In a recent history lecture the idea that the allies would invade Sicily and would not invade Norway in 1943 was treated as a bit of an “in joke” as the Norway idea was deemed ridiculous, thus no background was given. My question is… why not Norway? On the surface seems to make a lot of sense and why dismissed so readily?
10 Likes
Norway was bordered by neutral Sweden. Anything military goal past Norway required another amphibious operstion.
Sicily allows the Allies to
(1) secure the Mediterranean and Suez Canal shipping routes, particularly for oil,
(2) Set the stage to eject Italy from the war, and
(3) Use utaly as a land invadion route to Europe.
(3) is dubious on its face but tying up German divisions is nice in a more modest way.
A Norwegian invasion does not accomplish (1) and (2) so Sicily wins.
10 Likes
Well, Sicily was seen as more ideal because it gave the Allies access to Southern Europe. Also, Churchill had believed the Italy was the “soft underbelly of Europe” ugly it would be easier for the Allies to advance through the Italian peninsula. Furthermore, invading Sicily helped the Allies with the invasion of Southern France with Operation Dragoon. Italy was better as a long term for the invasion of Europe than Norway.
4 Likes
As an add on, there were a lot of spare troops already in North Africa. Imagine shipping them all the way to Norway. The troops in the British Isles were mostly there for training for an invasion of France and they were not up to strength yet. An invasion of Norway would have likely required similar, if not larger, numbers than Overlord
5 Likes
The geography of Norway does not fit a large scale seaborne attack, the troops would have to go by sea via Denmark to reach Germany. The strategic importance of Norway was not present in 1943 as the u-boats was based in France. So, everything against and almost nothing in favor.
3 Likes
Sicily certainly has strategic value in continuing to secure the Mediterranean theatre, but a point in favour of Norway would be that it would secure the Arctic convoys? Tirpitz is up there, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau? I can never remember what happened to those two. But perhaps that’s disproportionate effort, especially as there isn’t such a straightforward continuation like Sicily is to Italy.
2 Likes
Also one of the main objectives for the allies in the summer of 1943 was to relieve the pressure on the Eastern front to aid Russia. In that perspective I think Russia would definitely favor Italy over Norway, now that it was clear that invasion of France would not be possible in 1943
4 Likes
The landing in Sicily were 150km from airfields on Malta, the nearest airfields for a Norway landing would be in Shetland about 350km away. Remembering that in July 1943 fleet carriers were in short supply ( the first of the Essex class were still on working up cruises; Illustrious was in refit; Enterprise was heading for refit; and Argus and Ranger were needed for pilot training ); there were only Saratoga and Victorious in the Pacific; Furious in the Atlantic; and Formidable and Indomitable in the Med. So it’s questionable if the allies could have achieved air superiority over Norway in July '43.
Add to that the lack of troops trained and experienced in, and equipped for, mountain and artic warfare and a 1943 invasion of Norway was not a viable proposition.
6 Likes
Norwegian topography is very difficult from an amphibious landing point of view … there are untold numbers of fjords, islands, and cliffs, but relatively few landing places where WW2-era craft could safely unload troops, vehicles, and supplies. All of the obvious places would be either garrisoned by the Germans or have coastal artillery and/or pre-plotted mobile artillery ready to respond. It would be almost trivial to mount a battalion-to-brigade level assault as a raid, but without air superiority (or preferably air supremacy), getting that force fully supported and resupplied in the teeth of Luftwaffe resistance would be very costly.
Once ashore, the axes of advance for an invading force are very strictly channelled by the terrain so that the German defenders would have plenty of opportunity to set up blocking forces at the (many) tactical choke points to blunt or halt the attackers. The terrain also vastly limits the opportunity to provide artillery beyond line-of-sight for the advancing forces. Mountain fighting is rather specialized, and the allies didn’t have a huge number of mountain-trained troops (I think the US ?10th? Division was classified as mountain troops, and there were smaller units of British and French colonial forces that could be used in those roles and that’s all I can think of).
From a propaganda viewpoint, the Norway operation might make a bit of sense because it fulfills a couple of goals that Operation Husky didn’t:
- It directly supported the Soviet war effort, in making the Arctic convoy route more viable
- Hitler was especially sensitive about allied attacks on Norway, so it might draw off more German forces
- Further to point 1, it would effectively eliminate the Kriegsmarine surface threat permanently, and make the U-boats less flexible once the coastline was secured (but also provide a brief potential “Third Happy Time” if the U-boats were deployed to attack the invasion convoys and the re-supply ships
4 Likes
Norway was important as it was a major resource for the Germans in raw material needed for the German war machine with iron ore, wood, heavy water and food like fish and meat from reindeer to name but a few. It was seen as a high value target by the allies right from the beginning but as others have stated logistically it would of been a nightmare for the allies to invade and defend.
Looking ahead into the future when the invasion of Normandy was planned there was still considerable amount of discussion about invading Norway as another front but it was again shot down as it would of taken considerable resources away from the Dday landings leaving the allies to spread out.
4 Likes
Norway was a kind of obsession for Hitler I think. At the surrender in may 1945 there were between 350.000 and 400.000 German troops in Norway. Troops that were needed elsewhere, convenient for the allies they could not easily be brought to bear on any other front.
Source https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02684529208432169?journalCode=fint20
As a spin off, the danish Resistance was focused on railway sabotage as there where only 2 lines from north to south through Jutland, and the main focus was to block transfer of troops from Norway to the western front.
3 Likes
Also, it’s worth noting that the Allies had previously attacked Norway in 1940 when the British landed and took Narvik. There were many problems there that would have still been issues if the Allies invaded Norway instead of Sicily
4 Likes
The British 52nd (Lowland) Division was training for mountain warfare. Guess someone in the WO had a sense of humour training the Lowland Division for mountain warfare and sending the Highland division to the desert.
4 Likes
The argument for landing n Norway instead of Sicily had support in both the British and American high command but there were many factors that that were against them. Firstly unlike the Mediterranean the allies did not have air superiority in Northern Europe and were actually far from that. Secondly most of the allied transports they had at the time were in the Mediterranean for operation Torch. Thirdly the terrain in Norway was not conductive to concentrated mass landings and would require coordinated attacks along several points on Norways coast. Fourth was the defenders had all the advantages and lots working for them. Lastly Norway was bordered by a neutral country and that had a lot of political implications for the allies if it was inadvertently attacked.
———
Jumping ahead in the future again but Operation Fortitude North and South was the deception operation for the allies to convince the Germans they were going to land at Calais and in Norway instead of Normandy which was hugely successful as we all know. That operation kept close to half a million German troops, equipment and supplies and lots of aircraft tied to Norway during the Dday landings which was a huge boon to the allies.
5 Likes
Anyone have a source where this might be covered in a history book? I find it quite fascinating.
2 Likes
In Winston Churchill’s “Closing the Ring”, part of his Second World War series, he comments that a major reason to invade Sicily was to open up the Mediterranean to Allied shipping. Churchill comments that the lack of shipping was a huge constraint on the Western Allies in 1943, so shortening sailing times by opening up the Med (compared to sailing around the Cape of Good Hope) was important.
4 Likes