Norwegian armed forces in exile

For instance, troops were able to take over most of the French line north of the Rombaksfjord and were poised for a major offensive, scheduled for 8 June.

King Haakon, Crown Prince Olav, the Norwegian government and some 400 additional civilians were evacuated to Britain by the heavy British cruiser HMS Devonshire.

[3] General Ruge stayed, to supervise an orderly withdrawal and successfully demobilise the back areas before the Germans found out what was going on.

Unlike the navy and air force, the army was not able to easily escape, and almost all remained in Norway after the German invasion.

Some of these men would form part of the Norwegian resistance forces during the rest of the war until Norway regained freedom in May 1945.

During the years in exile in Britain the bulk of the Norwegian Army consisted of a brigade in Dumfries,[6] and smaller units stationed in Iceland, Jan Mayen, Svalbard and South Georgia.

Sleipner was incorporated into the Royal Navy, and assigned to the protection of coastal shipping convoys, a task she performed until 1944.

One of these, HNoMS Bath, was struck by a German torpedo in August 1941 while escorting a convoy to Gibraltar and sunk, killing 89 of her crew.

On 14 April 1943, a convoy was attacked by several German E-boats, and Eskdale was hit by two torpedoes and sunk, resulting in the loss of 25 of her crew.

Throughout this period, Norwegian minesweeper boats continued working to clear mines from convoy routes and planned offensive channels.

[7] The destroyer HNoMS Stord played an integral role in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst in the Battle of the North Cape.

Shortly after Scharnhorst's engagement with HMS Duke of York, Stord and three other S-class destroyers were ordered to position themselves for a torpedo strike on the battleship.

Along with HMS Scorpion, Stord fired eight torpedoes, four of which hit, incapacitating Scharnhorst and allowing the rest of the Allied fleet to catch up and sink it.

After the flight to the United Kingdom a training base was established in Canada and many of the pilots joined the RAF in both bomber and fighter commands.