| NARVIK - NORWAY
Narvik is a town in the county of Nordland,
Norway. It has 18,463 inhabitants as of 2003. The municipality of Narvik
covers 2041 km2, including large areas outside the town.
Narvik is one of the most northerly towns in the world, with a railroad
connecting to Kiruna, Sweden, but not to Bodř, the northern end of the rest
of the railroad network of Norway.
It was the scene of the earliest Allied
success against German forces in World War II. The town was captured by the
Germans on the first day of the invasion of Norway (9. april), but it was
sufficiently far from their bases that a joint British, French and Polish
Expeditionary Task Force and the norwegian 6th division were able to
recapture it. However, the German attack on France, ment that the
expeditionary Force had to be sent to France in early June 1940 (Operation
Alphabet), whitout the support from the task force the norwegians was
outnumbered and had to lay down the weapons in Norway however this was not
an capitulation and the norwegians keept on fighting from abroad.
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