Battle of Hegra Fortress

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Hegra Fortress


caption=Norwegian 7,5 cm gun in action during the battle.
partof=the Norwegian Campaign
date=15 April to 5 May, 1940
place=Hegra, Norway
result=Hegra Fortress capitulated May 5 after all other Norwegian forces in southern Norway had laid down their arms. [Kildenett.no: [http://ny.kildenett.no/artikler/2007/Hegra%20festning Hegra Festning] no icon]
combatant2=
combatant1=
commander2=15-20 April:
Oberst WeissBrox 1988: 102]
20 April-5 May:
Generalmajor Woytach
commander1=Major
Hans Reidar Holtermann [Brox 1988: 45]
strength2=15-27 April:
138. Gebirgsjägerregiment
27 April-5 May:
181. Infantry Division
Troops involved:
Force levels were on average ca. one battalion and one reinforced company of infantry, as well as an artillery unit with numerous mortars, cannon and howitzers [Brox 1988: 191]
strength1=Positional artillery:Brox 1988: 81]
4×10,5 cm guns and
2×7,5 cm guns
under Captain Evjen
with 25 men
Field artillery:
4×8,4 cm guns
under 2nd Lieutenant Reitan
with 10 men
Total force: [http://www.hegrafestning.no/ Hegra Fortress home page] no icon]
250 volunteer soldiers and one female volunteer nurse, most of whom had had a short national service with Artillery Regiment no. 3 (AR 3) before the war
casualties2=Around 150 KIA and WIABrox 1988: 125]
casualties1=6 KIA and 14 WIAOfficial website of the Norwegian Defence Forces: [http://www.mil.no/haren/ks/start/article.jhtml?articleID=111934 Holtermann 08, Evne og Vilje til Handling] no icon]

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.

The opposing forces

Norwegian force

The Norwegian defenders were 250 volunteer soldiers and the volunteer nurse Anne Margrethe Bang.Brox 1988: 87] Most of the volunteers that served at Hegra were from the area Hegra/Stjørdal/Trondheim, but they also included three Swedes. [Soldat 1985: 45]

The garrison at Hegra was equipped with small arms (Krag-Jørgensen rifles and carbines), as well as Madsen and Colt M/29 machine guns.

The fortress also had artillery, four 10,5 cm and two 7,5 cm positional pieces of reasonably modern make in half-turrets; as well as four Krupp m/1887 8,4 cm field guns. [Brox 1988: 48] [ [http://hem.fyristorg.com/robertm/norge/Norw_weapons.html Website on weapons used by the Norwegian army in 1940] en icon] The artillery had a maximum range of between six and nine kilometers. [Forn.no: [http://www.forn.no/heg/7001.htm Ingstadkleven Fort, 1907-1910] no icon]

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.

German force

The attacking force initially consisted of gebirgsjäger 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.'s gebirgsjägers where sent north to try and relieve their comrades at the Narvik Front.

Before the battle

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 that 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 1400hrs on 9 April, 1940 but the Germans landed at Stjørdal Rail Station the very next day, and by 1030hrs 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. [Soldat 1985: 7-8] Thus, at 1500hrs 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. [Soldat 1985: 8] 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. [Grimnes 1994: 3]

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. [Grimnes 1994: 6] 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.Soldat 1985: 11] 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 maps with 1:100,000 ratios were available at the fortress. [Arnstad 1965: 27] The actual artillery charts for the fortress were stored in Trondheim and fell in to the hands of the Germans on 9 April and was 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 station 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. [Soldat 1985: 11-12] 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 is 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 twenty soldiers were sent to the village of Flornes to set up field fortifications and block the road and railway to Meråker.Soldat 1985: 13]

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 Hell 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. [Brox 1988: 85] Later that afternoon the garrison's sole female came 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 an educated nurse, Ms. Bang would stay in the fortress for the duration of the siege, helping two military doctors in caring for the sick and wounded. [Brox 1988: 87-88]

German plane driven off by ground fire

The first shots fired by the fortress' defenders occurred on 14 April when a German plane flew over the fortress and was fired upon by a heavy machine gun. The plane took damage and was driven away. More equipment and ammunition was removed from Værnes and brought to the fortress the same day. [Soldat 1985: 14]

The Battle

The German capture of the surrounding area

Attack on Hegra village

At 0530hrs on 15 April 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, [Arnstad 1965: 33] forcing the German infantry to cross the precarious ice of the frozen Stjørdal River under fire. [Arnstad 1965: 34] At Mælen bridge the guards withdrew to the south.Soldat 1985: 20] Four Norwegian soldiers fell in and around Hegra while one lost his life at Mælen bridge.Soldat 1985: 21]

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 operator 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.

kirmish 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, Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Herrmann. As the Norwegian 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, with one of his thigh-bones broken in half, and was bleeding profusely. The Norwegian troops brought him on a ski sled to the fortress for medical care. [Brox 1988: 94]

End of the first battle day

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 Luftwaffe aircraft had repeatedly overflown Hegra Fortress. The Norwegian troops had fired on the planes with both rifles and machine guns, damaging one plane which crashed while performing an emergency landing at Værnes.

Day two

The day after the German capture of the area surrounding the fortress Luftwaffe planes 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 parapet. He was the last Norwegian fatality of the battle

The first German charge

17 April began with a bombardment at 0700hrs from the air and by the howitzer position at AvelsgaardAt 0900hrs a large force of German infantry attacked from the north-east, supported by machine gun positions situated a mere 150 meters 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 in operation during the siege. [Soldat 1985: 21-22] From then until the end of the battle all light inside the Norwegian tunnels and halls was provided by candles and nine kerosene lamps. [Grimnes 1994: 10]

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 mortar 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. Planes and heavy calibre artillery pieces kept up a steady fire against the fortress throughout the day.Soldat 1985: 23]

iege

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 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 was released by his captors and sent along with the wounded Norwegians. [Brox 1988: 127-128] 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 Steinkjer 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 meter of rotten snow. The focus of the Wehrmacht became to bombard Hegra Fortress with artillery and air power to try and pummel it into submission. [Grimnes 1994: 18]

Artillery duels, aerial bombing and patrol engagements

For the remainder of the battle the Germans did not again try to storm the fortress. 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 line 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. [Soldat 1985: 27]

On 25 April the Germans employed a new weapon against the fortress when a seaplane dropped a 1,800 kg bomb, annihilating the houses outside the walls with bomb pieces ending up Hegra village several kilometres away. [Soldat 1985: 30] From 29 April the artillery bombardment steadily increased in strength with German guns reinforced by captured Norwegian 12 cm howitzers from the armoury in Trondheim and the next day one of the three 10,5 cm guns at the fortress was knocked out. [Soldat 1985: 34] During the siege a total of over 2,300 shells rained down on Hegra Fortress. [Trønder-avisa.no: [http://www.t-a.no/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070928/NYHETER/709280015 Sterke inntrykk i Hegra] no icon]

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 that 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 from Hegra and the fortress' guns only had a maximum range of some 9 km this was impossible. For accurate shooting the effective range was a mere 6,9 km, as that was the range of the artillery's height angle meter.Arnstad 1965: 26] Efforts were made at the fortress to increase the elevation of the guns from 19° to 26° by removing part of the gun shields,National Fortresses of Norway: [http://www.verneplaner.no/?f=hegra&id=137184&a=4 History of Hegra - background] no icon] and part of the baseplate, 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 target. [Arnstad 1965: 85]

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 target 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. [Arnstad 1965: 63-64]

International media attention

During the siege the struggle of Hegra Fortress was in the attention of the international media, with articles such as those in The Daily Telegraph on 22 April [Hegra Fortress: [http://www.verneplaner.no/?f=hegra&id=136891&a=2 Preword] ] and 2 May, [Hegra Fortress: [http://www.verneplaner.no/?f=hegra&id=137933&a=4 Historical drawings] ] and that in The Manchester Guardian on 16 April. [Hegra Fortress: [http://www.verneplaner.no/?f=hegra&k=9.1&id=139438&a=6 Catalogue] no icon] The fortress was also mentioned in articles in Time Magazine on 6 May [Time Magazine: [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763924,00.html Struggle for Trondheim] Monday, May. 06, 1940] and 13 May. [Time Magazine: [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884024-2,00.html 23 Days] Monday, May. 13, 1940]

urrender

Preparations and influencing factors

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 4. Brigade in Vestlandet. 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. [Soldat 1985: 36] 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 [Soldat 1985: 37] 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.Soldat 1985: 38]

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 Nordland. At 0500hrs 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 0525hrs the white flag was raised over the fortress and at 0630hrs a force of 60 German soldiers and three officers, [Brox 1988: 190] led by one Hauptmann Giebel,Brox 1988: 191] arrived to accept the surrender. Later that day 190 men and one woman marched out of the fortress and into captivity. [Soldat 1985: 39] 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

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 NCOs and soldiers continued their voyage to Lundamo in Gauldalen valley.Soldat 1985: 40] At Lundamo the prisoners where interned in a barn for the night. The next day, 6 May, the prisoners from Hegra were forced marched for 50 kilometers 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.Soldat 1985: 41] 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.

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. [Soldat 1985: 20-21] In the first years after World War II 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.

ee also

*Namsos Campaign
*Norwegian Campaign

Footnotes

Literature

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External links

* [http://www.mil.no/felles/rkt/start/Hegra_festning/ Official Norwegian Defence Forces web page] no icon
* [http://hem.fyristorg.com/robertm/norge/Battle_for_Ostfold.html Web page on the battle of Østfold that mentions the fortress] en icon