The campaign in Norway was beset with many problems from the outset and these are neatly revealed in the Auchinleck papers. Auchinleck’s position was, of course, a rather usual one, in that he was appointed to take command of an ongoing operation and, rather than being flown immediately to northern Norway, he was given time to make his own appreciation of the situation. Auchinleck's concerns about the attempt to capture Narvik and the military resources required to do this are clear; in particular he was clearly concerned about German air superiority and asked for a very large number of anti-aircraft guns, clearly believing that RAF support was inadequate [1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 16]. It is also clear that the decision to capture and occupy Narvik was a political, rather than military one, with Narvik harbour having very limited strategic value [4, 5].

The confused system of command, which meant that there was no overall theatre commander, and the inability of Admiral Lord Cork and Major General Mackesy to work effectively together is very clear [6, 11, 12]. Similarly, Auchinleck was concerned at how he could establish his authority as an Allied commander, given the small number of British forces at his disposal [2, 5].

The forces, under Auchinleck's command, were a very mixed bag. He seems to have been impressed by the French troops and the 24th Guards Brigade contained some of the best units in the British army. However, he was less than impressed by the Independent Companies, which can be seen as the precursors of the Commandos. They were designed as specialist irregular units, able to engage in irregular warfare; though the fact that the area around Narvik was sparsely populated made any efforts to develop a guerrilla campaign, with local support, doomed to failure. These companies, each consisting of 20 officers and 270 other ranks, were recruited from throughout the TA in the UK; one company raised from each of the ten TA divisions (only five of these companies saw service in Norway). They had a high allocation of officers and each company included a doctor, demolition experts, a Norwegian interpreter and a mountain warfare officer from the Indian Army. They were wellequipped, with a higher than normal allocation of light machine guns, mortars and radios, and with specialist winter clothing, Alpine rucksacks and snow shoes.