Despite the escalating hostilities throughout Europe in 1939 and 1940, the Norwegian government at the time failed to mobilize; leaving the Army wholly unprepared for the German invasion of April 1940. Estimates put the number of Norwegian troops in the field at a mere six divisions by the onset of war in April 1940. This amounted to approximately 19,000 men on paper. This was actually a numerically superior force to that of the Germans. However, these divisions were ill-prepared by the time the landings commenced and four were destroyed by the Germans during the initial phases of the campaign. With the German occupational forces in 1940, as with the other parts of the Armed Forces, the Army had to surrender to a superior force, but army units were the ones resisting for the longest period of time: The 6th Division led by the legendary Major General Carl Gustav Fleischer participated in the allied recapture of Narvik.