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Dombås
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Dombås
Dombås (ⓘ)[needs IPA] is a village in Dovre Municipality in northern Innlandet county, Norway. The village serves as the commercial centre for the upper Gudbrandsdalen valley. It lies at an important junction of roads with the European route E6 highway heading north and south connecting the cities of Oslo and Trondheim and the European route E136 highway heading west to Åndalsnes. The Dovrebanen and Raumabanen railway lines meet in the village at Dombås Station as well. Dombås Church is located in the village.
The 1.57-square-kilometre (390-acre) village has a population (2024) of 1163 and a population density of 741 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,920/sq mi).
A description of the village area from 1895:
At Dombås, where there is a telegraph station, the scene had entirely changed, and fields of waving barley and potatoes greeted the eye.... Here, at a height of 2,000 feet (610 m) above the sea, the crops were not quite ripe, the season being backward. Barley required a few more days of sunshine, and the potatoes were still in bloom. The evenings became cold, and the farmers' faces showed their anxiety. The wind was from the NNW, and for two consecutive nights black frost appeared. The potato-vines turned black, and the grain crop was seriously injured. After the first frost everybody was at work in the fields, women and men sheaving the barley, and every available hand digging the potatoes. There was sorrow in many a farmer's heart, for the people were now greatly distressed, and I detected tears on many a mother's cheek during these two days. After this sudden cold spell the weather became cloudy, a violent storm set in, and the ground was covered with 18 inches (460 mm) of wet snow, though it was only the 20th of September.
— Paul B. Du Chaillu from The Land Of The Midnight Sun
The Dovre Line was extended to Dombås in 1913 and Dombås Station was built. The line was extended onwards to Støren in 1921. Three years later, the Rauma Line opened connecting Dombås to Åndalsnes. Dombås Church was completed in 1939.
In 1940, during the Norwegian Campaign, the Germans recognized that this rail, roadway and telegraph junction was strategically significant. From 13 April on the Germans started receiving messages of imminent allied action in Norway through the port of Åndalsnes. To counter this, the German High Command ordered a takeover of Dombås. The result was that a company of fallschirmjägers from the 1st battalion of the 1st Regiment, 7th Flieger Division was dropped at Dombås on 14 April, intending to cut the rail line. The German company had the misfortune to jump straight onto the second battalion of Infantry Regiment no. 11 (Møre) that was bivouacked at Dombås on their way to the front north of Oslo. In the second opposed paratrooper attack in history (the first being the one made against Sola Air Station on 9 April) only seven out of fifteen Junkers Ju 52s made it back to their base at Fornebu airport the rest were lost to Norwegian Colt M/29 anti-aircraft machine gun fire, dispersing the paratroopers. Most of the surviving paratroopers were taken prisoner soon after landing. Only a single group of sixty-three Germans, under the company commander Oberleutnant Herbert Schmidt, managed to avoid capture and sealed off the Gudbrandsdalen valley holed up in two strategically placed farms. Only on 19 April did the isolated group of Germans surrender, having been surrounded by far superior Norwegian forces for five days. On 16 April, the Norwegians brought two mortars and several Colt M/29 heavy machine guns to bear on Schmidt's men and from 18 April a 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun bombarded the German positions from Dombås Railway Station. On 19 April the paratroopers could no longer stand the bombardment and sent forward the captured Norwegian Major Kjøs to convey their surrender message. All in all 150 fallschirmjägers ended up in Norwegian captivity, being kept in a prisoner-of-war camp near Kristiansund until released when resistance collapsed in South Norway in early May.
On 21 April 1940, a German Luftwaffe bombing attack on the village's railway areas resulted in the first American military casualty of World War II. Captain Robert M. Losey, an aeronautical meteorologist serving as an air attaché to American embassies in the Nordic countries, was killed while observing the bombing near the entrance to a rail tunnel where he and others had sought safety. A monument to Captain Losey now stands in Dombås. Five Norwegians were killed by the same bomb as Losey, and another 18 were wounded.
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Dombås
Dombås (ⓘ)[needs IPA] is a village in Dovre Municipality in northern Innlandet county, Norway. The village serves as the commercial centre for the upper Gudbrandsdalen valley. It lies at an important junction of roads with the European route E6 highway heading north and south connecting the cities of Oslo and Trondheim and the European route E136 highway heading west to Åndalsnes. The Dovrebanen and Raumabanen railway lines meet in the village at Dombås Station as well. Dombås Church is located in the village.
The 1.57-square-kilometre (390-acre) village has a population (2024) of 1163 and a population density of 741 inhabitants per square kilometre (1,920/sq mi).
A description of the village area from 1895:
At Dombås, where there is a telegraph station, the scene had entirely changed, and fields of waving barley and potatoes greeted the eye.... Here, at a height of 2,000 feet (610 m) above the sea, the crops were not quite ripe, the season being backward. Barley required a few more days of sunshine, and the potatoes were still in bloom. The evenings became cold, and the farmers' faces showed their anxiety. The wind was from the NNW, and for two consecutive nights black frost appeared. The potato-vines turned black, and the grain crop was seriously injured. After the first frost everybody was at work in the fields, women and men sheaving the barley, and every available hand digging the potatoes. There was sorrow in many a farmer's heart, for the people were now greatly distressed, and I detected tears on many a mother's cheek during these two days. After this sudden cold spell the weather became cloudy, a violent storm set in, and the ground was covered with 18 inches (460 mm) of wet snow, though it was only the 20th of September.
— Paul B. Du Chaillu from The Land Of The Midnight Sun
The Dovre Line was extended to Dombås in 1913 and Dombås Station was built. The line was extended onwards to Støren in 1921. Three years later, the Rauma Line opened connecting Dombås to Åndalsnes. Dombås Church was completed in 1939.
In 1940, during the Norwegian Campaign, the Germans recognized that this rail, roadway and telegraph junction was strategically significant. From 13 April on the Germans started receiving messages of imminent allied action in Norway through the port of Åndalsnes. To counter this, the German High Command ordered a takeover of Dombås. The result was that a company of fallschirmjägers from the 1st battalion of the 1st Regiment, 7th Flieger Division was dropped at Dombås on 14 April, intending to cut the rail line. The German company had the misfortune to jump straight onto the second battalion of Infantry Regiment no. 11 (Møre) that was bivouacked at Dombås on their way to the front north of Oslo. In the second opposed paratrooper attack in history (the first being the one made against Sola Air Station on 9 April) only seven out of fifteen Junkers Ju 52s made it back to their base at Fornebu airport the rest were lost to Norwegian Colt M/29 anti-aircraft machine gun fire, dispersing the paratroopers. Most of the surviving paratroopers were taken prisoner soon after landing. Only a single group of sixty-three Germans, under the company commander Oberleutnant Herbert Schmidt, managed to avoid capture and sealed off the Gudbrandsdalen valley holed up in two strategically placed farms. Only on 19 April did the isolated group of Germans surrender, having been surrounded by far superior Norwegian forces for five days. On 16 April, the Norwegians brought two mortars and several Colt M/29 heavy machine guns to bear on Schmidt's men and from 18 April a 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun bombarded the German positions from Dombås Railway Station. On 19 April the paratroopers could no longer stand the bombardment and sent forward the captured Norwegian Major Kjøs to convey their surrender message. All in all 150 fallschirmjägers ended up in Norwegian captivity, being kept in a prisoner-of-war camp near Kristiansund until released when resistance collapsed in South Norway in early May.
On 21 April 1940, a German Luftwaffe bombing attack on the village's railway areas resulted in the first American military casualty of World War II. Captain Robert M. Losey, an aeronautical meteorologist serving as an air attaché to American embassies in the Nordic countries, was killed while observing the bombing near the entrance to a rail tunnel where he and others had sought safety. A monument to Captain Losey now stands in Dombås. Five Norwegians were killed by the same bomb as Losey, and another 18 were wounded.
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