Transported by ten destroyers from the Kriegsmarine, the German Task Force under command of General der Infanterie Eduard Dietl had occupied Narvik and the important military depots at Elvegårdsmoen in the early hours of 9 April 1940.

The Allies counter-attacked by sea and, in the two naval battles of Narvik, the Royal Navy sank all ten German destroyers.

The approximately 2,900 shipwrecked German sailors were kitted out with captured Norwegian equipment from Elvegårdsmoen and employed as ground troops in support of Dietl's Gebirgsjäger.

I/IR12 (First Battalion/Twelfth Infantry Regiment) was planned to advance on the German main positions in Gratangsbotn by a surprise march over difficult terrain over Fjordbotneidet.

Though inferior in numbers, the German attack suppressed the surprised Norwegians with superior firepower from mortars and heavy machine guns.

[1] Officer losses were heavy: three out of five company commanders were killed in action, one wounded, the fifth was ill with snow-blindness and did not take active part in the battle.