Word: narvik
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Caught off guard and inadequately protected, the British aircraft carrier Glorious (22,500-ton sister ship of the Courageous, crew of 1,216) used as a base for air operations against Narvik, was an easy prey to the 11-inch guns of the Nazi warships, as were also the 19,840-ton transport null the 5,666-ton tanker Oilpioneer, and the destroyers Acasta and Ardent. The Allied Expeditionary Force began to evacuate...
...Around Narvik, swift ski patrols dispatched German parachutists almost as fast as they were dropped...
...Narvik lies at the western forefoot of a mountainous promontory between two fjords. Last week a French general and General Fleischer of the Norse 6th Division superintended a 24-hour assault, begun at bright midnight. British warships' fire and French artillery covered landings by French Alpine troops across the north fjord to one side of the promontory. Polish troops pushed in from the other side. Bull Dietl and his few hundred remaining men retreated, but Norse troops blocked their escape from the promontory into Sweden...
...railroad threads through tunnels out of Narvik toward the nearby Swedish iron mines. Dynamiting some tunnels shut as they went, the Germans used others as fortresses. They blew up switches, heaped the tracks with wrecked rolling stock, made true Berlin's wry announcement that if lost, the Narvik ore port would be useless to the Allies for a long time to come. At Narvik, the British admitted losing their 4,290-ton anti-aircraft cruiser Curlew, specially armed to shoot down just what finally sank...
Some of his men had surrendered, some had mutinied and crept into Sweden, but Bull Dietl was believed still alive at week's end. He fought on to keep for Germany, besides access to iron ore, an important source of strategic information. From observations made in the Narvik area, Nazi meteorologists make long-range forecasts of western Europe's weather, determined by south-flowing air masses over the Gulf Stream...