OPERATION DESCRIBED

Evening Star, Issue 24081, 30 December 1941, Page 3

OPERATION DESCRIBED

FURIOUS BROADSIDE FROM WARSHIPS LEADING NAZIS CAPTURED (Ecc. 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, December 29. Describing the landings in Norway, Reuter’s special correspondent with the commandos says: Two minor vessels carrying commandos, also flat-bot-tomed landing craft or barges, stealthily approached the rugged fjord and took up positions in the darkness on either side of the fjord, and, as daylight came, the barges were lowered and cast off. This was the signal for furious broadsides from the warships against the four-gun Nazi coastal battery situated at Maaloy, a small islet off'Port Vaagso. The naval guns, with a fire-power of nearly 50 shells a minute, pulverised this limp rode, setting sheds and ammunition dumps on Meanwhile the Commando barges went to the islet and the men in them within half an hour climbed the rocky slopes and stormed the guns, shot many Germans, and took some prisoners. Simultaneously with this assault the main landing occurred at South Vaagso. Heavy fighting took place in the mam street of the town. One British officer was killed in trying with a corporal to storm an hotel from which a number of Germans were firing. Another officer was sniped in the back. Many Germans were incinerated in homes in which they had made strongpoints and from which they refused to emerge.

The three chief captives were the

Nazi commanding officer of the garrison, the German naval captain of the ports, and its chief Quisling, who was chairman of the local canning factory supplying food for the Nazis in Russia. A wireless station used for jambing tbe 8.8. C. Continental programmes was destroyed. Many of the commandos engaged participated in the Lofoten Islands raid.