1942 1943 1944 1945 Associated articles In Operation Doomsday, the British 1st Airborne Division acted as a police and military force during the Allied occupation of Norway in May 1945, immediately after the victory in Europe during the Second World War.

The division was also able to confirm the deaths of the British airborne troops that had taken part in Operation Freshman, an unsuccessful attempt to disrupt the German atomic weapons programme in November 1942.

[7] Either of the two 'Rankin' scenarios would be difficult for Thorne to accomplish however, as the troops allocated to Force 134 were meagre; from late 1943 onwards the majority of military resources were dedicated to the campaign in north-west Europe.

In September 1944 Thorne was even deprived of 52nd Lowland Division, which was attached to the 1st Allied Airborne Army by the War Office and earmarked for Operation Market Garden.

[2] The Allied civil affairs planners maintained very close contact with the Norwegian Government in exile which was based in London as well as Milorg.

[7] As a result, by the end of the war Milorg had been preparing for the arrival of an Allied force for some time; its 40,000 members were well-armed and trained, and led by more than 100 Special Operations Executive agents parachuted into Norway, and it was prepared to prevent any sabotage of key communication centres and other important facilities by German troops if they resisted the Allied forces.

[3][12] When it entered Norway, the division would be responsible for maintaining law and order in the areas it occupied, ensuring that German units followed the terms of their surrender, securing and then protecting captured airfields, and finally preventing the sabotage of essential military and civilian structures.

[17] Operation Nordlicht had come to an end at the beginning of January 1945, with only a few miles of Finnish territory remaining in German hands, and several isolated garrisons in Norwegian Finnmark.

[19] Due to the failure of the recent offensive in the Ardennes and the fact that several new types of U-boat were ready to be deployed, the German positions in Norway became of great value to Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Naval High Command as a way to continue submarine warfare against the Allies.

Only on 4 May were orders issued by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht that all German troops in Norway were to avoid actions that might provoke Allied forces.

[22] At the beginning of May, Böhme informed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Naval High Command and the new German President, with the death of Adolf Hitler, that all forces in Norway consisted of eleven divisions and five brigades.

The Germans were to withdraw from all Norwegian towns and the Swedish border and gradually redeploy to areas pre-designated for disarmament; simultaneously, all senior Nazi party officials and security personnel were to immediately be arrested.

Contact was successfully established on 9 May and the first units of Force 134 arrived in Norway to begin their occupation,[24] including the first elements of 1st Airborne Division and the Norwegian Parachute Company.

Unfortunately, after approximately 07:00 poor weather over Oslo caused many transport aircraft heading for the airfield there to return to Britain, although all of those destined for Stavanger landed successfully.

[26] The original plan for the division called for two of the airborne battalions to march through Oslo on 10 May, but the delay meant that only a few troops had arrived by this date.

Instead, two platoons from 2nd Battalion The South Staffordshire Regiment and four Military Policemen on motorcycles accompanied Urquhart, who rode in a commandeered German staff car.

They were disarmed without problem, allowed themselves to be transferred to collection camps and also assisted in the clearing of numerous minefields they had sown during their occupation, which resulted in several German casualties.

[27] Other duties for the division included rounding up war criminals, ensuring that German troops were confined to their camps and reservations and, with Royal Engineer assistance, clearing buildings of mines and other boobytraps.

They were also given the responsibility of assisting Allied personnel who had, until the German surrender, been prisoners of war in Norway, a large number of whom were Russian.

When a parade was held in late June to celebrate the Allied liberation, many of the Russians participated, wearing uniforms with Red Star badges they had made themselves.

[25] During the division's time in Norway, some 400 paratroopers under the command of Major Frederick Gough were temporarily transferred to the Netherlands, where they helped take part in Theirs Is the Glory, a documentary about the Battle of Arnhem.

When it arrived, 1st Airborne Division was informed of the fate of the operation and cooperated with the Norwegian government to have a memorial erected and the fallen men buried with full military honours at Stavanger and Oslo.