HUNS NERVOUS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 82, 7 April 1943, Page 3

HUNS NERVOUS

POSITION IN NORWAY Wide Search Made For British Paratroops Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, April 6. Crack German Alpinists and Storm Troops are searching Hardanger Plateau, south-central Norway, where British paratroops earlier were reported to have established headquarters. The British United Press correspondent at Stockholm says the Germans are especially nervous after the recent unexplained explosions.

Two companies at one point surrounded a group of mountain huts, where it was expected to meet strongly-armed Allied agents. They then called up two dive-bombers from Oslo; which blew the huts to pieces. The troops, on closing in, found that they had been occupied only by two peasants. The Germans are drastically tightening up the frontier regulations, reinforcing the frontier guards, making it even more difficult for Norwegians to escape to Sweden. They have also reminded Norwegians that relatives of persons leaving the country will.be imprisoned. The growing activity of British and Norwegian paratroops in south and central Norway was believed to be the reason why General Rediess, German police chief in Norway, had declared the whole of the Hardanger- Plateau a forbidden zone, stated a Daily Telegraph message cabled from Stockholm on March 31. The plateau is about 75 miles due east of Bergen, and covers an area of more than 0000 square miles. Saboteurs and paratroops are reported to have established headquarters somewhere in this wild and desolate country from which raids are carried out against surrounding industrial undertakings vital to the German war effort. The most successful of these raids was the recent attack on the Rjukan power plant, which on the eastern border of the plateau. An immense amount of damage was done. The saboteurs are still at large.