Battle of Hegra Fortress
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Hegra Fortress was a twenty-five day engagement in the 1940 Norwegian Campaign
which saw a small force of Norwegian volunteers fighting superior German forces. After initial fighting around the Meråker Line railway line, the Norwegians pulled back into Hegra Fortress
and held off further German attacks before surrendering on 5 May as one of the last Norwegian units active in southern Norway.
defenders were 250 volunteer soldier
s and the volunteer nurse Anne Margrethe Bang
. Most of the volunteers that served at Hegra were from the area Hegra
/Stjørdal
/Trondheim
, but they also included three Swedes.
The garrison at Hegra was equipped with small arms (Krag-Jørgensen
rifles and carbines), as well as Madsen
and Colt M/29 machine gun
s.
The fortress also had artillery
, four 10.5 cm (4.13 in) and two 7.5 cm (2.95 in) positional pieces of reasonably modern make in half-turrets
; as well as four Krupp m/1887 8.4 cm (3.31 in) field gun
s. The artillery had a maximum range of between six and nine kilometres.
Many of these men had been mobilized to Artillery Regiment no. 3 at Øyanmoen army camp at Værnes Air Station
and were brought to Hegra to continue the mobilization after the Germans had reached their camp. The fortress at Hegra was originally only intended as a temporary refuge for the artillery regiment, but ended up as the centre of the volunteers' war in 1940.
of the German/Austrian 138. Gebirgsjägerregiment (part of the 3. Gebirgsdivision), which landed in Trondheim
on 9 April.
Later, from 20 April to 27 April, the Germans substituted the 138. Gbg. Rgt. with units from the 181. Infantry Division
and the 138. Gebirgsjäger were sent north to try to relieve their comrades at the Narvik Front.
The old mothballed fort at Ingstadkleiva that was to become known as Hegra Fortress was not intended by any of the parties as a battlefield. It only became of importance when the Norwegian artillery major Hans Reidar Holtermann
started organising troops to resist the German invasion forces which had been landed at Trondheim. Holtermann first travelled to the army camp at Værnes to mobilize his Artillery Regiment no. 3. This mobilisation began at 14:00 on 9 April 1940, but the Germans landed at Stjørdal Rail Station the very next day, and by 10:30 approached the camp. As his forces were not combat ready, Holtermann had to evacuate and move to what was at that point known as Ingstadkleiva Fort to complete his mobilisation. Thus, at 15:00 on 10 April 1940, most of the personnel and equipment under Holtermann's command arrived at the small mountain fortification of Ingstadkleiva Fort. At this point, Holtermann was given orders to proceed with the mobilisation and otherwise do what he himself thought best. Holtermann thus began to gather and equip a fighting force of local volunteers. After arriving at the fort Holtermann first took residence in the buildings outside the mountain fortifications, not intending to defend the facility, only use it as a temporary base.
n and Mælen bridge, and the first German attempt at making the fortress surrender was carried out. A German Major
approached the fortress together with two Norwegian officers who had given up the same day. Despite the best efforts by both the German officer and the two surrendered Norwegians, Holtermann refused to capitulate. The next day, 13 April, Major Holtermann achieved contact with his superiors at the 5th Division for the last time during the Norwegian Campaign. Through a telephone conversation, the commander of the force at Hegra was told to act as he saw best and, if possible, to hinder the Germans in gaining control of the Meråkerbanen railway line
to Sweden. In response to these orders, 20 soldiers were sent to the village of Flornes to set up field fortification
s and block the road and railway to Meråker
.
railway station
and was on its way to Hegra. Not long after a train approached Hegra Station and ignored signals to stop. In response to what was interpreted as a German troop train trying to force its way through, the soldiers guarding the station opened fire on the approaching train. In what turned out to be a tragic incident of misidentification, a civilian train carrying Finnish refugees on their way home after the end of the Winter War
was fired upon with one Norwegian man killed and two Finnish women wounded. Later that afternoon, the garrison's sole female came on the scene when nurse Anne Margrethe Bang from Trondheim arrived at the fortress bearing a load of medical supplies with her. The daughter of a doctor and trained in first aid
, Ms. Bang would stay in the fortress for the duration of the siege, helping two military doctors in caring for the sick and wounded.
. The aircraft sustained damage and was driven away. More equipment and ammunition was removed from Værnes and brought to the fortress the same day.
under fire. At Mælen bridge, the guards withdrew to the south. Four Norwegian soldiers fell in and around Hegra, while one lost his life at Mælen bridge.
at Hegra telegraph
station acted as an observer
for the artillery men at the fortress. As a result of the bombardment from the fortress, three German guns were knocked out and casualties inflicted on the attacking force.
Hans-Joachim Herrmann. As the Norwegians were going through the area to seize German arms and equipment, they found the German Gefreiter
Hugo Bayerle. Bayerle had been hit in both thighs, sustaining a broken femur, and was bleeding profusely. The Norwegian troops brought him on a ski sled
to the fortress for medical care.
aircraft had repeatedly overflown Hegra Fortress. The Norwegian troops had fired on the aircraft with both rifles and machine guns, damaging one aircraft, which crashed while performing an emergency landing
at Værnes.
. He was the last Norwegian fatality of the battle
At 09:00, a large force of German infantry attacked from the north-east, supported by machine gun positions situated a mere 150 m (164 yd) north of the fortress. The progress of the attack was only halted when it reached the barbed wire entanglements
directly in front of the Norwegian trenches
. At this point, the attacking force was subjected to heavy fire at close range from artillery, machine guns and riflemen, and thrown back. German bombers kept on hitting the fortress throughout the day, knocking out both the telephone line and the electricity supply. Neither came back into operation during the siege. From then until the end of the battle, all light inside the Norwegian tunnels and halls was provided by candles and nine kerosene lamp
s.
fire during the early daylight hours. A battalion of infantry was brought forward towards the fortress, but was hit by a blizzard
while marching through no man's land
. As the attacking units lost their bearing in the storm, fire fights erupted between groups of Germans mistaking each other for Norwegian patrols and the whole enterprise collapsed before reaching the Norwegian positions. Bombers and heavy calibre artillery pieces kept up steady fire against the fortress throughout the day.
fell to the Germans on 21 April and the allied advance from the north was checked. The southern arm of the allied counter-attack had never swung north from Åndalsnes and had instead been sent to the Gudbrandsdal
to support the Norwegian forces there. As the immediate crisis had passed for the German force in Trondheim, they preferred to push south to link up with forces coming up from Oslo
rather than dealing with a small fortress tunnelled into the mountains and covered by more than a metre of rotten snow. The focus of the Wehrmacht became to bombard Hegra Fortress with artillery and air power to try to pummel it into submission.
was broken. The second 7.5 cm gun was destroyed on 24 April. The fortress was under constant artillery fire and held out chiefly to be in a position to support the allied
offensive expected from the north
.
On 25 April, the Germans employed a new weapon against the fortress when a seaplane
dropped a 1800 kg (3,968.3 lb) bomb, annihilating the houses outside the walls with shrapnel ending up in Hegra village several kilometres away. From 29 April, the artillery bombardment steadily increased in strength, with German guns reinforced by captured Norwegian 12 cm (4.7 in) howitzer
s from the armoury
in Trondheim, and the next day one of the three 10.5 cm guns at the fortress was knocked out. During the siege, a total of over 2,300 shells rained down on Hegra Fortress.
One way that Holtermann wanted to directly support the main war effort in Norway was to bombard Værnes Air Base, the northernmost airfield in German hands and vital for the support of German forces north of Trondheim. This was particularly so for the Narvik front
, which could not be reached by aircraft flying from further south than Værnes. Recognising this, the Germans had hired some 2,000 Norwegian collaborationist
labourers to work full time at expanding and improving the air strip. Bombarding Værnes would both have disrupted this work and impaired the bombing raids being flown against Norwegian forces fighting to the north. However, since Værnes is 11.5 km (7.1 mi) from Hegra, and the fortress' guns only had a maximum range of some 9 km (5.6 mi), this was impossible. For accurate firing, the effective range was a mere 6.9 km (4.3 mi), as that was the range of the artillery's height angle meter. Efforts were made at the fortress to increase the elevation of the guns from 19° to 26° by removing part of the gun shields, and part of the gun mounting, but these failed as no welding
equipment could be acquired to carry out the modifications. Even though no modifications could be carried out, one of the 10.5 cm guns at Hegra opened up in the direction of Værnes on 22 April. With the gun firing at maximum elevation, the rounds still fell hundreds of metres short of their intended target.
The earliest attempt by the Hegra garrison to attack the airfield at Værnes had occurred on 14 April, when a Norwegian dog sled
patrol spotted massive German air activity at the air base. Plans were made to manhandle one of the fortress' 8.4 cm field guns to a nearby hill called Blankhammeren, and from there bombard German targets out of range from the fortress itself, including the strategically important airfield. The plan, however, could not be carried out before the German attack of 15 April brought large German infantry forces into the area and rendered the plans infeasible.
on 22 April and 2 May, and that in The Manchester Guardian
on 16 April. The fortress was also mentioned in articles in Time
magazine on 6 May and 13 May.
As news came in over the radio on 2 May of the allied retreat from the Åndalsnes area
, that the Germans had seized control of the Dovrebanen
railway line from Dombås
to Støren
, and of the surrender of the Norwegian 4th Brigade in Western Norway. This came on top of increasing supply problems, with the bread supply already having run out on 30 April. The next day, 3 May, the garrison started demolishing the artillery ammunition in preparation for surrender. The three Swedish volunteers that had endured the siege with the Norwegians were also released from their duties and guided across the mountains to the Swedish border by a ski patrol. During the day, a radio message from Colonel Ole Berg Getz—the Norwegian commander in the Trøndelag area—was broadcast. Getz had surrendered his forces in Nord-Trøndelag
and advised all Norwegian forces in Trøndelag to lay down their arms as the situation had become hopeless after the British retreat from the southern parts of Norway. The decision to surrender Trøndelag had been influenced by Neville Chamberlain
's radio message that day announcing the end of the allied campaign in Southern Norway On 4 May, destruction of radios, machine guns, carbines and other small arms was initiated and ski patrols were sent out carrying loads of important documents. By 1350hrs that day confirmation of Colonel Getz's capitulation was received and the destruction of the fortress' artillery began.
. At 05:00, Major Holtermann had his men assemble in the tunnels and relayed to them his decision to surrender the fortress. In a short speech, he thanked them for their efforts and then led them in singing the Norwegian National Anthem
. By 05:25, the white flag was raised over the fortress, and at 06:30 a force of 60 German soldiers and three officers— led by one Hauptmann
Giebel— arrived to accept the surrender. Later that day, 190 men and one woman marched out of the fortress and into captivity. At the surrender, the garrison at Hegra Fortress consisted of 14 officers, one technical officer, seven sergeants, one officer cadet, six corporals, 161 privates and nurse Anne Margrethe Bang.
After the surrender, the Norwegians were marched down to Hegra railway station from where they were transported by train. In Trondheim, the officers and Anne Margrethe Bang were taken off the train and interned at Trondheim katedralskole
secondary school while the NCO
s and soldiers continued their voyage to Lundamo
in Gauldalen valley. At Lundamo, the prisoners where interned in a barn for the night. The next day, 6 May, the prisoners from Hegra were force-marched for 50 km (31.1 mi) to Berkåk
where a PoW camp
was established. At Berkåk, the prisoners were set at work at building an improvised road from the river Orkla near Berkåk across the woods to Brattset. The road was intended to help the German logistic system that had been severely hampered by the numerous bridges that had been blown by the Norwegian Army during the preceding month. Due in part to the poor physical condition of the prisoners after the harsh siege they had just experienced, the road was never completed despite threats of punishment made by the German camp commander. At the end of May the German High Command in Berlin
announced that Adolf Hitler
had personally ordered the release of Norwegian PoWs as an act of recognition of the defence they had put up under difficult conditions. The release of the prisoners from Hegra happened in groups and by mid-June the last PoWs had been let go.
, Norwegian estimates of the number of Germans casualties were exaggerated, some spoke of up to 1,100 dead or wounded. Later research has however led to a somewhat lower number, at about 150 to 200 Wehrmacht soldiers KIA and WIA at Hegra.
Norwegian Campaign
The Norwegian Campaign was a military campaign that was fought in Norway during the Second World War between the Allies and Germany, after the latter's invasion of the country. In April 1940, the United Kingdom and France came to Norway's aid with an expeditionary force...
which saw a small force of Norwegian volunteers fighting superior German forces. After initial fighting around the Meråker Line railway line, the Norwegians pulled back into Hegra Fortress
Hegra fortress
Hegra Fortress is a small mountain fortress in the village of Hegra in the municipality of Stjørdal in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. Originally known as Ingstadkleiven Fort , it was built between 1907–1910 as a border fort as a defence against the perceived threat of a Swedish...
and held off further German attacks before surrendering on 5 May as one of the last Norwegian units active in southern Norway.
The opposing forces
Norwegian force
The NorwegianNorwegian Army
Norway achieved full independence in 1905, and in the first century of its short life has contributed to two major conflicts, the Cold War and the War on Terror. The Norwegian Army currently operates in the north of Norway and in Afghanistan as well as in Eastern Europe. The Army is the oldest of...
defenders were 250 volunteer soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
s and the volunteer nurse Anne Margrethe Bang
Anne Margrethe Strømsheim
Anne Margrethe Strømsheim, née Bang was a Norwegian resistance member during the German occupation of Norway during World War II. She is best known for her participation in the defence of Hegra Fortress in 1940 and her post-World War II war information work.-Early life:Anne Margrethe Bang was born...
. Most of the volunteers that served at Hegra were from the area Hegra
Hegra
Hegra is a village and former municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. The former municipality encompassed most of the eastern part of the present-day municipality of Stjørdal....
/Stjørdal
Stjørdal
is a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Stjørdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Stjørdal, also called Stjørdalshalsen...
/Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
, but they also included three Swedes.
The garrison at Hegra was equipped with small arms (Krag-Jørgensen
Krag-Jørgensen
The Krag-Jørgensen is a repeating bolt action rifle designed by the Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jørgensen in the late 19th century. It was adopted as a standard arm by Denmark, the United States of America and Norway...
rifles and carbines), as well as Madsen
Madsen machine gun
The Madsen was a light machine gun developed by Julius A. Rasmussen and Theodor Schoubue and proposed for adoption by Captain Vilhelm Herman Oluf Madsen, the Danish Minister of War and adopted by the Danish Army in 1902...
and Colt M/29 machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
s.
The fortress also had artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, four 10.5 cm (4.13 in) and two 7.5 cm (2.95 in) positional pieces of reasonably modern make in half-turrets
Gun turret
A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions.The turret is also a rotating weapon platform...
; as well as four Krupp m/1887 8.4 cm (3.31 in) field gun
Field gun
A field gun is an artillery piece. Originally the term referred to smaller guns that could accompany a field army on the march and when in combat could be moved about the battlefield in response to changing circumstances, as to opposed guns installed in a fort, or to siege cannon or mortars which...
s. The artillery had a maximum range of between six and nine kilometres.
Many of these men had been mobilized to Artillery Regiment no. 3 at Øyanmoen army camp at Værnes Air Station
Trondheim Airport, Værnes
Trondheim Airport, Værnes is an international airport located in Stjørdal, east of Trondheim, Norway. Operated by the state-owned Avinor, it shares facilities with Værnes Air Station of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. In 2010, the airport had 3,521,734 passengers and 55,747 air movements,...
and were brought to Hegra to continue the mobilization after the Germans had reached their camp. The fortress at Hegra was originally only intended as a temporary refuge for the artillery regiment, but ended up as the centre of the volunteers' war in 1940.
German force
The attacking force initially consisted of GebirgsjägerGebirgsjäger
Gebirgsjäger, in English Mountain Riflemen, is the German designation for mountain infantry. The word Jäger is the traditional German term for rifleman...
of the German/Austrian 138. Gebirgsjägerregiment (part of the 3. Gebirgsdivision), which landed in Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
on 9 April.
Later, from 20 April to 27 April, the Germans substituted the 138. Gbg. Rgt. with units from the 181. Infantry Division
181st Infantry Division (Germany)
The 181st Infantry Division was a German division in World War II. It was formed on 1 December 1939.-181...
and the 138. Gebirgsjäger were sent north to try to relieve their comrades at the Narvik Front.
Before the battle
Hans Reidar Holtermann
Hans Reidar Holtermann was a Norwegian military officer. Holtermann is best known as the commander of Hegra Fortress during the Battle of Hegra Fortress in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940....
started organising troops to resist the German invasion forces which had been landed at Trondheim. Holtermann first travelled to the army camp at Værnes to mobilize his Artillery Regiment no. 3. This mobilisation began at 14:00 on 9 April 1940, but the Germans landed at Stjørdal Rail Station the very next day, and by 10:30 approached the camp. As his forces were not combat ready, Holtermann had to evacuate and move to what was at that point known as Ingstadkleiva Fort to complete his mobilisation. Thus, at 15:00 on 10 April 1940, most of the personnel and equipment under Holtermann's command arrived at the small mountain fortification of Ingstadkleiva Fort. At this point, Holtermann was given orders to proceed with the mobilisation and otherwise do what he himself thought best. Holtermann thus began to gather and equip a fighting force of local volunteers. After arriving at the fort Holtermann first took residence in the buildings outside the mountain fortifications, not intending to defend the facility, only use it as a temporary base.
Mobilisation
By 10 April, Holtermann already had fifty volunteers under his command and a steady stream of mostly local men kept being drawn to the fort. On 11 April, men of Holtermann's unit returned to Værnes to remove more of the materiel and provisions stored there. Due to poor security amongst the German forces stationed at the camp, the Norwegians were able to carry out their mission undetected. The reclaimed supplies were taken partly to the fortress and partly to a number of nearby farms. When a force of 250 soldiers had been assembled, Holtermann had to turn away further volunteers due to the fact he could not arm or equip any more soldiers than those he already had under his command at that point. From 12 April work was carried out to reactivate the fortress' artillery, which was found to have plentiful ammunition, but no direction systems or charts for indirect fire. Only a few 1:100,000 scale maps were available at the fortress. The actual artillery charts for the fortress were stored in Trondheim and fell into the hands of the Germans on 9 April and were used by the Wehrmacht during the siege to deploy artillery in places that the fortress could not hit. The same day troops of Holtermann's unit were positioned around Hegra railway statioHegra Station
Hegra Station is a railway station on the Meråker Line in the village of Hegra in the municipality of Stjørdal in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. The station was opened on 17 October 1881 as Hegre. It received the current name on 1 June 1919, and has been unmanned since 1 March 1971. It is served...
n and Mælen bridge, and the first German attempt at making the fortress surrender was carried out. A German Major
Major (Germany)
Major is a rank of the German military which dates back to the Middle Ages.It equates to Major in the British and US Armies, and is rated OF-3 in NATO.During World War II, the SS equivalent was Sturmbannführer....
approached the fortress together with two Norwegian officers who had given up the same day. Despite the best efforts by both the German officer and the two surrendered Norwegians, Holtermann refused to capitulate. The next day, 13 April, Major Holtermann achieved contact with his superiors at the 5th Division for the last time during the Norwegian Campaign. Through a telephone conversation, the commander of the force at Hegra was told to act as he saw best and, if possible, to hinder the Germans in gaining control of the Meråkerbanen railway line
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
to Sweden. In response to these orders, 20 soldiers were sent to the village of Flornes to set up field fortification
Defensive fighting position
A defensive fighting position is a type of earthwork constructed in a military context, generally large enough to accommodate at least one person.- Terminology :...
s and block the road and railway to Meråker
Meråker
Meråker is a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Stjørdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Midtbygda which is about west of Storlien in Sweden and east of Stjørdalshalsen in Stjørdal. Other villages in Meråker include Gudåa,...
.
Friendly fire incident
On 14 April, reports came in to the troops stationed at Hegra village stating that a train loaded with German soldiers had left HellHell Station
Hell Station is a railway station located in the village of Hell in the municipality of Stjørdal in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located at the intersection of the Nordland Line and Meråker Line....
railway station
Train station
A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...
and was on its way to Hegra. Not long after a train approached Hegra Station and ignored signals to stop. In response to what was interpreted as a German troop train trying to force its way through, the soldiers guarding the station opened fire on the approaching train. In what turned out to be a tragic incident of misidentification, a civilian train carrying Finnish refugees on their way home after the end of the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
was fired upon with one Norwegian man killed and two Finnish women wounded. Later that afternoon, the garrison's sole female came on the scene when nurse Anne Margrethe Bang from Trondheim arrived at the fortress bearing a load of medical supplies with her. The daughter of a doctor and trained in first aid
First aid
First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
, Ms. Bang would stay in the fortress for the duration of the siege, helping two military doctors in caring for the sick and wounded.
German aircraft driven off by ground fire
The first shots fired by the fortress' defenders occurred on 14 April when a German aircraft flew over the fortress and was fired upon by a heavy machine gunHeavy machine gun
The heavy machine gun or HMG is a larger class of machine gun generally recognized to refer to two separate stages of machine gun development. The term was originally used to refer to the early generation of machine guns which came into widespread use in World War I...
. The aircraft sustained damage and was driven away. More equipment and ammunition was removed from Værnes and brought to the fortress the same day.
The German capture of the surrounding area
Attack on Hegra village
At 05:30 on 15 April, the German attack on the Norwegian positions defending Hegra railway station, Hegra road bridge and Mælen bridge began, supported by artillery fire. Having been partly caught by surprise, the Norwegian forces at Hegra road bridge and the railway station made a fighting retreat to the fortress over a two to three hour period. Early on in the fighting, the Norwegians demolished the Hegra road bridge, forcing the German infantry to cross the precarious ice of the frozen Stjørdal RiverStjørdalselva
Stjørdalselva is a long river that reaches from near the Norwegian–Swedish border down the Stjørdalen valley through the municipalities of Meråker and Stjørdal before entering the Trondheimsfjord. The mouth is located between the villages of Stjørdalshalsen and Hell just south of Trondheim...
under fire. At Mælen bridge, the guards withdrew to the south. Four Norwegian soldiers fell in and around Hegra, while one lost his life at Mælen bridge.
The fortress artillery intervenes
As the German attack developed, the artillery pieces at Hegra Fortress opened up to support the Norwegian troops under attack in the valley below, and later covered their retreat. The Norwegian artillery fire was directed at German artillery positions, machine gun nests and convoys of trucks pushing east towards the Swedish border. The telephone operatorTelephone operator
A telephone operator is either* a person who provides assistance to a telephone caller, usually in the placing of operator assisted telephone calls such as calls from a pay phone, collect calls , calls which are billed to a credit card, station-to-station and person-to-person calls, and certain...
at Hegra telegraph
Electrical telegraph
An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via telecommunication lines or radio. The electromagnetic telegraph is a device for human-to-human transmission of coded text messages....
station acted as an observer
Artillery observer
A military artillery observer or spotter is responsible for directing artillery fire and close air support onto enemy positions. Because artillery is an indirect fire weapon system, the guns are rarely in line-of-sight of their target, often located tens of miles away...
for the artillery men at the fortress. As a result of the bombardment from the fortress, three German guns were knocked out and casualties inflicted on the attacking force.
Skirmish on the fortress road
As the Norwegian infantry force pulled out of Hegra and up the road towards the fortress, the Germans pursued them until they reached a number of field fortifications blocking the road. At this position, the Norwegians held their ground and inflicted fatalities on the attacking force. Amongst the German fatalities was the attacking platoon's leader, OberleutnantOberleutnant
Oberleutnant is a junior officer rank in the militaries of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In the German Army, it dates from the early 19th century. Translated as "Senior Lieutenant", the rank is typically bestowed upon commissioned officers after five to six years of active duty...
Hans-Joachim Herrmann. As the Norwegians were going through the area to seize German arms and equipment, they found the German Gefreiter
Gefreiter
Gefreiter is the German, Swiss and Austrian equivalent for the military rank Private . Gefreiter was the lowest rank to which an ordinary soldier could be promoted. As a military rank it has existed since at least the 16th century...
Hugo Bayerle. Bayerle had been hit in both thighs, sustaining a broken femur, and was bleeding profusely. The Norwegian troops brought him on a ski sled
Sled
A sled, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle with a smooth underside or possessing a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners that travels by sliding across a surface. Most sleds are used on surfaces with low friction, such as snow or ice. In some cases,...
to the fortress for medical care.
End of the first day of the battle
At the end of the first day of serious fighting, the Germans pushed on along the Meråkerbanen railway line and broke through the blocking position at Flornes. The troops holding Flornes withdrew first to Meråker, then further north to join other Norwegian forces. As night fell, German troops had occupied the areas around the villages of Hegra, Avelsgaard, Flornes, Ingstad and Sona. During the day, LuftwaffeLuftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
aircraft had repeatedly overflown Hegra Fortress. The Norwegian troops had fired on the aircraft with both rifles and machine guns, damaging one aircraft, which crashed while performing an emergency landing
Emergency landing
An emergency landing is a landing made by an aircraft in response to a crisis which either interferes with the operation of the aircraft or involves sudden medical emergencies necessitating diversion to the nearest airport.-Types of emergency landings:...
at Værnes.
Day two
The day after the German capture of the area surrounding the fortress, Luftwaffe aircraft repeatedly attacked with bombs and machine gun fire. German infantry probed the approaches to the fortifications but were driven off by artillery and heavy machine gun fire. A German mountain howitzer brought up to Avelsgaard bombarded the fortress, destroying most of the houses outside the walls. One Norwegian soldier was killed by a shell hitting the fortress parapetParapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
. He was the last Norwegian fatality of the battle
The first German charge
17 April began with a bombardment at 07:00 from the air and by the howitzer position at Avelsgaard.At 09:00, a large force of German infantry attacked from the north-east, supported by machine gun positions situated a mere 150 m (164 yd) north of the fortress. The progress of the attack was only halted when it reached the barbed wire entanglements
Wire obstacle
In the military science of fortification, wire obstacles are defensive obstacles made from barbed wire, barbed tape or concertina wire. They are designed to disrupt, delay and generally slow down an attacking enemy...
directly in front of the Norwegian trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
. At this point, the attacking force was subjected to heavy fire at close range from artillery, machine guns and riflemen, and thrown back. German bombers kept on hitting the fortress throughout the day, knocking out both the telephone line and the electricity supply. Neither came back into operation during the siege. From then until the end of the battle, all light inside the Norwegian tunnels and halls was provided by candles and nine kerosene lamp
Kerosene lamp
The kerosene lamp is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. This article refers to kerosene lamps that have a wick and a tall glass chimney. Kerosene lanterns that have a wick and a glass globe are related to kerosene lamps and are included here as well...
s.
The second attack is aborted
The day after their first unsuccessful attack, the German forces made another attempt at storming the mountain fortress. In preparation, the fortifications were subjected to heavy machine gun and mortarMortar (weapon)
A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
fire during the early daylight hours. A battalion of infantry was brought forward towards the fortress, but was hit by a blizzard
Blizzard
A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...
while marching through no man's land
No man's land
No man's land is a term for land that is unoccupied or is under dispute between parties that leave it unoccupied due to fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dumping ground for refuse between fiefdoms...
. As the attacking units lost their bearing in the storm, fire fights erupted between groups of Germans mistaking each other for Norwegian patrols and the whole enterprise collapsed before reaching the Norwegian positions. Bombers and heavy calibre artillery pieces kept up steady fire against the fortress throughout the day.
Siege
Evacuation of wounded
In the evening of 18 April, two Norwegian doctors—Sigurd Aarrestad and Peter Berdal—approached the German commander of the Hegra-Son area and requested permission to pass through the German lines to evacuate wounded soldiers from the fortress. During the previous days' fighting many German wounded had been brought to Hegra village and the doctors feared that there had been numerous casualties on the Norwegian side as well. Permission for the mission was granted, and the shelling of Hegra Fortress was temporarily suspended while local volunteers made their way up to the fortress, pulling ski sleds for the wounded. While Aarrestad led the expedition, Berdal was held hostage by the Germans to ensure that the Norwegians returned from the fortress after finishing their mission. When Aarrestad returned from Hegra Fortress a few hours later, he brought along nine wounded Norwegian soldiers and Gefreiter Bayerle, who had been released by his captors and sent along with the wounded Norwegians. As part of the agreement, the Norwegian wounded did not become POWs.Attempts to storm the fortress are abandoned
From around 25 April, the Germans gave up taking Hegra Fortress by storm. The pressing need to remove the Norwegian force ended in large part when the important town of SteinkjerSteinkjer
is a town and a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Innherad region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Steinkjer, which is also the seat of the county government...
fell to the Germans on 21 April and the allied advance from the north was checked. The southern arm of the allied counter-attack had never swung north from Åndalsnes and had instead been sent to the Gudbrandsdal
Gudbrandsdal
The Gudbrandsdalen is a valley and traditional district in the Norwegian county of Oppland. The valley is oriented in a north-westerly direction from Lillehammer at Mjøsa, extending 230 km toward Romsdal...
to support the Norwegian forces there. As the immediate crisis had passed for the German force in Trondheim, they preferred to push south to link up with forces coming up from Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
rather than dealing with a small fortress tunnelled into the mountains and covered by more than a metre of rotten snow. The focus of the Wehrmacht became to bombard Hegra Fortress with artillery and air power to try to pummel it into submission.
Artillery duels, aerial bombing and patrol engagements
For the remainder of the battle, the Germans did not try to storm the fortress again. Fighting consisted of aerial bombing of the fortress, duels between the fortress' guns and German field artillery and skirmishes between German and Norwegian ski units doing reconnaissance and bringing in supplies of food, ammunition and fuel. To counter German guns placed in the positional guns' blind zones, the Norwegian artillerymen positioned their two 8.4 cm field guns to cover areas the fixed guns could not reach. Over the days, the Norwegian guns targeted machine gun nests, gun positions, command posts and ammunition depots in the surrounding area. On 23 April, one of the 7.5 cm positional guns was knocked out, one of the fortress' command towers was destroyed and the water linePipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
was broken. The second 7.5 cm gun was destroyed on 24 April. The fortress was under constant artillery fire and held out chiefly to be in a position to support the allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
offensive expected from the north
Namsos campaign
In April and early May, 1940 Namsos and its surrounding area were the scene of heavy fighting between Anglo-French, Polish and Norwegian naval and military forces on the one hand, and German military, naval and air forces on the other...
.
On 25 April, the Germans employed a new weapon against the fortress when a seaplane
Seaplane
A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...
dropped a 1800 kg (3,968.3 lb) bomb, annihilating the houses outside the walls with shrapnel ending up in Hegra village several kilometres away. From 29 April, the artillery bombardment steadily increased in strength, with German guns reinforced by captured Norwegian 12 cm (4.7 in) howitzer
Rheinmetall 12 cm leFH 08
The Rheinmetall 12 cm leFH 08 was a howitzer used by the Norway in World War II. It was known in Norwegian service as the 12 cm felthaubits/m09. Captured guns were given a German designation after the Invasion of Norway as the 12 cm leFH 375...
s from the armoury
Armory (military)
An armory or armoury is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
in Trondheim, and the next day one of the three 10.5 cm guns at the fortress was knocked out. During the siege, a total of over 2,300 shells rained down on Hegra Fortress.
Værnes Air Station
One way that Holtermann wanted to directly support the main war effort in Norway was to bombard Værnes Air Base, the northernmost airfield in German hands and vital for the support of German forces north of Trondheim. This was particularly so for the Narvik front
Battles of Narvik
The Battles of Narvik were fought from 9 April-8 June 1940 as a naval battle in the Ofotfjord and as a land battle in the mountains surrounding the north Norwegian city of Narvik as part of the Norwegian Campaign of the Second World War....
, which could not be reached by aircraft flying from further south than Værnes. Recognising this, the Germans had hired some 2,000 Norwegian collaborationist
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
labourers to work full time at expanding and improving the air strip. Bombarding Værnes would both have disrupted this work and impaired the bombing raids being flown against Norwegian forces fighting to the north. However, since Værnes is 11.5 km (7.1 mi) from Hegra, and the fortress' guns only had a maximum range of some 9 km (5.6 mi), this was impossible. For accurate firing, the effective range was a mere 6.9 km (4.3 mi), as that was the range of the artillery's height angle meter. Efforts were made at the fortress to increase the elevation of the guns from 19° to 26° by removing part of the gun shields, and part of the gun mounting, but these failed as no welding
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
equipment could be acquired to carry out the modifications. Even though no modifications could be carried out, one of the 10.5 cm guns at Hegra opened up in the direction of Værnes on 22 April. With the gun firing at maximum elevation, the rounds still fell hundreds of metres short of their intended target.
The earliest attempt by the Hegra garrison to attack the airfield at Værnes had occurred on 14 April, when a Norwegian dog sled
Dog sled
A dog sled is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing.-History:...
patrol spotted massive German air activity at the air base. Plans were made to manhandle one of the fortress' 8.4 cm field guns to a nearby hill called Blankhammeren, and from there bombard German targets out of range from the fortress itself, including the strategically important airfield. The plan, however, could not be carried out before the German attack of 15 April brought large German infantry forces into the area and rendered the plans infeasible.
International media attention
During the siege, the struggle of Hegra Fortress captured the attention of the international media, with articles such as those in The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
on 22 April and 2 May, and that in The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
on 16 April. The fortress was also mentioned in articles in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine on 6 May and 13 May.
Preparations and influencing factors
Battle of Åndalsnes
The Battle of Åndalsnes took place in Åndalsnes in Romsdal, Norway in 1940 during the Norwegian Campaign of World War II.After the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, British troops landed in Åndalsnes as part of a pincer movement to take mid-Norwegian city Trondheim...
, that the Germans had seized control of the Dovrebanen
Dovrebanen
The Dovre Line is the main line of the Norwegian railway system between Oslo and Trondheim. The 64 km section south of Eidsvoll has been replaced by the Gardermo Line, the only high-speed line in the country. The line between Eidsvoll and Dombås is from old times the Eidsvoll–Dombås Line. The line...
railway line from Dombås
Dombås
The village of lies in the Dovre municipality and serves as an administrative center in the upper Gudbrandsdal, Norway. It lies at an important junction of roads: south leading to the current capital of Norway, Oslo, west via Lesja leading to Åndalsnes on the sea and north to the old capital,...
to Støren
Støren
is a former municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. The municipality is located in the north-central part of the present-day municipality of Midtre Gauldal. The municipal center of Støren was the village of Støren, where Støren Church is located....
, and of the surrender of the Norwegian 4th Brigade in Western Norway. This came on top of increasing supply problems, with the bread supply already having run out on 30 April. The next day, 3 May, the garrison started demolishing the artillery ammunition in preparation for surrender. The three Swedish volunteers that had endured the siege with the Norwegians were also released from their duties and guided across the mountains to the Swedish border by a ski patrol. During the day, a radio message from Colonel Ole Berg Getz—the Norwegian commander in the Trøndelag area—was broadcast. Getz had surrendered his forces in Nord-Trøndelag
Nord-Trøndelag
is a county constituting the northern part of Trøndelag in Norway. As of 2010, the county had 131,555 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-least populated county. The largest municipalities are Stjørdal, Steinkjer—the county seat, Levanger, Namsos and Verdal, all with between 21,000 and...
and advised all Norwegian forces in Trøndelag to lay down their arms as the situation had become hopeless after the British retreat from the southern parts of Norway. The decision to surrender Trøndelag had been influenced by Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
's radio message that day announcing the end of the allied campaign in Southern Norway On 4 May, destruction of radios, machine guns, carbines and other small arms was initiated and ski patrols were sent out carrying loads of important documents. By 1350hrs that day confirmation of Colonel Getz's capitulation was received and the destruction of the fortress' artillery began.
Capitulation
In the early hours of 5 May, the situation was that there was very little food left and water for only a few days, all other allied forces in all of southern Norway had been withdrawn or had surrendered and Hegra Fortress was the last remaining pocket of resistance south of NordlandNordland
is a county in Norway in the North Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Nord-Trøndelag in the south, Norrbottens län in Sweden to the east, Västerbottens län to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The county was formerly known as Nordlandene amt. The county administration is...
. At 05:00, Major Holtermann had his men assemble in the tunnels and relayed to them his decision to surrender the fortress. In a short speech, he thanked them for their efforts and then led them in singing the Norwegian National Anthem
Ja, vi elsker dette landet
is the national anthem of Norway. It is commonly referred to as just "Ja, vi elsker" . The lyrics were written by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson between 1859 and 1868, and the melody was written by his cousin Rikard Nordraak in 1864. It was first performed publicly on 17 May 1864 in connection with the 50th...
. By 05:25, the white flag was raised over the fortress, and at 06:30 a force of 60 German soldiers and three officers— led by one Hauptmann
Hauptmann
Hauptmann is a German word usually translated as captain when it is used as an officer's rank in the German, Austrian and Swiss armies. While "haupt" in contemporary German means "main", it also has the dated meaning of "head", i.e...
Giebel— arrived to accept the surrender. Later that day, 190 men and one woman marched out of the fortress and into captivity. At the surrender, the garrison at Hegra Fortress consisted of 14 officers, one technical officer, seven sergeants, one officer cadet, six corporals, 161 privates and nurse Anne Margrethe Bang.
The garrison as PoWs
Trondheim Katedralskole
Trondheim katedralskole is an upper secondary school located next to the Nidaros Cathedral in the center of Trondheim, Norway....
secondary school while the NCO
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
s and soldiers continued their voyage to Lundamo
Lundamo
Lundamo is a village in the municipality of Melhus in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located along the Gaula River between the villages of Hovin and Ler. The village has a population of 1,125. The population density of Lundamo is ....
in Gauldalen valley. At Lundamo, the prisoners where interned in a barn for the night. The next day, 6 May, the prisoners from Hegra were force-marched for 50 km (31.1 mi) to Berkåk
Berkåk
Berkåk is a village and administrative centre of the municipality of Rennebu in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located along the Orkla River and the European route E6 highway. The village lies about north of Ulsberg and southeast of Stamnan. The Berkåk Station on the Dovrebanen railway is...
where a PoW camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
was established. At Berkåk, the prisoners were set at work at building an improvised road from the river Orkla near Berkåk across the woods to Brattset. The road was intended to help the German logistic system that had been severely hampered by the numerous bridges that had been blown by the Norwegian Army during the preceding month. Due in part to the poor physical condition of the prisoners after the harsh siege they had just experienced, the road was never completed despite threats of punishment made by the German camp commander. At the end of May the German High Command in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
announced that Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had personally ordered the release of Norwegian PoWs as an act of recognition of the defence they had put up under difficult conditions. The release of the prisoners from Hegra happened in groups and by mid-June the last PoWs had been let go.
Casualties
Six Norwegian soldiers were killed in action during the battle, with 14 wounded. All the Norwegian fatalities occurred during the first two days of the fighting. In the first years after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Norwegian estimates of the number of Germans casualties were exaggerated, some spoke of up to 1,100 dead or wounded. Later research has however led to a somewhat lower number, at about 150 to 200 Wehrmacht soldiers KIA and WIA at Hegra.