Sweden Alone
Churchill was celebrating yesterday but as you see here today he is realizing that there are problems supporting Sweden in this war.
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Date: January 3, 1945
Location: London
Time: 11:00 a.m. [London time]
Winston Churchill had been absolutely ecstatic to learn that Sweden had entered the war against Germany the day before. With Sweden’s entry into the war Germany had lost a vital source of iron ore and other raw materials for its factories. In addition it meant that the troops in Norway would be staying there to defend it. Today however, the problems involved with Sweden as an ally were becoming all too apparent.
“The Swedes have the advantage of surprise and will continue to have it for the next few days but that will quickly wear off,” Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff was explaining. “The problem is the Germans have approximately 200,000 or more troops stationed in Norway thanks to us.” Churchill nodded, “One of our deception operations before D-Day was to convince the Germans one of our possible targets was Norway, we succeeded admirably but now that success may be coming back to ‘bite us in the butt,’ as they say.” “Exactly sir,” Alan continued, “The Swedes have an advantage in that they have trained their men to fight in bad weather and in mountainous terrain. Many of these German troops have never done so, but the problem is numbers. There’s some question whether the Swedish army as well trained as it is can last against the numbers the Germans can throw at them in Norway.”
“What about the resistance, surely they can help to tip the scales,” questioned Churchill. The Norwegian resistance was considered one of the most well-trained and well motivated resistance forces in occupied Europe. It had been Norwegian resistance fighters that had destroyed the heavy water reserves from the Norsk Hydro plant which would have been used by the Nazis in their atomic research. They were committed to driving the invaders out of their country and were a very hardy lot. Alan Brooke replied, “While early reports are sketchy it is clear that in some parts of the country full scale rebellion has all but broken out at news of the Swedish invasion. Evidently the resistance has not been idle. But again it’s a problem of numbers. The Germans have more troops and as we both know Prime Minister are not shy about using ruthless methods to crush resistance.” Churchill nodded. The Germans, more notably the SS, were noted for their cruelty in crushing rebellions and did not care whether women and children suffered in the reprisals.
The Prime Minister asked, “What form of aid can we send the Swedes at this moment?” “At this moment we can do nothing more then send supplies Prime Minister,” replied Field Marshall Brooke. “The simple fact is that our manpower reserves are totally tapped. Every available soldier we have is either fighting in Europe or Asia. Even our colonial troops are fully committed. We simply do not have a single division to spare for Norway. And even if we did getting it there would be no picnic! This time of year the North Sea weather as you know is brutal. We would not be able to get any sort of appreciable number of troops in save by air transport and that means putting our transports in range of whatever fighter strength the Germans have left until they reach the safety of Sweden. We might be able to send a few British commando groups to help the Swedes but that is all right now.”
“And naval intervention is out of the question as long as the Germans hold those blasted shore batteries,” Churchill continued. He remembered that in 1940 those batteries had done considerable damage to the German fleet as it had sailed north to help take key ports, now they were held by the Germans and it was certain they would make life difficult for any ships of the British Navy.
“So to sum up Field Marshall, we can only send the Swedes a handful of men and supplies; they are for the moment on their own?” Field Marshall Alan Brooke quietly nodded. Churchill sighed and realized that Sweden was for the most part on its own at this point. He declared in a subdued voice, “Then…God be with them!
