Ron Cope’s Attack at Dawn is a vivid, deliberately non-academic collection of accounts from people involved in the First Battle of Narvik. The book distinguishes the German arrival on 9 April 1940, when the Norwegian coastal-defence ships Eidsvold and Norge were sunk, from the destroyer battle conventionally dated to 10 April. Their loss killed 282 Norwegian sailors. The accounts preserve how crew members experienced the battle, survived, and escaped capture. Cope explains that some material came through veterans’ families and friends or survived on paper and tape, and he does not claim that every account can be verified in full. These sources preserve personal experience while showing why memories of a fast, frightening action require care.
Notable Point · 9:14-11:04
Veteran memories from the First Battle of Narvik
Ron Cope’s Attack at Dawn gathers participants’ accounts of the First Battle of Narvik and makes the limits of fast-moving combat memory part of the book’s method.