GIGANTIC TASK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 93, 19 April 1940, Page 5

GIGANTIC TASK.

BRITISH LANDINGS.

IN ROCK-BOUND NORWAY.

AN EPIC ACHIEVEMENT.

(By ELSIE K. MORTON.)

Gigantic indeed was the task, and magnificent the accomplishment, of safely landing a British Expeditionary Force on the hostile shore of Northern Norway. In the confusion and distraction of urgent issues of the. moment, the breath-taking, dramatic quality of this epic achievement is bound to be temporarily clouded. Stark and bitter realicios of warfare in the barren regions of the Arctic Circle still have to be faced and met, before British and Norwegian fo.-ces can succeed in breaking the evil power of Nazi domination. Then the thrilling story of this amazing landing at many points on Norway's shores will be told to the -world in full detail.

It is difficult for those unfamiliar with the rugged coastline of Northern Norway to understand the formidable nature of the task -with which the British leaders *ere faced. The long Arctic night is Bow ending, the midnight sun is marciiing steadily northward to. his Arctic bastions, but winter still holds sway in this wild region of "hille that prop the folar star." Iron-Bound Battlements. Rock, ice and snow; tumbling green glaciers, iron-bound crags and battlements; fishing hamlets huddled together on grey waves of rock beneath towering heights; fantastic shapes of islets lit with' the unearthly colouring of "faery lands forlorn"—these are a few vivid

personal impressions, of a sojourn in the Land of the Midnight Sun toward which .the eyes of the world are gazing to-day.

Out seaward from the landing points of the British Forces lie the skerries,; stark granite peaks of grey, undulating ledges of rock that for countless thoii- | sands of years have borne the buffeting jof pitiless Atlantic surges. Within shelter of these outposts, rises a host of islets without sign of tree or vegetation of any kind, save a few patches of dry, meagre grass. In the islands closer to the coast, and on the mainland it-self, Nature has shown a kindlier feeling for man. Here are trees and shrubs, flowers, and pasturage for cattle and the reindeer that ere the stay of the North lin the long night of snow.

In the brightness and warmth of the brief summer months, there is an amazing luxuriance of growth, and one finds with a shock of surprise, that even the rough thousand-foot track up to tiie top of the North Cape itself is decked with ■wild flowers as lovely and frail as those which grow in the sweet lenes and dells of England! Cruise Ship in Tromso. All the points at which British troops are reported to have landed are far to the north of the Polar Circle, a region that is still under the relentless sway of Arctic winter. Farthest north in the area of hostilities is Tromso, a two days' and nights' sea journey above the Circle. Tromso is the centre of traffic for the Arctic Ocean and Spitsbergen. It is a thriving little town with a population.of about ten thousand, and has been the base of many polar expeditions. It is also a place of gardens and flowers, and strange as it may seem, actually jolds the record for the highest temperature ever measured in Norway! Certain it is, that the day our cruise ship tied up iat Tromso wharf, I went ashore wearing tie same summer dress I had worn only a few months previously in the heat of the tropics.

Tromeo's shopping area provides forj its splendid fur stores, a novel form of advertisement, which I had seen nowhere else, save at Hammerfest, several prodi-j gious white bears, a walrus ardj reindeer (standing out in the streets in such life-like attitudes that it was almost impossible to believe they were not actually living animals! At one end of the town was a pleasant open square with lawns and gardens, and in the centre, a fine statue of Amundsen, who fitted out here for his Arctic explorations. Another point of interest was the Tromeo Museum, containing a valuable

Arctic ethnological collection dating from the earliest ages. Our guide was a charming little Norwegian girl, who was so proud of being able to speak on: - language that she left her shop to IjoK after itself end attached herself to our party for the*rest of the morning. Where Invaders Have Been Attacked. Southward of Tromso and Narvik lie the Lofoten Islands and Bodo, at which points also the Nazi invaders have been attacked. Strange indeed was our glimpse of the Lofotens a«% we steamed slowly down the coast one midsummer evening—but it was not evening, as the rest of the world knows it! It was eleven o'clock, but the sun was now at the peak of the most amazing non-stop run in all the world, and even at that hour was shining in a cloudless sky. Yet there was no deptli or sharpness in the light, which shed a strange, incredible beauty on the jagged wall of the Lofotens, tinged with faery lights. mauve, ice-green, burning coppery red against a sky of primrose and violet blue.

But the Lofotcns have a definitely commercial as well as an aesthetic value, for they are the main centre of the Norwegian fisheries in the first three months of the year, and their annual codfish catch - amounts to between 20 and 40 millions! Norsemen of 1000 Years Ago. As we passed Bodo, a town of some 5000 inhabitants, almost completely hemmed in by reefs and islets, our ship's gun fired a salute, and a little burst of cheering came across the water from the groups assembled on the wharf to watch us pass. Even so, a thousand years ago, the primitive Norsemen must have stood on these same rugged shores watching their first sea merchants setting sail for distant England, laden with fish, bearskins, reindeer hide and furs. And even before that their ancestors must have seen the stately, dragon - prowed Viking ships pass by on their way to far lands across the sea, the long, strong oars of the galleymen glittering in the sun. . . .

Strong and deep-rooted are the bonds between the British and these peoples of the North. Each has known a long and bitter struggle for its freedom; British and Norwegians stand now side by side for the preservation of a common, age-old heritage, the right of a nation to live its own life free from outside domination and oppression. j