Åndalsnes landings

The Åndalsnes landings were a British military operation in 1940, during the Norwegian Campaign of World War II. Following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, a British Army expeditionary force was landed at Åndalsnes, in Romsdal, to support Norwegian Army units defending the city of Trondheim. British forces were also landed at Namsos, north of Åndalsnes, in a complementary pincer movement. The British landings were unsuccessful and the Allies suffered a significant defeat at Åndalsnes. Before the British operation had even begun it encountered a myriad of problems. The commanders for both the landing at Namsos and at Åndalsnes were replaced multiple times and, ultimately, the units deployed were being left utterly unprepared in contrast to their German counterparts. The 148th Infantry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Harold Morgan, was part of the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division. A Territorial Army (TA) formation recruiting, as its name suggests, from the West Riding of Yorkshire, the division was composed mainly of part-time soldiers who, in addition to being almost completely green and inexperienced, had received very little appropriate training for the operation in which they were to undertake. There were few modern weapons available and the brigade was understrength, having only two instead of the usual three infantry battalions, giving it a strength of just over 1,000 officers and men. To prevent the British from advancing inland, German Fallschirmjägers made a parachute drop on the village and rail road junction of Dombås on 14 April. The southern attack began on 19 April, and Brigadier Morgan ran into serious problems almost immediately. For starters, he was unsure as to who he was directly subordinate to; the British military attaché in Norway, London, or if he was just to continue as previously ordered. Choosing to obey his orders to support the Norwegians as much as he could, he split his two battalions and moved them to support the Norwegians with his units strung out across the front.