by Tony Insall
John Wilson (left), the head of SOE’s Scandinavian section, on a trip to the Shetland base. On the right is Leslie Mitchell, the first base commandant. © NHM
After Mitchell’s departure in 1942, he was replaced by Arthur Sclater. Sclater, and in particular his deputy David Howarth, oversaw the development of the base. They improved maintenance facilities and built a slipway named after Prince Olav, who visited with his father King Haakon in October 1942. The ships were also adapted, and equipped with weapons, suitable camouflage and defensive armour which more than once came in vitally useful. New crew members received specialised training, too. Handling of the independently minded fishermen was not always straightforward. In 1942 a Norwegian naval officer was appointed by the Norwegian High Command to look after their welfare and discipline, and they were formed into the Norwegian Naval Independent Unit (NNIU). This did not work well. For most of them, their only previous connection with the Norwegian Navy had been limited to contact with fishery patrols and they did not take well to attempts to enforce naval standards of discipline. They expressed a preference for continuing management by the British and refused to act under the orders of their own officer. After some two months of careful discussion, British staff resumed responsibility for certain elements of activity and another Norwegian officer was appointed. A further problem arose when the submarine chasers were introduced, because the crews lost the bonus which had been paid to them for operations using fishing boats. The reason was that motor torpedo boats (MTBs) had been carrying out similar trips from Lerwick without any bonus – and also on Norwegian naval rates of pay considerably lower than the civilian rates which the fishermen received. Against advice, they wrote an ultimatum to Hansteen threatening to resign if retrospective payments were not made. This brought them a further disadvantage, for they were conscripted into the Norwegian Navy and paid at naval rates. None of them resigned, and the only difference was that following conscription it became easier to post in new recruits.
The dry statistics of the losses of valuable crews and their boats give little insight into the risks which they ran and other obstacles which they sometimes had to surmount apart from the weather. Two examples involving Leif Larsen, the most highly decorated Allied naval officer during the war, best illustrate the dangers which Shetland crews faced.§ In October 1941 Larsen was the engineer on Nordsjøen which was minelaying in the Edøyfjord. The vessel sank in a heavy gale on its return journey, but the crew was able to make their way to land. Some of them, including the skipper, then disappeared, so Larsen took charge of the remainder. He led them over 100 miles through occupied territory to Ålesund. There he stole another fishing vessel, Arthur, and sailed it back to Lerwick. For this he received a Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). In March 1943 he sailed Bergholm on an even longer mission, landing passengers and stores on the edge of the Arctic Circle. On its return, Bergholm was attacked by a series of German aircraft, which the crew fought off with Lewis guns and a cannon. Larsen stayed in the wheelhouse (which offered little protection) and manoeuvred the boat so as to give the gunners the best field of fire. Most of the seven crew were injured, four seriously. One man had his foot shot off and died shortly afterwards. Damage to Bergholm was extensive. The wheelhouse was shot through and its doors torn off, the deckhouse and dinghy were full of holes and the mast nearly shot away. The pumps could not cope with the leaks, and after repairing the dinghy, Larsen abandoned ship. Following various unsuccessful attempts to persuade fishing boat skippers to take them to Shetland (one of which was reported to the Germans by a quisling) they landed on an island near Ålesund. With help from the SOE Antrum station, Larsen sent a message to the Shetland base. He and the surviving crew were picked up and arrived back in Shetland on 12 April. For this he was awarded a bar to his DSM.9
The American loan of the three 110-foot submarine chasers, Hitra, Hessa and Vigra, provided a substantial benefit. They were not only faster; they could also operate in any weather. Once they started service, there were no further losses for the rest of the war during nearly 120 operational trips, a remarkable record. Better navigation equipment improved their results too, with seventy-six successful missions sailed out of a total of eighty during 1944 and 1945. The greatest danger they faced was not from the Germans, but from overenthusiastic RAF patrols searching for U-boats which had moved to Norway after the fall of France. They once depth-charged Hessa, putting it out of service for fifteen weeks.¶ Safety lanes were thereafter introduced for their planned routes, within which the RAF would not attack without visual identification.10 The Americans also briefly posed a threat to continued use of the boats by SOE. They wanted to recover the submarine chasers temporarily, for use by the OSS, SOE’s counterpart, in Operation BARTER, which they had been asked to mount against the pyrites mine north of Bergen. (This would have been a rare American operation on Norwegian soil.) The request was highly inconvenient for SOE, who were planning a series of trips in which they were to be used, and could ill spare them. SOE unwisely pointed this out directly to General Donovan, who ran OSS, stating without much tact that they ‘quite realised your moral claim for a share in the vessels’ activities’. They added, ‘our reluctance to make them available is because they have an extremely full programme of work in connection with our tasks which have been allotted to us in our Norwegian directive from General Eisenhower’s staff’. Donovan replied testily:
I wish you to understand that the US boats now employed in the service of SOE/SO|| are, at the present time, and will, in the future, be available, if necessary, for any such operation that is planned, and that their engagement on their present work will not prove an obstacle to the mounting of special operations … I do not subscribe to your view that we have a ‘moral’ claim to a share in the SC [submarine chaser] vessels’ activities. They are the property of the US Government, assigned to OSS by the US navy, and temporarily allocated by SO to serve SOE/SO Scandinavian work.
However, he was outflanked by SOE who, unchastened by this sharp reply, persuaded the Chiefs of Staff that submarine chasers were not necessary. BARTER was then dropped, and the American requirement fell away.11
By air
Air transport was never straightforward. Aircrew had to contend with problems caused by mountain ranges and poor weather, which created difficulties for navigation, as well as snow, which obscured landmarks. All too often, maps were unreliable. A shortwave radio navigation aid whose components were codenamed Eureka and Rebecca, which helped matters, was only introduced on a large scale in 1944 after limited earlier deployments. Conflicting priorities meant that the RAF was unwilling to provide many aircraft. Until France had been liberated, only two squadrons (138 and 161) were allocated to supply northwest Europe. Conditions on the ground for reception committees were often harsh as well. The sensible choice of isolated dropping points meant that they were usually located in remote valleys. Reception committees endured many long nights in very cold conditions, receiving parachutists trying to land in inhospitable surroundings. Equipment was often lost, being dragged long distances by the wind after landing or deposited on mountain crags.
There is one remarkable story of an agent who ignored SOE’s normal reception committee procedure by handling, entirely by himself, the loads dropped by two aircraft, consisting of nine men, twenty-four containers and eight packages. This happened in winter, at a dropping point arranged deep in the mountains, when the snow was soft and skiing conditions very poor. On the night of drop, the agent waited for the alerting message (known as the crack signal) to be broadcast by the BBC. It did not come, because the BBC forgot to send the signal at the normal time. However, they energetically corrected their error at two in the morning when – fortunately – the agent was still listening. By then he had dismissed the reception committee, whom he had no time to recontact. So he skied out alone, carrying on his back three boxes stuffed with petrol-soaked cotton waste and four flashlights. As he finished placing his signals in their normal positions, he heard th
e sound of the first approaching aircraft. He skied from box to box, lighting each signal, and ended at the position from which he was required to flash his light. The drop was a remarkably good one, with the leader of the party landing a bare ten metres from the middle light.12
In certain regions, German spotting aircraft sometimes reconnoitered the area where dropping operations were in progress. In at least one instance, a supply operation to SOE Pipit agents in Buskerud, they dropped their own parachutists on a landing point just after two RAF aircraft had completed their runs. In this case, fortunately, the reception committee was able to escape. SOE judged that pick-ups of agents by sea were almost never likely to be practical because of the lack of suitable landing grounds, though Catalinas were very occasionally used to land stores and even more infrequently to collect agents, usually in emergencies.13 It was easier for SIS to use seaplanes because, apart from hermit stations, their agents did not require large supplies of stores or equipment to accompany them.
Training – Aviemore
SOE agents were trained in specific skills at specialised training schools (STS), such as STS 17 at Brickendonbury, where they learned the use of explosives. Brickendonbury was run by George Rheam, who commented after the war that of all the exiles whom he had trained, the Norwegians impressed him most. He admired them for their bravery, for their readiness to run risks and for their steadiness in facing the dangers of sabotage.14 For security reasons, the nationals of each country were allocated their own training school. The initial choice for Norwegians at Fawley Court near Henley, not far from London, was inadequate because the area was unsuitable for realistic exercises. Eventually, three houses were found near Aviemore, in Scotland, which came much nearer to replicating Norwegian conditions for the students under training. These houses, and later a purpose-built log cabin near Glenmore, were designated STS 26 and visited twice by King Haakon, who, on one occasion, also went to Burghead and Shetland. Instructors were both British and Norwegian, and one of the Norwegians was the former Anchor agent Tor Gulbrandsen, who had been released after his appearance before a court of enquiry in 1943. In July 1944 Wilson wrote of him: ‘Gulbrandsen has proved of the greatest value as an instructor at STS 26 during the last year, and it is greatly owing to him that the standard of administration, organisation and training at Glenmore Lodge has improved so considerably.’15
Visitors watching an SOE training exercise. They include (from left) John Wilson, Carl Gustav Fleischer, Martin Linge, four unidentified officers, Colin Gubbins, King Haakon and (in sports gear) Tor Gulbrandsen, captured by the Germans and sent back to Britain on an unsuccessful double-agent operation. © NHM
As the policies of SOE changed, and their work shifted from raids towards – in the main – supporting the building up of a countrywide resistance movement, their recruitment and training processes also changed. They no longer needed so many of those who would have fitted well into a commando brigade. They looked instead for recruits who could fill organising and training roles for the growing numbers who were joining the resistance. It was not always easy to judge the suitability of these recruits. The SOE Norwegian section history noted that no normal course of training could determine a man’s character, observing that it was curious (but true) that some of the best members of the Linge Company were characterised as not likely to make good agents. Remarkably, the most outstanding member of the Norwegian resistance, Gunnar Sønsteby, was very nearly rejected as unsuitable. Without training, he had already played an important and valuable role in resistance work. When he came over to Britain, he was sent on a training course at STS 26 to develop his skills further. He failed to excel. When Wilson heard that he was likely to fail, he was obliged to intervene to ensure that this did not happen, travelling up to Scotland himself to explain to his instructors what kind of man Sønsteby was.** 16
There were cases where men who were selected were subsequently found to be frail, such as Anders Merkesdal, who deployed on Raven. Merkesdal’s training report had described him as ‘an excellent type, not easily rattled, keen and energetic, showing marked practical ability’.17 However, once he was in Norway his organiser, William Waage, reported security concerns about him, relating to unauthorised long-distance telephone calls to his girlfriend, and drunkenness leading to his once being found insensible in a ditch. Unsuccessful attempts were made to repatriate Merkesdal, and he was later arrested in June 1943. Fortunately, such incidences were few. There were also a small number of cases where people, whose records were poor, nonetheless managed to get through the selection process and then distinguished themselves in the field. One such was Bjarne Iversen, who was sent to Canada in 1940 to train as a fighter pilot but showed signs of indiscipline, ‘going to bed during parade hours and displaying unmilitary conduct towards his superiors’, for which he was punished – and later sacked and drafted into the merchant navy. Commenting on SOE papers which suggested that he had deserted from the air force, Leif Tronstad recommended to Wilson that Iversen did not justify his employment on special service. He was alarmed to discover later that Iversen had been deployed to Norway as a member of Pheasant. The staff officer responsible for Norwegian operations, Joe Adamson, defended Iversen, commenting that he was a man who tended to flout authority from time to time. Moreover, he knew that Iversen had been dismissed from the air force even if the papers did not show it. Wilson described this as regrettable but decided, since Iversen was in Norway, that no action could be taken. Iversen’s performance on this and a subsequent deployment to Norway were beyond reproach, and in 1945 he was awarded the Norwegian War Medal.18
The most outstanding SOE operations
During this period, SOE continued to build up a network of separate organisations covering most of the country apart from the far north. In addition, they provided extensive supplies of military equipment which was stored in dumps, usually in outlying areas. The teams responsible for this initially consisted of organisers who took responsibility for building up larger groups, instructors who helped with training in the use of arms and explosives, and wireless operators who maintained contact with Britain. By December 1942 a progress report was able to state that five areas in Norway were now sufficiently well organised to be able to provide small guerrilla bands to attack specific targets under the direction of Milorg and the Norwegian High Command. These were Oslo (Plover), Gudbrandsdalen (Anvil), Telemark (Swallow), Flekkefjord-Kristiansand (Cheese) and Trondheim (Lark).19 These and other groups achieved some striking successes, although they of course suffered plenty of setbacks, too. The highlights will be examined here, as well as some unsuccessful operations, one of which illustrates an extraordinary example of bravery and fortitude.††
Cheese
Odd Starheim, often known by his codename Cheese, was one of SOE’s most distinguished agents. Yet the start to his first operation was distinctly unpromising. In January 1941 he was sent back to Norway by submarine, landing on the southwest coast near Egersund. Before he could leave the submarine, it was spotted by German aircraft who dropped depth charges, so it had to submerge. When the crew was eventually able to launch his canoe, they inadvertently shipped a lot of water into it. Starheim had no bailing device, so his progress through choppy seas was difficult and dangerous. He was lucky to get ashore. The weather was bitterly cold; he had a high temperature and was soaked to the skin. He staggered up to the hills and lay there in the fairly open country until the fever had passed. Starheim first came on the air and started sending reports on 25 February 1941. In The Secret History of SOE, Mackenzie states that this was the first SOE message to have been received on the air from occupied Europe. However, this achievement probably belonged to Olav Wallin.‡‡ After the war, he claimed that once his radio had been repaired, he was able to transmit reports from the Bergen area in the late summer of 1940.20 Starheim quickly recruited a wide network of informants in Oslo, including Kristiansand and Stavanger, who provided intelligence on topics such as oil, airfields, shipping, and the buildin
g of coastal fortifications. He also enlisted the help of Gunvald Tomstad, a local man who provided him with much assistance, playing a part in most of his operations. Moreover, he also joined the Nasjonal Samling so as to ingratiate himself with the Germans and obtain information from them.
On 6 May, Starheim reported intelligence from Stavanger that all the oil tanks on the airfields were full; that their hangars contained approximately 200 planes; and that ships laden with troops and ammunition were going northwards. SOE replied on 9 May, ‘Excellent information. Hangers [sic] at both aerodromes Stavanger bombed. Ascertain and telegraph results. Do not exaggerate report.’ Starheim replied indignantly, ‘No exaggeration. Sola: two barracks destroyed and two damaged by incendiary bombs. One hanger [sic] heavily damaged, one bomb hit the ground ten metres from it and smashed one wall and damaged eight engines … Ten Germans killed’. A few days later, he provided details of all the oil stocks in the whole country at the end of April: petrol 23,670 tons; solar 11,787; diesel 4,043; fuel oil 2,502; petroleum 9,054; diesel petroleum 5,177; white spirit 440; lubricating oil 7,446 and aviation spirit 17. In a separate message later the same day he added that 4,267 tons of aviation spirit had just arrived to supplement that small amount.