ceipt of information on April 7 that large German naval force was fnoving towards and along the west coast of Norway.
The Prime Minister retold the story of the battle between the Renown and the Scharnhorst, and the first Narvik naval fight, and then continued:
"In view of the obscurity of the: situation In central Norway and the Importance of securing Narvik, our first military forces which we had. promptly assembled sailed direct to the Narvik area, arriving there on April 15.
"tu the meantime a very successful naval attack on April 13 pletely. destroyed the one forees at that port, and made it unnecessary to utilize for the capture, of Narviie all the forces originally earmarked for that operation, "In deciding upon our further ction, the objectives we had in view were:
"1. To give all support and assistance in our power to the Norwegians.
"No resist or delay the German advance from the south.
"9. To facilitate the rescue and protection of the Norwegian King and Government, "It was obvious that these objec tives could most speedily be attained it were possible to capture) 'Trondheim, and' we resolved to make fan effort (cheers). Two landing} Places were selected respectively forth and south of Trondheim, Heavy Enemy Losses cannot today give any dotalls place on both fronts since the land~ ing took place, All that can be said at present is that our troops fought with gallantry and dete mination, and inflicted heavy losses the enemy, Nevertheless the Allied forces the:
regions were faced, as we had realized they would be, with serious difficulties, Foremost' among these was the fact that available aerod-Fomes were already in enemy hands, "The use of fighter aircraft was then largely denied to us. In the circumstances it became evident to lus some days ago that it would be impossible, owing to the German Toeal alr superiority, to land artill and tanks necessary to enable our troops to withstand the enemy drive from the south. A "Accordingly, we decided last week that we must abandon any idea of faking Trondheim from the south, and we must, therefore, withdraw our troops from that area and transfer them elsewhere.
"The operation of withdrawal the face of an enemy is one which has already been recognized as among, the most delicate and dificult of military. operations, but in the present instance we have been more fortunate.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.