“Hard reality around us has made it clear to one and all that national defense is a question of life and death for a country.”-—From a speech by Foreign Minister C. E. Gunther.
Sweden’s position between Russia and Germany has been a most uncomfortable one. Her fear of her mighty eastern neighbor is of long standing. Though other more important elements have entered into her relations with Germany, the fear of Russia has also affected them. Many Swedish professional men and a certain number of army and naval officers have for years turned to Germany for their higher education, and business men have daily crossed the narrow waters of the Baltic for Germany, to whom and from whom Swedish exports and imports were by far the most important. As a result of all this, we well as for other reasons, many a Swedish officer was pro-German in his feelings. But with the invasion of their “brother- countries” of Norway and Denmark, and the subsequent brutalities practiced by the “Herrenvolk” there, sentiment even in the officer class has largely changed today from their decidedly pro-German sentiment during World War I. Nothing has roused Swedish opposition more in the so-called New Order in Europe, than the suppression of justice and individual rights in her neighbor Scandinavian Kingdoms. The Swedish nation as a whole may be said to be over 90 per cent for an Allied victory. In a recent discussion in the Swedish Riksdag a former Minister voiced public opinion by stating: “What has happened in Norway may happen to any honest citizen in Sweden if we do not look after our own home.” And again, “Without a defensive force we cannot follow any policy of our own, our declarations become merely empty words, and we leave the country’s fate to the chance of being decided by others. With a defense as strong as Swedish conditions allow we secure for ourselves the basis of a continued independent Swedish policy.”
The essence of Sweden’s foreign policy is neutrality. Short of an attack upon her national honor or neutrality, Sweden will consequently do everything possible to keep out of the present conflict. With the seas of the world closed but for a very few Swedish sailings, what Sweden has received from Germany has been cryingly needed, as has the import in return for her iron ore.1
The provocations to lose her temper have been many, but this Sweden has not done, but kept her own counsel with both skill and dignity. Today Sweden feels confident that any Nazi attack upon her would prove a costly adventure for Hitler to embark upon.
Though possessing at the end of World War I a considerably larger navy than her two small neighbors, it merely totaled 80,000 tons with a complement of 400 officers and 9,000 men (including conscripts). Believing in a general world disarmament and the efficacy of what the League of Nations might accomplish toward a world of peace and harmony, Sweden curtailed her budgets for military and naval expenditures. Prior to 1936 her annual military (Army and Navy) budgets had been about $30,000,000. When the first Russian-Finnish war started Sweden began her all-out defense efforts. Her real effort, however, dates back about four years, when the Government proposed a 5-year plan with a defense appropriation of four billion kronor (about one billion dollars). This was a staggering demand upon a people of only slightly over 6,000,000, and also in the light of the fact that the Riksdag of 1936 had appropriated only 150 million kronor for defense. Actually the years 1940 and 1941 showed defense expenditures totaling about two billion kronor each, two-thirds of this being covered by loans.2
The annual costs of maintaining the present state of military preparedness are not provided for in the 5-year plan, which covers only new installations and equipment. Sweden’s naval program has consisted not only of her new buildings at the recent rate of about one unit a week, and the corresponding increase in the personnel, but also in the extensive fortifications of her coast line and in particular of the hundreds of islands which comprise the archipelago doorways to her two largest cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg, her naval base Karlskrona, and certain points on the island of Gotland. In these fortifications the Swedes are justly proud of their 40-mm. anti-aircraft automatic guns, their 37-mm. anti-tank guns, and their cannon varying from 6-12 inches, quite a few of them self-propelled, all from the renowned Bofors factories and now placed at every point of vantage along her shores. This defense is carried out by the Coast Artillery and comes under the jurisdiction of the Navy and both services mine and guard the coastal waters jointly.
Sweden’s Army, Navy, and Air Force are independent services. In the case of the Navy certain definite air squadrons are attached to it for co-operation and protection.
While the Army now consists of more than half a million well-trained men, the Air Service is noticeably lacking in planes and particularly in modern, up-to-date machines. The personnel has been increased some 350 per cent since 1936. Much of the material came from abroad, a market from which Sweden now is shut off, resulting in her developing her own aircraft industry. While a certain minor number of fine planes are being produced, the war will certainly be over before any appreciable quantity have been added to the air force. The airfields are strategically placed both on the mainland and the islands.
Mr. Per Edvin Sköld, the Minister of Defense, has all three services under him. Vice Admiral C. Fabian Tamm is Commander in Chief of the Navy, while Major General J. H. Aström heads the Coastal Defense.3 Rear Admiral H. H. Strömbäck is Chief of the Staff. Sweden, similarly to Norway, has for many, many centuries been a seafaring nation and quite naturally so with a 4,725- mile long coast line, studded with harbors, inlets, and bays. The war has taken a heavy toll of her Merchant Marine. More than 226 vessels of 570,800 gross tons have been sunk with a loss of about 1,400 officers and men.4 The bulk of these vessels were plying between ports of the United Nations. It would be hard, along the extended coast line, to discover a boy over twelve who could not swim and row and sail a boat and was not familiar with a certain amount of a sailorman’s work.
There is thus splendid and plentiful stuff from which to draw the material needed by the Royal Navy. The conscript material for it is probably among the best in the world. During the years 1941-42 less than 5 per cent of the young men called for naval service were exempted on the ground of physical shortcomings. And the standard was a high one at that.
Those in command are not only highly trained and efficient officers, but fulfill in every way what the Anglo-Saxon understands by a gentleman. While in former days they often sprang from the nobility and upper classes, this is now no longer the case. Whatever their social standing, the sea is in their blood. The personnel of the Swedish Navy consists partly of officers and men “de carrière,” and partly of civilians called for a fixed period of service. The principal training is at sea and this has been particularly true during the recent rapid growth of the Navy. The Naval Academy at Stockholm is intended for staff officers and the higher line, and technical officers, while the Naval College, also located in the capital, is the school for the younger men. Petty officers’ training quarters are located at the various naval bases.
Sweden has never concerned herself with building a navy for aggressive warfare on the high seas. Her ships are designed for, and ideally adapted to service in the shallow waters along her skerry-dotted coast line.
Without allowing themselves to be bound by theories prevailing in foreign navies, the Swedes have tried out their own naval tactics, taking chiefly into account the character of the waters outside their own shores and their resources in ships. They have observed with considerable interest that “group tactics,” tried out by their Navy in the early thirties on the basis of purely Swedish conditions, have been applied in the present war by the fleets of the belligerent powers. Even before the outbreak of the present war, the tactical problem of warding off simultaneous attacks by bombing and torpedo carrying aircraft had been thoroughly studied by the Swedish Navy in collaboration with the aircraft attached to it.
Sweden’s Navy consists of the following vessels:
Seven battleships: the Gustaf V, the Drottning Victoria, and the Sverige of around 7,200 tons, with a speed of 22 ½ knots, four 28-cm. guns and six 15-cm. ones, all completed in the years 1915-18. The Oscar II of 4,325 tons, with a speed of 18 knots and two 21- cm. guns and eighteen 15-cm. ones, completed in 1906, the Manligheten (Manliness), the Tapperheten (Bravery) and the Äran (Honor) of 3,450 tons, with a speed of 17 knots and main batteries of two 21-cm. and six 15-cm. guns. They were completed between 1902 and 1904.
Two cruisers and one combination cruiser and aircraft carrier: The Flygia of 4,500 tons with a speed of 23 knots and eight 15-cm. guns, completed in 1907, the Clas Fleming of 1,735 tons, with a speed of 20 knots and four 12-cm. guns, completed in 1914.
All these vessels have been modernized during the last three or four years.
The combination airplane carrier-cruiser Gotland (carrying 12 planes) of 4,775 tons with a speed of 27 ½ knots, armed with six 15-cm. guns and completed in 1935, is now being rearmed, particularly with stronger anti-aircraft guns.
Fifteen destroyers, completed at different times during the years 1926-43 and varying in tonnage from 935 to 1,135 tons, and in speed from 35 to 39 knots, with batteries consisting on an average of three 12-cm. guns and six 53-cm. torpedo tubes.
Twelve torpedo boats (small destroyers) and 21 motor torpedo boats, the last of these being of 28 tons. The smaller destroyers are classified as “coastal destroyers.”
Twenty-six submarines of various types according to their use on the high seas, along the Swedish coast, or in mine laying, and varying in size from 400 to 667 tons. The larger ones carry the names of marine animals, the smaller, V-l, V-2, etc.
Added to these vessels there are, of course, mine sweepers and layers, submarine chasers, mother ships, etc. The latest so-called “mine cruiser,” the Älvsnabben is of 4,200 tons with a complement of 325 men and caries four 6-inch guns, large anti-aircraft batteries, and 4 mine throwers.
Among new construction, either under way or planned, are the two cruisers Gota Lejon (Lion of the Gotas) and Tre Kronor (Three Crowns) of 7,000 tons (under construction), quite a few destroyers and submarines, both of the last two types larger than the earlier ones, numbers of motor torpedo boats intended for coastal defense, and flotilla leaders of 1,800 tons. The new destroyers of the “Stadsklassen” (bearing the names of cities) of around 1,050 tons, with a speed of 39 knots, armed with three 12-cm.’s and from four to six 2.5-cm. guns and six 53-cm. torpedo tubes. Finished to date are the Gävle, Norrköping Karlskrona, Malmö, Stockholm, Göteborg. In addition to these destroyers are the “modified city type” Kalmar, Hälsingborg, Sundsvall, and Visby, of 1,135 tons, with three 12-cm. guns, speed 39 knots.
While Sweden has as yet lost no men-of- war due to the present war, three of her destroyers were sunk at their pier in 1941 as a result of an accidental explosion of a torpedo.
The Swedish Navy now consists of 182 units with 11 more being built, as compared to 115 in 1939.
The naval organization consists of six districts, namely: The Northern, the Eastern, Gotland, the Southern, the Sound, and the Western. Each district controls the vessels stationed within it, its coastal artillery, naval establishments and yards, each with a chief in charge, except in the case of Gotland.
The work of the Commander in Chief of the Navy is partly carried out by his staff officers and partly by a certain number of “inspectors,” namely those of naval artillery, of destroyers and submarines, and of the mine service. The departmental Chief of the Naval Staff’s liaison service acts as inspector of the entire liaison service. The chiefs of personnel, commissary, and the surgeon general act as inspectors of their various services.
The last Swedish naval program states that it is the Navy’s intention during the year 1944 “to create a combined naval and air defense, capable of counterattack, as required by defensive warfare.” To bring this about there is set up a light force, consisting of 3 cruisers, 12 destroyers, and 18 torpedo boats with a relatively large number of submarines.
Sweden has two naval bases, at Stockholm and Karlskrona, as well as a smaller one at Gothenburg. The principal shipyards are the Götaverken and Eriksberg in Gothenburg, Kockum in Malmö, and Finnboda in Stockholm.
The fleet is subdivided into (1) vessels of the line, (2) the reserve fleet, (3) the assistant fleet. The main force of vessels of the line make up the coastal fleet. Vessels employed for specific purposes or on special errands belong to the reserve fleet, while the assistant fleet consists of gunboats and other craft required for the defense of merchantmen.
With the completion of the new cruisers, the coastal fleet is planned to be divided into three operational groups, each consisting of a cruiser and a certain number of destroyers and torpedo boats as well as submarines and smaller craft.
The Swedish Navy has today 604 officers, 1,680 noncommissioned officers, and 5,770 men, and three band corps and an adequate number of conscripts.
As there is universal conscription, all able- bodied Swedes are liable for service in the Army, Navy, or Air Force. Such men as are indicated for naval service, when called to the colors in times of peace, serve during their first call for 15 consecutive months, 3 months on shore at one of the naval stations succeeded by 12 months at sea.
Captains, mates, and engineers of the Merchant Marine liable for service in the Navy serve an initial period of 15 months, followed by two periods of two months each. After their first service they are enrolled as officers or noncommissioned (Reserve) officers of the Royal Navy.
The enlisted men who intend to remain in the Navy first serve for a period of four years and a month. Their basic training is given at the Karlskrona sailor’s school. The first year is spent in the school for recruits, the second at sea, the third in the school for noncommissioned officers, and the final year once more at sea. Those who re-enlist spend their fifth year at sea, after which those especially promising as noncommissioned officers are sent for their sixth and seventh years to study defensive tactics, spending, however, two months a year at sea. The eighth year they pass through the naval school for noncommissioned officers. Taken all in all, a most remarkable and thorough training!
The coast artillery consists of the following: The Vaxholm regiment, defending Stockholm and containing three batallions (nine companies); the Karlskrona regiment, defending the province of Blekinge and containing four batallions (eleven companies); the Gotland corps, defending the Island of Gotland (four companies); the Älvsborg regiment, defending Gothenburg, containing four battalions (nine companies); the Härnösands detail, defending Hemsö (two companies).
The coast artillery is about to be increased to 290 officers, 556 noncommissioned officers, and 1,857 men, a number so proportionately large compared to the Navy proper that one realizes Sweden is prepared to defend her coast both from land and sea.
Compared to the huge navies of the great powers, Sweden’s Navy is of course insignificantly small; nevertheless it is one that cannot be ignored in its defense of its Baltic shores. While the Gneisenau is believed to be lying helpless at Gdynia and the Prinz Eugen to be tied up at Kiel, the Lützow and Von Scheer are probably lurking in the Baltic and so also the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, the cruisers Nüremburg, Leipzig, and Emden, and a number of German destroyers and torpedo boats. Just at present the Swedish Navy also has to bear in mind the possibility of the resumption of Russian-German naval activities in the Baltic, owing both to the situation of the northern, or left flank of the German armies, and the fact that the two old 12-inch-gun Russian battleships have been repaired. These, with a Russian aircraft carrier, three or four cruisers, besides destroyers and submarines, might well attack German vessels, particularly if Germany pulls out of Finland and her ports are left practically undefended. Shipping Swedish ore through the Baltic to Germany might become difficult. It might, on the other hand, be taken overland to south Swedish ports, but, as these are ill-equipped with ore- handling machinery, such an alternative would only be chosen in case Russia had acquired access to the Baltic. These difficulties are today uppermost in the minds of the Swedish Naval Staff. Even powerful vessels might, however, today well doubt the wisdom of attacking Swedish naval defenses. What the Swedish Navy lacks in quantity and power it possesses in quality. It has proud traditions of centuries of fighting which it will live up to, if forced to do so.
Note: The author is indebted to Commodore Angelin, Swedish Naval Attaché in Washington, for having read and corrected the details given in this article.
1. During the period 1940-42,28,209,000 tons.
2. The Naval Budget for 1944-45 calls for 168,428,000 kronor.
3. Colonel Count Carl A. Ehrensvärd is Chief of the National Defense Staff.
4. This figure, as of January 1,1944, includes both the Navy and Merchant Marine, but does not include 4,500 maimed and killed in Sweden’s defense force.