Word: ores
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...seizure of Norway must have looked considerable to Herr Hitler: air bases only an hour (instead of two) from Great Britain's naval bases and shipyards; windows on the Atlantic for his "living room," now stifling behind the Allied blockade; control of Sweden and her high-grade iron ore, which Hitler's war machine must have; demonstration to Benito Mussolini of the supremacy of air power over sea power. Above all, there was the gain of seizing the initiative, re-asserting the Reich's dynamism. A magnificent demonstration of Might upon weak Norway might topple all opposition...
...matter of impressing Italy and lesser neutrals, as much prestige could be lost as gained if the gamble did not win quickly, brilliantly. If the gamble lost, with it might go all Swedish iron ore, all neutral prestige, perhaps the whole...
...North it was a different story. Not only was Narvik soon out of German control - and the road to the vital nearby Swedish ore fields - but the railhead at Namsos on a fjord 55 miles north of Trondheim was not held. From it runs a rail spur down to Hell, near middle Norway's only landing field of military size...
...Denmark's southern border, had carried out extensive embarkation and debarkation for landlubber fighting men at Baltic ports. For British minelayers one morning sowed three great fields along Norway's rugged coast, in Norway's territorial waters, minefields to drive German-bound ships with Swedish ore out into the open sea where the British Navy could get them. At one stroke this paralyzed ore shipping from Narvik, far north in Norway, where eight ore-laden German steamers were blocked in by the minefield in West Fjord...
...Plan. Daring, ruthless, well conceived and swiftly executed was Hitler's plan. He would take Norway to protect his ore shipments, and use its fjords as bases for air, sea and submarine raids against Britain. He would take Denmark to insure his communications, and stop the Allies from establishing a wedge in her route from the north. He would take them so quickly that Sweden, hemmed in on the west by Norway, on the east by Russian-dominated Finland, would not dare to fight, could easily be beaten if she tried...