Secret Alliances

by Tony Insall

  Odd Starheim, famously known as Cheese. © NHM

  It is not surprising that SIS, whose reporting resources were very limited at this stage, were grateful to receive his information. And the Norwegian section of SOE judged with satisfaction that he was ‘a Norwegian of a very superior type … from his intelligence and general behaviour he is far superior to the normal run of Norwegian merchant seaman’.21 However, it did not prove possible to continue this level of activity. The frequency of his transmissions was probably the cause of German interest in the area where he was operating. Starheim noticed increasing signs of German attempts to locate his wireless, and decided to close the station and return to Britain. Before departure, he arranged with a friend that the station would be reopened after a month when things had died down, though this did not work as his friend could not use the cypher. In little more than four months, he had sent over a hundred reports.22

  Starheim remained in Britain for six months before returning to Norway in January 1942. The early stages of this trip were even less promising than the first had been. Cheese and a companion, Andreas Fasting (imaginatively codenamed Biscuit), were dropped by parachute – the first SOE air operation in Norway. It was nearly a disaster because Fasting, encumbered by a rucksack, was hampered in leaving the aircraft and landed perilously close to a steep mountainous precipice. A few weeks later, Starheim was briefly captured by the Germans when they raided the flat where he was staying in Oslo. Starheim was permitted to use the lavatory, which had two doors. He ran out through the other one and jumped down into the street from a second-floor window. He decided, understandably, that things had temporarily become too hot for him and asked to return to Britain.

  His exfiltration proved to be a problem. Starheim himself judged it would be impractical to return via Sweden. There was a serious risk that he would be recognised and interned. The weather was very bad, and the Shetlands crew was also reluctant to make the trip because German air reconnaissance was increasing and – it was now mid-March – much of the trip would need to take place in daylight. When Starheim was informed of these difficulties, he resourcefully resolved matters for himself by hijacking a 600-ton coastal steamer, Galtesund, with the assistance of Fasting and four others. (One of them was Einar Skinnarland, who was quickly trained and returned to Norway, where he would play an important part in Swallow/Grouse which supported GUNNERSIDE, the operation against Vemork.) Cheese had earlier arranged for a message to be sent to London, notifying them of his intentions. Fortunately the weather was bad, which facilitated his journey by preventing German air reconnaissance, and he brought Galtesund, together with its passengers and a useful cargo, into Aberdeen on 17 March. As a result of this, and what he achieved during his earlier deployment, Starheim was recommended for a Military Cross (MC). This was upgraded and he received a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) instead.23

  The success of this feat was a contributory factor to the development of a more ambitious plan. This would involve the capture of a small unescorted merchant convoy off the Norwegian coast, which would then be brought back to Britain. Starheim was asked to assess the viability of the operation, and prepared a scheme to achieve it, codenamed CARHAMPTON. He was tasked to lead the attacking party. The force of forty-one men, mainly from the Linge Company, spent longer than anticipated in training at Aviemore. Foul weather prevented their first two attempts to cross the North Sea and they did not reach Norway until they landed at Tellevik on 3 January 1943. The ship which brought them, Bodø, hit a mine on her return journey and sank. Almost all the crew, including the accompanying Lieutenant Commander Marstrander, who had been a member of the Anglo-Norwegian Coordination Committee from the early stages, were drowned.

  The operation was not successful. Two attempts were made to approach a small convoy lying in Flekkefjord. The first was foiled by bad weather, preventing the timely launch of the boats which were to be used. A further attempt was made three days later. However, the garrison in the guard house protecting the fjord had been increased, and in the resulting skirmish several Germans were killed and a larger number injured. The CARHAMPTON force was obliged to withdraw across Flekkefjord to a secure hideout in the mountains which they reached after a series of forced marches in adverse winter conditions, and without food for much of the time. Communications difficulties delayed their reporting to London and requesting a supply drop. Bad weather prevented this until 16 February, and then only a small part of the drop was recovered. Tightened security and further storms led to the cancellation of other operations planned by Starheim to replace the attack on the convoy. (These were support for a Combined Operations assault against the Titania mine, and an attack on a 10,000-ton freighter.) Poor weather also precluded the possibility of arranging transport from the Shetlands to bring the party back. Starheim decided to split the party and seize another steamer, this time Tromøysund, for their return journey. Their action was successful, but in the absence of air cover Tromøysund was attacked and sunk by German aircraft the following day. All on board, including Starheim, were drowned. Some survivors were spotted in lifeboats, but a destroyer sent to the area to help was recalled on the instructions of the First Sea Lord because it was on the edge of suspected minefields.24 Most of the rest of the party successfully made it back to Shetland on a fishing boat, while a small group remained in the mountains with a wireless set.

  Wilson concluded that the survival of a force of forty men over nine weeks in winter in occupied Norway was a remarkable achievement. A large enemy force was employed in searching for them. While the force did not achieve its objective, it caused a valuable diversion of German effort. Hambro described it as another epic in the history of SOE, while Selborne rather more realistically observed that the lives of the party had been risked on a plan which had not been worked out like GUNNERSIDE. There were, in truth, no discernible benefits gained, and no wider lessons that could be learned.25 After the war, when he was travelling through the area of the CARHAMPTON operation, Wilson was taken aback by the difficulty of the terrain. He concluded that the Combined Operations attack against the Titania mine, and the rescue of the CARHAMPTON force in parallel, could not have succeeded – not least because the road was almost precipitous in places and effectively impassable in winter.26

  Tom

  Even before the arrival of Starheim, who recruited him as a valuable assistant, Gunvald Tomstad (known as Tom) had been trying to pass information to Britain. Using a home-made (and not very effective) radio he sent a stream of messages, in plain language or using a commercial code, about the location of German ships in the area around Flekkefjord and Kristiansand. Fortunately he escaped detection, and Starheim trained him to use one of the radio sets which he had brought with him. As a part of their work together, Tom agreed to join the local branch of the NS. He was seen as a trusted member and was soon promoted to be chairman. He arranged to share accommodation for a while with the local NS policeman, who was the chief contact of the Gestapo in Kristiansand. This enabled him to insinuate himself so thoroughly into police and Gestapo organisations and win their confidence that they shared with him their suspicions concerning the local population, and who was thought unreliable. By this means he learned of plans to arrest Tor Njaa, a local organiser for SOE. Tom warned him, but Njaa did not want to leave his mother. He stayed, and was arrested. Tom was called up to serve on the Eastern Front. In order to avoid going, he staged a motorcycle accident to injure himself and required hospitalisation.

  Through the monitoring of transmissions the Germans became aware that there was an illegal wireless set operating somewhere in the area. As their attempts to locate the station led them to concentrate on the region in which Tom was living, the Germans finally trusted him enough to inform him that they were searching for what he knew to be his own station. What is more, they handed the case over to him to carry on. Tom persuaded them to explain to him the details of the different direction finding systems which they were using. He used this knowledge (as outlin
ed in Chapter 3) to persuade the Germans to search the house of his German neighbour while looking for his own wireless.

  This extraordinary situation could not last, and he received a salutary warning when a German told him that they were looking for an active resistance member called ‘Tom’, his own code name, and sought his assistance in trying to identify him. Although he did not act immediately on this by trying to escape, Tom became even more exposed because of the active assistance which he provided to the CARHAMPTON force, which further risked drawing attention. He was finally obliged to leave for Sweden in April 1943.

  Unfortunately, it did not prove possible to retrain Tom for other work in Norway. The exaggerated sense of security which he had developed when working for Starheim did not serve him well once he arrived in Britain. He was unwilling to share information with anyone else, or to work in any other capacity than as an entirely lone hand. After completing a training course, he told Wilson that having lived with some ninety other potential agents at STS 26 he did not consider it safe for him to re-enter Norway as an agent. So he left SOE in March 1944 and was transferred to the Norwegian Army.

  MARDONIUS and BUNDLE

  Max Manus was involved in more attacks against shipping targets than any other member of SOE. His early life was colourful and varied, for he spent time in Cuba, Copenhagen and Chile before travelling in South America for two years. He fought against the Germans when they invaded Norway, and was active in resistance activities, both collecting intelligence and distributing propaganda. Such a combination of activities was risky, and he was arrested in February 1941.§§ Manus distracted the attention of his captors and jumped out of a first-floor window, breaking his shoulder and damaging his spine. He recovered sufficiently to be able to escape from hospital (even though he was under armed German guard) with assistance from the resistance, and made his way to Britain by a circuitous journey which included Russia, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, Trinidad, the United States and Canada.

  Manus was teamed up with Gregers Gram and they were sent on a series of training courses, and certainly enjoyed themselves while they were preparing in Aviemore. The pair broke into a shooting box (later discovering that it was on the royal estate and so belonged to King George VI) and used it as a base for a series of poaching expeditions. They hunted deer, grouse and hares, and caught salmon too. When they had finished, they left behind £1 as a token payment.27 After completion of their training, Manus and Gram were despatched to Norway in March 1943 on Operation MARDONIUS. This was an ambitious plan, devised by Manus himself, who had worked out that there was generally a significant amount of shipping in Oslo harbour. He recommended training canoeists and using them to attack some of the larger vessels with limpet mines. This would not be a straightforward project, because the narrow waters of the harbour were brightly lit at night and heavily patrolled, making it highly dangerous. Hansteen and Torp were consulted, and gave their consent. Manus and Gram were dropped by parachute – though were fortunate to escape serious injury when Gram’s parachute was briefly caught in Manus’s static line, leading to a rapid and largely uncontrolled descent that ended in a tree. They recruited some contacts and launched an attack with two canoes on 27 April. The attack itself was not without incident. Working separately, they sometimes had to paddle through floodlit areas while approaching the vessels they were about to attack. Fortunately, those working on deck did not notice them. And, while Manus and his colleague were preparing to fix limpets onto the Sarpfoss, they were rudely and unpleasantly interrupted in their task by a man urinating into the harbour, who showered them. They fixed limpets onto six ships, but many of them failed to detonate. A diversionary attack in the nearby Akers shipyard also failed because none of the limpets there exploded either. Nonetheless they succeeded in sinking Ortelsburg (3,600 tons), and badly damaging Tugela (5,600 tons) and an oil lighter. Three days after the attack, SIS passed a report to SOE with details of the damage which had been done. Manus and Gram returned to Britain via Stockholm. They were awarded the MC and Military Medal (MM) respectively for their work.¶¶ A few months later, the Germans executed six Norwegians whom they suspected of complicity in MARDONIUS. One of them was Sigurd Jacobsen, who had planted the limpets in Akers shipyard. SOE carried out extensive experiments to try to discover why the limpets had failed. They could find no conclusive evidence. Malfunctions continued to be a frustrating problem on subsequent similar operations.28

  Manus was keen to arrange for further shipping attacks. In September 1943 he outlined a plan for MARDONIUS II, suggesting operations not only in Oslo harbour, but also another half-dozen ports in the region. He wanted to use a larger group of saboteurs, suggesting the inclusion of men such as Gunnar Sønsteby. Wilson supported the idea in principle, but did not wish Sønsteby to be involved, as he was already too busy with other tasks. The operation was renamed BUNDLE, and the team was also asked to undertake some propaganda tasks, examining in particular how best to undermine the Wehrmacht in Norway. Manus and Gram returned to Norway on 11 October. They tried to launch an attack against several ships while swimming in frogman suits, rather than depending on canoes. This was unsuccessful. The diving suits tore very easily, and Manus nearly drowned. So they concentrated for a while on propaganda work instead. Their further operations, including the imaginative use of home-made torpedoes, will be described in Chapter 12.

  There were two other series of operations planned against shipping during this period, using kayaks (VESTIGE) and one-man Welman submarines (BARBARA). A total of eight VESTIGE operations took place. Others were abandoned at the planning stage after objections from SIS, who had operational equities in the areas where attacks were intended. Two attacks, VESTIGE I and VESTIGE III, were successful. VESTIGE I badly damaged Hertmut (2,700 tons), a modern refrigerated vessel. VESTIGE III severely damaged Jantze Fritzen (6,500 tons), which subsequently required substantial repairs. Severe winter weather often made recovery of these teams extremely difficult.29 There was only one operation involving Welman submarines, when four were deployed to attack a floating dock in Bergen harbour in November 1943. One of them surfaced prematurely and was spotted. The driver, Bjørn Pedersen, came under fire and abandoned it, and the remaining three could not therefore continue with their attack. Other operations were planned, based on intelligence provided by reconnaissance teams sent in specifically for the purpose, and included one party from SIS. However, none proved feasible.

  Peter Deinboll: REDSHANK, GRANARD and FEATHER

  A Foreign Office history prepared at the end of the war described SOE’s campaign to deprive Germany of the benefits of Norwegian pyrites, as largely a personal war between Lieutenant Peter Deinboll and the Germans, who were exploiting the Orkla pyrites mine south-west of Trondheim. During 1941 this mine had produced over 520,000 tons of ore.30 There were three main battles. For the first, Deinboll received a DSO, for the second an MC and for the third a bar to his DSO – thus becoming the only Norwegian to win this decoration twice. The target of the first, Operation REDSHANK, in May 1942, was the destruction of the Baardshaug converter and transformer station supplying power to the mines, and to the railway carrying the ore to Thamshavn for shipment to Germany. Deinboll had to contend with the fact that in May there were only four hours of darkness and there was a force of 300 Germans quartered only 300 yards from his objective. He and his small party were detected during their preliminary reconnaissance and had to withdraw. However, they returned to carry out the attack on the following night. The explosion completely destroyed the main transformer station and significantly reduced the transport capacity for six months. Deinboll, who had stayed to watch the explosion, was spotted and chased into the hills. He was pursued for seven hours but managed to escape and make his way back to Britain via Sweden. At a meeting of the ANCC shortly afterwards, REDSHANK was described as ‘almost a model operation’.|||| 31

  As output recovered at Orkla, a further operation was judged necessary, codenamed Operation GRANARD. Since vigilance ha
d been increased, a different target was selected. It was decided to sink an ore ship and destroy the loading tower on the jetty at Thamshavn. Deinboll and his party left in December 1942. They were launched from the Aksel some twenty miles off the coast and had many difficulties on their journey to Thamshavn.*** The magnets in the limpet mines affected their compass, and therefore their navigation. A night landing on a small island made in a heavy sea severely damaged their boat. On being launched the following day, the boat sank, though all their stores and equipment were recovered. It took them six days to reach the mainland, and a further fortnight to get to the target area. On arrival, they found that German defensive dispositions were stronger than they had anticipated. The loading tower was lit up and so strongly guarded at night that they could not attack it. They also had to wait two months for a suitable ship to target. During this period they were assisted by Deinboll’s father, who was the chief engineer at the plant. He concealed them and provided advice on how best to change the plan of attack. In late February, Nordfahrt (5,000 tons) appeared. They stole a dinghy and approached the ship. Nordfahrt was brightly lit, but an anti-aircraft watch on the stern which appeared to be looking in their direction did not spot them. They successfully attached three limpet mines which detonated and Nordfahrt, already loaded with ore, was damaged. However, it proved possible to run her aground and the vessel was later salvaged. As the party withdrew on skis to the Swedish frontier, they became separated in a blizzard. Deinboll fell 200 feet over a precipice, damaged his leg and had to dig himself into snow for thirty hours before he was strong enough to move any further. He lay up in a deserted hut for three days, drinking water from snow melted in a cup between his thighs. He eventually managed to get to Sweden.††† His father and family were also obliged to leave for Sweden too, for their own safety.