Ivar Navelsaker

Ivar Navelsaker (7 November 1893 – 3 February 1966) was a Norwegian military officer who, during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, was in command of the 2nd Battalion, Infantry Regiment 11 during the Battle of Dombås.^[12][13]

Navelsaker was born in Nordfjordeid to Ivar and Nille Navelsaker. He graduated as military officer in 1917. He married Gudrun Cappelen in 1927.^[14] He also studied business, and lectured at the Bergens handelsgymnas og handelsskole from 1918 to 1943.^[14]

He was a prisoner-of-war from April 1943, interned in Grune, Schildberg and Luckenwalde, until the end of World War II.^[15] From 1946 he served as colonel and head or the Møre Infantry Regiment.^[14] He died in Molde in February 1966.^[16]

The drop

When the German aircraft arrived over their target area, after a 275 km (171 mi) flight, small breaks in the cloud cover enabled most of the Ju 52s to drop their sticks (loads) of paratroopers. The poor weather conditions led to the Germans being spread over a large area, stretching from Lesja 20 km (12 mi) west of the target, Vålåsjø 18 km (11 mi) north-east of the target and locations 8 km (5 mi) to the south in the Gudbrandsdal valley.^[3]

Fighting the II/IR11

To the misfortune of the German paratroopers, their target area was coincidentally also the temporary base and encampment of the 2nd Battalion of the Norwegian Army's Infantry Regiment 11 (II/IR 11). The battalion had been mobilised in Molde a few days previously and had arrived by train in Dombås in the evening of 13 April.^[1] The deployment had been made in preparation for what the Norwegian Army High Command expected would be a major attempt at reconquering Trondheim in cooperation with Allied forces. Although there were no anti-aircraft guns in the area, II/IR11 had positioned their 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Colt M/29 heavy machine guns on anti-aircraft mounts in order to provide some basic low-level air defence.^[3]

The arrival of the German aircraft over Dombås came as a surprise to the Norwegian forces who nonetheless soon opened fire on the Ju 52s with all available arms. Gunners aboard the Ju 52s returned fire while flying at treetop level. Soon after, the first paratroopers were dropped over the area and took heavy fire while descending to the ground. The ground fire took a heavy toll on the German transport aircraft, with only five out of the original 15 Ju 52s making it back to Fornebu, with another two landing at Værnes Airbase near Trondheim, all seven surviving aircraft riddled with bullet holes.^[17] The remaining eight transports were shot down or made forced landings.^[18] One Ju 52 made an emergency landing on Vänern Lake near Mariestad, Sweden, where it later broke through the ice and sank. The aircraft was salvaged and returned to the Luftwaffe by the Swedish authorities in January 1941.^[19] Many of the paratroopers that had been on the shot-down aircraft died in the crashes, or were killed or captured by Norwegian patrols soon after.

Of his originally 185-strong force^[6] Oberleutnant Schmidt only managed to gather around him 63 men, the rest having died or been scattered over a vast area. With this straitened force, Schmidt began carrying out the assigned task of blocking the Norwegian rail and road network. The German force blocked the main road in the area and cut the telephone wire running next to it. After capturing a Norwegian taxicab and putting as many of his men as he could in and onto the vehicle, Schmidt drove north toward Dombås, stopping at regular intervals to make forward observations.^[18]

Schmidt is wounded

When the taxi-borne German force reached the farmstead of Li on the road to Dombås, they ran into two truck-loads of soldiers from No. 5 Company, IR 11. After some initial confusion the Norwegian opened fire and the Germans charged with submachine guns and hand grenades. Following a short fire fight during which Schmidt was severely wounded and the Norwegians pushed back, the paratroopers abandoned their advance on Dombås. They instead pulled back and took up positions in a hedgehog defensive fighting position at the farms of Ulekleiv and Hagevolden, covering all directions and dominating the surrounding landscape. Schmidt—although seriously wounded in the hip and stomach—never relinquished command and ordered his men to use sand to write messages in the snow to the Luftwaffe asking for supplies of provisions and ammunition. The force was not spotted by Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft and received no supply drops while at Ulekleiv/Hagevolden.^[10][20]

Side-effects of the attack

The attack at Dombås made the Norwegian Central Bank speed up the evacuation of the Norwegian gold reserves. The 50 t (55 short tons) of gold had been evacuated from Oslo on 9 April and was being kept in a vault in Lillehammer^[21] when the German attack on Dombås began. As soon as news of German paratroopers landing spread, the gold was put on a train and brought to Åndalsnes from where it was evacuated by way of British cruisers and Norwegian fishing boats.^[22]

King Haakon VII of Norway and his son, Crown Prince Olav were both at Dovre, near the drop zone and only 30 minutes from the nearest groups of paratroopers when the attack began on 14 April. The King and Crown Prince both had to be escorted out of the area by members of the Dovreskogen Rifle Club.^[23]

Breakout from Ulekleiv and Hagevolden

While the fruitless negotiations were taking place the Fallschirmjägers were preparing to move away from their stronghold and find a new place to fight from. The arrival of the two Norwegian mortars had completely changed the tactical situation and the German force's supply of ammunition was also running dangerously low. Schmidt decided that he had to move his troops into a new and more defensible position. Negotiations were kept up to buy time so the paratroopers could slip away into cover of darkness. Schmidt believed that strong German forces were advancing up the Gudbrandsdal valley and that if he could hold out for a little while longer the situation might still be salvaged. The reality of the situation was, however, that the German advanced units were stuck just north of Minnesund far to the south of both Gudbrandsdal and Dombås.^[4]

As negotiations collapsed, the Norwegians opened fire again, but a sudden ground blizzard blinded the gunners and allowed the Germans to make a counterattack and break out of their encirclement. The attack threw back the Norwegian forces in the north, whose commander ordered a general retreat to Dombås. On the night of 16/17 April, the Fallschirmjäger under Schmidt—having thrown back the nearest Norwegian forces—disengaged and began to make their way south in the direction of Dovre.^[4]

The 16th of April also saw the continuation of mopping up operations by Norwegian units. Twenty-two Germans were captured at Kolstad near Lesja and another 23 at Bottheim train station.^[4] The prisoners were initially held in the basement sitting room of Ulekleiv Hotel in Dombås.^[27]

Lindse Farms

With daybreak, Schmidt's men began to search out a new position which could provide good cover without the risk of being attacked from the rear. This they found at the North and South Lindse Farm,^[28] a farmstead high on a hillside and dominating both the railway line (250 m [270 yd] away) and the main road (700 m [770 yd] away). North Lindse—with its stone barn—became the strong point of the defence, with South Lindse being used to keep Norwegian prisoners; 15 military personnel and 40 civilians. The farm buildings were quickly fortified with sandbags and planking. Oberleutnant Schmidt was carried to Lindse on a door by Norwegian POWs.^[4]

Renewed fighting

On the morning of 17 April, fighting was renewed when first the Norwegian Major Alv Kjøs and then No. 1 Company ran into German ambushes by Lindse. Kjøs was captured, as was the vanguard of No. 1 Company. The main force of No. 1 Company fought its way out, pulling back to Dovre Church at 10:00.^[5]

After the first encounter of the day, the main Norwegian forces failed to realise that the whole Fallschirmjäger force had moved to Lindse and spent the day reorganizing and receiving reinforcements. II/IR 11 was replaced by its sister battalion, I/IR 11, and a machine gun platoon from the Norwegian Army Air Service's Jagevingen fighter unit (the unit having lost all its aircraft around Oslo on 9 April) arrived to reinforce the attacks on Schmidt's paratroopers. For most of the day the abandoned German positions at Ulekleiv was bombarded by Norwegian mortars. Only in evening did the Norwegian commanders discover where the Germans had relocated.^[5] On the night of 17/18 April, fenrik (Second Lieutenant) L. K. Løkken of the Raufoss Anti-aircraft Command arrived with a 40 mm anti-aircraft gun.^[29]