegian ministers in London could have been misled by the way in which Churchill (whose interest in Norway probably matched that of Hitler) flirted with the idea of making a landing in Norway. For example, he said to Nygaardsvold in September 1941, ‘We should attempt the liberation of Norway at the earliest possible moment.’ Later, he told him regretfully in February 1944 that ‘we ought, of course, to have liberated Norway in the campaign of 1943’.17 These were not mere musings. On more than one occasion Churchill directed the Chiefs of Staff to examine plans for an invasion of northern Norway. He was particularly interested in Operation JUPITER, which he first raised in June 1942 and which envisaged a landing in Finnmark with a force of four divisions. The attraction of such an operation was that it would meet a request from Stalin to complement Russian activity in northern Norway, and do so in a place where the Russians would be able to provide air cover from Murmansk. This could help to offset the significant risks to the British fleet which would be supporting it. However, the Canadian appointed to oversee the planning, General McNaughton, concluded that it would be an extremely hazardous operation, ‘only acceptable if politically the risks to be achieved were judged to be of the highest importance’. The plan was dropped. But to the dismay of the Chiefs of Staff, Churchill resurrected the idea in July 1943, suggesting it as a possible alternative or supplement to OVERLORD, the planned Allied landing in France. This time, it did not get very far and its consideration was crowded out by the pressure of other priorities. The Norwegians were aware of at least some of these ideas because they were invited to comment on the first paper in June 1942.18
It may have been partly for this reason – to maintain the idea of Norwegian liberation in a prominent position in the minds of the politicians and the planners – that Lie approached Eden in September 1943 with the request that Crown Prince Olav be appointed commander in chief of the Allied forces at some stage following their landing in Norway. Eden, who knew that Lie had already raised this with Roosevelt, replied that it would be difficult for him to be placed in charge of a force comprising troops from several different nations and led by professional soldiers, when important military operations were being carried out. He suggested instead that the crown prince might be appointed as head of the Norwegian military mission attached to the staff of the commander in chief. Eden put this idea to Churchill, who agreed.19 In the event, it did not happen, though in July 1944 Olav was appointed commander in chief of all Norwegian forces. Increasingly, contingents of Allied forces earmarked for Norway were removed to support campaigns against the Germans in other parts of Europe. There were not enough to spare to allocate to a country whose strategic importance gradually diminished, especially once the major elements of the German fleet were sunk or badly damaged – although U-boats operating from Norwegian bases continued to pose a threat to Allied convoys. As 1943 wore on, it became clearer to the Norwegian government that the liberation of Norway was most unlikely to take place until much later in the war.
The operation by the Soviet Army to liberate the north of Norway, which began in October 1944, created a further problem for the Norwegians. As they retreated through Finnmark in front of the Russians, the Germans carried out a scorched-earth policy, driving out the entire population and destroying their houses and means of livelihood. This created considerable hardship, leading Lie to tell Collier that 1944 had been the worst year for Norway since the invasion in 1940. He asked whether the Allies could arrange a landing around Trondheim, in case the Germans pursued their scorched-earth policy further, warning that he would press this objective with the utmost vigour.20 His request could not be met. Proposals for an expedition to Bodø, to cut off the Germans there, similarly foundered on a lack of resources. Matters were not helped by a lack of candour. The Chiefs of Staff were not willing to disclose to the Norwegians that they did not have the troops to make a landing in Norway and could not foresee when this might change. Eden asked the Chiefs of Staff to reconsider their refusal and wrote to Churchill on 24 December to gain his support. He wished to tell the Norwegians frankly – and very soon – what the constraints were not only for the immediate future, but also after the collapse of Germany. Churchill agreed, commenting that he regretted that nothing could be done until the Germans had surrendered. ‘Once they have capitulated I should be loath to accept the military view that we could not send 2,000 troops to help the population defend themselves against stray German marauders who would be left. At any rate we can give them arms.’21
While resources were not available for a landing in Norway, contingency planning began as early as mid-1943 to anticipate how to deal with different situations which might arise in occupied countries as the war ended, particularly if it did so unexpectedly. The overall plan was codenamed RANKIN, and three different scenarios were envisaged. RANKIN A covered circumstances where German forces became so weak that reconquest was judged feasible – the least likely of the three options for Norway. RANKIN B dealt with the contingency of a German withdrawal from some areas, so as to concentrate forces elsewhere, which it was thought they might need to do after OVERLORD. RANKIN C described a complete German collapse. Forces were originally earmarked for RANKIN B in Norway, and responsibility for the reconquest of Norway was reassigned to Scottish Command under Lieutenant-General Sir Andrew Thorne. The Norwegians were not initially told about RANKIN B because of the need to preserve the security of OVERLORD before the invasion took place. They were only briefed on RANKIN C.22 The decision to transfer responsibility to Scottish Command, further down the military pecking order and with less ability to debate directives issued to them from a higher command, caused significant Norwegian dissatisfaction. Hansteen observed to Lieutenant-General Frederick E. Morgan, then chief of staff to the General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, ‘We know more about Norway than the British, and it is our country, so we should be enabled to comment at an earlier stage.’23 Moreover, in the course of the summer of 1944, the forces allocated to Thorne gradually trickled away as they were reassigned elsewhere.† The Norwegians also found this hard to accept when they learned about it.