It would rather go well It gets serious 2 books in 1

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-professional translation, done purely for the love of the subject matter. Some strange wording is to be expected, since sentence structure is not always alike in English or Norwegian. I'm also not a military nut after 1500, so some officer ranks, division names and the like may be different than expected because of my perhaps too-literal translation. Any notes of my own will be marked in red.

Persons and places named in the books by cover names and codes:

Uncle: Consul E.R.M Nielsen | Auntie: Ida Lindebrække

Karl Johan: | Tollef: Max Manus

Nr. 12: Max Manus | August: Ole Borge

Petter: Ulv Johns | Bobben: James Lorentzen

Olav: Olav Ringdal jr. | Torpedo Hans: Hans Breien

The partisan general: Farmer Martinsen | Mrs. Collet: Gudrun Collet

Egil: Egil Halle | Vesla: Vesla Halle

Kolbein: Kolbein Lauring | Kari: Kari Lauring

Halvor: Halvor Haddeland | Einar: Einar Juden

Rolf: William Houlder | Roy: Roy Nilsen Nr. 24: Gunnar Sønsteby | Kjakan: Gunnar Sønsteby

Erling Fjeld: Gunnar Sønsteby | Nr. 28: Per Mørland

Nr. 30: Arne Diesen | Ivar: Martin Siem

Viggo: Viggo Axelsen | Kåre: Birger Rasmussen

Lady Barbara: Ellen Trondsen | The Angel: Normann Gabrielsen

Ingar: Ingar Dobloung | Derby: The Max Manus group

Bundle: Gregers Gram & Max Manus’ operational name

Alf: Alf Borgen | Sverre: Sverre Ellingsen

Erik: Erik Christensen | The office: Skeppargatan 32,

Nr. 26: Company Linge training facility Forest Lodge in Scotland

It would rather go well

Foreword

Dear Reader! I would like to explain why I dare to try writing something approximating a book. I'm sitting hidden away in a friend’s flat at Røa, with the same strange feeling in my stomach that I always had before a job, the fear of hidden dangers. This time worse than ever, because the job I’m embarking on now is one I do not have the slightest idea of how to do. I feel like a guilty schoolboy, and would like to be excused from the task. The motives are not so noble as one would like to think, and few readers would believe. The book’s only justification is that it is true and self-experienced, and that it ties into a time where much strange stuff happened, and where joyous destiny allowed me to be part of some of it. I have been dabbling in war and terribleness for 5 years, and am beginning to feel old. It is not a historical document that I present here, but a portrayal of what some of those many thousands that actively fought for the Norwegian cause met on their way. Many have asked me to retell my experiences in a book, and since for the moment I have nothing else to do, I dare the leap, after all. After working with the material for a while, and written some of it down, I see that I have to split it into two volumes. The next one, which I hope to get out in the beginning of 1946, will mostly be about the bigger sabotage actions, amongst others our work in blowing up the “Donau”, “Monte Rosa”, the airplane factory in the municipal transport hall, torpedoing the destroyer in the Moss straits, the actions against the A. T. offices, and about the comprehensive propaganda campaign that we organized, not least among the German soldiers. My work in the later phases of the war and just after the peace will naturally be in the last volume. Røa, the summer of 1945

Max Manus

Chapter 1 “Heil Hitler” in the jungles of Chile

We were two guys deep in the jungles of Chile. We had been following the river for 5 days. For some reason, the bank was now full of bamboo. We had been toiling all day through the cursed bamboo forest, and of course we had forgotten our machetes. I tire deep in my soul whenever I think back to that forest and that toil. My travelling companion was a German named Werner; I cannot remember his last name. He was now on his back, smoking his ration of tobacco. Ahead of us, we had two months of toil through mountains, jungle and the Argentinian pampas. behind us we had a long list of incredible adventures. Werner had traipsed through every Lilliput-republic in Central America, and had met me at a giant facility, Lagyna Verde, at Valparaiso in Chile. He was as sympathetic as a German can be. Of profession, he was a diesel engine engineer, as a human he was OK as long as there were no other Germans around. One German can be OK, two Germans are bad, if there are three Germans together in a room, there can be neither hearing nor space for any other nationality. We were having a good time, wondrously tired from all the hard work. We spoke together in a strange self-made language made up of German, Norwegian and English. So far, we had had a wondrous journey. We had spent a lot of time getting to the end station of the railway, Puerto Mont, with quick stops and small detours up to Scandinavians who had wine farms. We always had a great welcome, and usually we swam in the best wine they had for a few days, before we drifted back to the railway, with ever-lessening amounts of equipment. It had a tendency to disappear with the wine. The route we had planned to take over the Andes disappeared with the wine too. The fact was that we were now two men in the Chilean jungle, with an equipment consisting of a few kilos of rice, coffee, sugar and tobacco. We had 2 Colt .45 revolvers and a shotgun with no shells. We had pilfered a few shotgun shells from a trading post, and with these I had shot a few ducks which were now puttering along in some rice. The conversation turned to the Chileans; I liked the degoes well. They were kind and courteous and never did you a bad turn unless they could profit from it. I remember my good workmate José, who hadn’t shown up for work in a couple of days, and whom in my lunch break swim, I found floating in the inlet, his belly slit open and without clothes. All his mates agreed that it was a bad thing – to kill a man just for his clothes. José had not had any money on him, and his clothes were not worth the life of a good man, especially since his pants were in a poor state, and he had only worn rubber sandals on his feet. It was another thing with my friend Jesus Maria, who gunned down Pedro because he had robbed him in a poker game, and would not pay him back, even when Jesus Maria asked very nicely, while he swung a pistol in front of his nose. I was just arriving in camp when I heard the gunshot and saw Pedro come staggering out of the cabin and sink to his knees clutching his belly. Nobody helped him, and I went over to my own cabin. It was common custom not to interfere with the dead or dying. (That reminds me of in its day, to never ever get mixed up in anything.) If you stood by a corpse when the police arrived, it was not their duty to prove that you had killed a person, but your own duty to prove that you had not.

Alongside Jesus Maria at the facility.

There were many strange episodes, like the time I was arrested for murder and barely escaped. At the time, I was foreman of the formwork carpenters and had a run-in with one of the dego-carpenters who stole too much. I went down to the office and got him fired, but when I told him this, he came at me with a big hammer and tried to knock some sense into my head. I thought his method was wrong, and gave him a smack. When I got going, I was more and more enraged – I thought it was poorly done, a hammer even, and such a large one. I was so indignant that I forgot that the man could not hear me after he had lost consciousness. Enough about that – it was a grand scandal with writings in the newspapers, and I ended up in prison despite public sympathy for me, and my boss, Nergård, thought it well done. 6 days in a Chilean prison is absolutely an experience that is worth having in life. I joined class 1 A, that is to say prison aristocracy. I was a bit embarrassed when I had to confess that I was not a real murderer, as the man was not dead, but they accepted me as one of their own after looking at my hands. They were so horribly swollen and bad-looking that everyone was impressed. When I got some money, I could even rent a field bed, complete with woollen blanket, lice and the works. After 6 days I got out on bail, when the hospital reported that the man would survive. Though he stayed in the hospital for a further 26 days. My colleagues in the cell – 8 men in all – embraced me and kissed me with their garlic-perfumed lips and wished me joy and happiness going forward in life, and hoped that I would remember everything they had taught me, especially to not stick the knife in too far up, if I ever had the need to slit open a man’s belly. It was undeniably wonderful to arrive at consul Anker’s home and have some good Norwegian food. One can find much to talk about when you’re lying there, waiting for ducks to cook. At that time, like now, I was pretty uninterested in politics, but after a while we turned to the great problems of the world. Werner turned to his usual spiel about Hitler, the Versailles peace, Lebensraum and so on. Once he gasped for breath, I took the opportunity to tell him about the labour movement in Chile. One day when I was working on putting together a platform with four others, a huge crane suddenly fell over. It weighed 13 tons, was 13 feet long and was marked no. 13 and it was the 13th of the month. I barely threw myself away, but two of the boys were crushed. The Americans flew all over, cursing and swearing and would under no circumstance allow the work to halt for even one minute over such a trifling issue. I almost smashed my thumb hammering in a nail, and was really angry and said it was not right that we were working while our friends lay dead under a blanket. They were there for 2 hours until the accident commission arrived to collect them. The Chileans were already politically aware at this time, and knew there was such a thing as a strike. A strike for Chileans meant a delightful holiday and lots of fun. So, despite heavily cursing, gum-chewing Americans, 700 men went on strike. We actually had accidents almost every day. I myself had been in a bad situation the day before. I sat across a plank inside a giant turbine which was to be transported on rolling logs. We had placed an electrical wire to light the way so we could see the logs, and used winches to pull. It was overtime-work and dark. Suddenly the lights went out, and we were two men inside the turbine. The fellow next to me whimpered, and when I touched him, I got shocked. I kept to the wooden plank, and it probably saved my life. I hollered for them to shut off the electricity. This was done, but the boy was already dead. Poor wiring, rain and the fact that the boy had nothing on his feet and sat on the bare iron killed him. Now there was to be a strike, and burials and a party. I was a chum, and was expected at the funeral. This was held in a large hall with lots of more or less sober people. In the background stood two flower-wreathed coffins, surrounded by the grieving families. A few meters away was a soapbox, and closer to the entrance, a table where a man sat, filling in party books. When I entered the hall, there was a lovely Latin ruckus, the families cried and sang hymns, on the soapbox stood a political agitator speaking like his life was on the line, for the labour movement and against capitalists. The evidence of the crimes of capitalism was right there, flower-crowned, surrounded by grieving families. The mourners wailed louder and louder, until the agitator told them to shut up, he looked like he was trying to find a way to have them thrown out. This was apparently given up, and then he spotted me. I was blond and blue-eyed, and had to be the very incarnation of a capitalist and gringo. Then they came at me. My workmates saved me at the last minute, assuring them that I was OK. At this point, Werner had gotten his steam up. Hitler was a friend to the middle class, he did not want large department stores, only small, honest businessmen, and communists were scum. Just then, the duck was done, and then we ate, and when I had gathered sufficient strength, I told him that Hitler was a damned shit, and the Germans were damn sheep who loved to goose-step. And I thought we were better at marching in the I.R.1, ’s proudest regiment. So, if the Germans tried anything with Norway, we would show them some stuff. The discussion grew ever more heated. He told me that Norway’s only hope was to come under German protection. I flew up, handing out one trump card after the other. The merchant fleet, I cried, then came the whaling fleet, sardines, the paper industry and Fridtjof Nansen. Not to forget Grieg. Did he really think these damned sausage-Germans had anything to teach us? (There are no greater patriots than once we are abroad.) Finally, I told him that we Norwegians were not afraid of either Germans, Russians or Englishmen. We were now both very angry, and after thinking it over a bit, I came up with a very descriptive name for Hitler. As a good national socialist he could not accept this. Stiff- faced, he rose, gave me back the money I had given him, asked if he could keep the gun for self-defence, and went off. He refused to stay with an anti-Nazi. I told him to go to hell. Then he began to climb up and down in the bamboo thicket to follow the river onwards. I could hear him for several hours; he couldn’t get anywhere because of the dark and the bamboo. I laid smoking by the fire, enjoying myself and thought of what a strange race the Germans were. The next day I met Werner again, of course, who was remorseful. He did not speak a word of Spanish, and would be helpless the moment he crossed the mountains and met the Indians. Then we continued on together, and experienced many strange things. We stamped across the pampas for two months, had little adventures with beautiful moustachioed senõritas, drank wonderful wine in the Rio Negro valley and hunted pumas with revolvers in the Andes. We shot ostriches and waded through a teeming wildlife of birds, hares and small deer. It was a wonderful time. When we needed food, we shot a sheep. That was perfectly fine, as long as we hung up the skin so the owner could find it. I remember the nice old bandit of a Norwegian by the name Jacobsen from Arendal or Tvedestrand, who had an Indian wife and 17 children who all professed to be my countrymen. In the evening, we went to the strangest little cinema in the world, which would not open unless they had at least 21 visitors. But when we arrived, it filled up in a moment – it was Werner and us 20 Norwegians, Jacobsen, his wife, his spawn and I. one of my swarthy little countrymen got to turn the crank on the film apparatus, and the program started. It was an old Chaplin movie, and our cheering almost lifted the roof off of the little tin shack. It was an evening to remember, especially for Jacobsen, who later showed me off to all the villagers. We had us a few litres of lovely wine, and it was the strangest thing to sit there and listen to Jacobsen talk of Norway in Spanish. When he had had a tipple or three, it was impossible for him to speak Norwegian, much to the lament of his wife and sons, they loved to listen to his strange mother tongue. Just before we left, however, an unlucky episode occurred. His second oldest son got in trouble with a gaucho because of one of his sisters. This resulted in Jacobsen Jr. getting a bullet in his thigh. Big hullaballoo. Old Jacobsen staggered inside and strapped on several guns and was going to deal with the fellow, like they used to do home in Tvedestrand. We had a heartfelt goodbye and went on our way to the railway. There we hopped on the freight train and fell in with the best bunch in the world, the Argentine tramps. I have many fond memories from the times when we laid along the railway line together with some ragged, swarthy dirty tramps, drinking vino tinto de Rio Negro and ate fried chicken which Heaven somehow sent to us via the tramps. I have never heard of a tramp who stole. Of course, we met bad types as well. I remember one time we were moving from railway car to railway car and happened upon an empty wagon. Inside was a mixed company, pretty foul- looking bandits who sent long looks toward our riding boots. They whispered in a huddle, and suddenly they closed the doors, so that the wagon got totally dark. There was a deathly silence, and my breath became involuntarily strained. You know how it is, going scrumping on a dark autumn evening, holding your breath whenever people pass by the garden fence of the house you had picked out. Your heart beats, and for some idiotic reason, you hold your breath. I'm willing to admit I was afraid for my life – it was a bad feeling, sitting there in the dark while swarthy degoes crept closer with knives in their mouths, and your riding boots reflecting in their shining, greedy eyes. I whispered to Werner, and he lit a match and held it well out to the side, a revolver in his other hand. My revolver was possibly the most impressive one, since it was plated with shining nickel. It was a large Spanish Eibar .45. Werner was almost touching the closest man, who at once began to clean his fingernails with his knife, and with his best smile asked if we had a cigarette for our dearest amigo. Naturally, with greatest joy, amigo mio. When our friends the degoes saw that we had revolvers, they thought it was fine that we had riding boots, and then we became the best of friends. Like the true caballeros they were, they offered us all that they had, and would think it an honour if we would come to their home (in this case, their side of the wagon) and taste the finest wine in the house. We stuck our revolvers in our belts in such a way that we could reach them at a moment’s notice and moved over to their side. The door was opened onto the starry, moonlit night, filled with fireflies and a beautiful view. Then they made a nice party, and everyone had some wineskins out. One of our new friends even had a guitar, and soon there were languorous Argentinian tangoes, and wild Spanish and Argentinian gaucho-songs. You can say what you want about the degoes, but they know how to sing and play. As the mood rose, the better friends we became. He who laid at the ready when Werner lit his match, now told me through tears that I was his best friend, and that really, we had the same mother. He confessed to having erred grievously and had been blinded by my riding boot. The riding boots were something of a sore spot, and in my good cheer, I pulled them off and gave them to him. He cried with joy and kissed me in the Spanish manner, while I counted 9 fat lice that crawled over onto me while the embrace lasted. He wanted to pay me back for my kindness, and gave me the knife with which he had first thought to obtain the boots. It was a wonderfully sharp, silver-inlaid stiletto-like knife, which I had until the Gestapo stole it from me in Oslo. My new friend was now pretty drunk, and fell asleep with my boots in his arms. He snorted a bit in his sleep when I stole them back in the morning. We grabbed our stuff and jumped off the train, we did not think it too safe to continue the journey alongside our new friends, even if one of them had been kind enough to give me his knife. Werner later tired of trying to make a Nazi out of me, but he kept returning to the subject matter. Always the same idiotic things – the people’s car, Hitler, love of the little man, and then to always end it with the damned peace of Versailles. It did not help one bit that I was stubborn and told him I had attended the meetings of our own little Norwegian Nazi, a man called Quisling. I tried to tell him that we Norwegians saw our own little Nazi-idiots and the slightly bigger German ones as something that no normal humans could support. We could joke around and have fun, and for my own part the Germans could jump around goose- stepping and screaming Heil Hitler, but when it got so far that these mad people began scientifically hunting down Jews and liquidating people, it was no longer comical, just damned devilry. It was the same thing that the Germans were doing in Spain. When we had gotten to this point in our discussion, the fight always broke out, and I was given back my money and the revolver, after Werner had given his usual spiel about “that he as a good national socialist could not let himself be insulted by one who was neither a Nazi or a German.” Then he disappeared in a tizzy, and was away for a few hours, before he came slinking back, asking for his revolver. In such a way we continued, day by day. We kept on experiencing things, and it was nicest when we were laid up by the fire in the evening, roasting a lamb or goat kid on a spit. While we lay there drinking our maté, the conversations took many strange turns. It sometimes gave me a glimpse into Werner’s vindictive soul. He revelled in the dream that the Germans would rule the world. And they would rule us others so well. We Norwegians were in a special position, of course, the Germans were very passionate about us Germanics. Hitler himself had said so. Werner both did and did not want a war. We had just had a major earthquake in Chile, whole cities collapsed, and thousands of people were buried in the ruins. Werner did not like earthquakes at all, and I so understood that he and his great führer would like such a war as the one Il Duce was prosecuting in Ethiopia. A large and harmless war. I partially agreed with him that it was not unlikely that they could get such a harmless war, the way the democratic countries were arming themselves at the time. I thought it was great fun to brag about how the Norwegians stood up to Hitler and awarded the Peace Prize to Ossietzky. We rounded off our trip in a funny way. It was a lovely, warm evening when we snuck into a railway station to get on some freight train or other. Without us noticing, a policeman appeared, staring at us threateningly. We could not lie our way out of the situation, so I put on my most innocent look and told him we were going to Buenos Aires. We were pleasantly surprised, since we had always been afraid of the railway police, but the first one we met was a good fellow. Bueno rubio, he said, that’s OK, you can jump on a train in 10 minutes, it is the cattle express direct to Buenos Aires. The train arrived, and it was full of sheep. We got into the wagon, which was divided in two by crossbars which the sheep could support their legs against if the train wobbled. It was terribly hot and lots of bleating and noise, and a horrible stench, but the trip was quick. Every time the train stopped, the crew shone flashlights into the wagons, and we had great fun bleating like sheep. It was in fact incredibly easy to go from human to sheep. Oh well, the trip had ended, and that was to be the last time I was friends with a German. We spent a few days together in Buenos Aires, but drifted apart after that. I applied for a job at the Ericson telephone company, and was to begin working in Grand Chaco, the green hell of Brazil. There was great celebration at the Norwegian legation in Buenos Aires when I arrived. It was not every day that a Norwegian came striding across Los Andes. Werner and myself had pretty ragged clothes when we arrived, but were sun-bronzed and healthy and were pretty happy with our lot. We had no money. In Buenos Aires we were lucky enough to meet a real gentleman of a general consul. I came tramping into his office in naught but rags and was welcomed like a close relative. He offered me a cigar, and brought forth whisky and soda, and I spent at least an hour telling him of our journey. I sat there, dreading to tell him of my real purpose, but I was spared it, because he opened a drawer and told me I looked like I needed money. He handed me a large wad of it and told me to go buy some clothes – the money I could pay back when I sometime in my life had too much of it. Down on the street, I met Werner where he waited for me. He had been to see his beloved Nazi countrymen and had gotten the real German treatment, that is to say, almost a swift kick to the rear, along with two food coupons and directions to a German hostel where he could sleep. He had gotten no clothes, nor any kind of a loan, but he had something wrapped in brown paper. On my asking what he had, he blushed and started unwrapping it. I almost died from laughter when it appeared to be a picture of Hitler, the one where he holds his left hand protectively over his fly and his right arm upright, saluting himself with a Heil Hitler.

Working in Colombia. In other words: Werner’s contact with his countrymen had had no result. He had almost been threatened with death and other ugliness if he did not go back to Germany as fast as possible. He told me that the Germans were sent back to das grosse Vaterland in their thousands. The consulates refused to aid German citizens economically. This could only be taken one way, as a signal of war and therefore the mood among the Germans was kind of hectic. Werner and I went out to buy clothes for the money I had been given. I did feel bad for Werner at the time. He did want to rule the world, but the thought of a bloody war was not very tempting to him. If there were many Germans together over beer, they would get uppity and speak of colonies, Lebensraum, the Versailles peace and revenge, but none of them wanted to pay the price of what a new world war would cost. Werner and I split a few days later, I was, as I said, going to work. Before that, I was to hold a speech at the Norwegian club about my trip across Los Andes. But neither work nor speech was ever to be. I happened to meet two nice Norwegian sailor lads, who had signed off in Buenos Aires. Their pockets were flush with cash, and the result came naturally. When I came to my senses, I had in some mystical way signed on as a seaman on a 15 000-ton tanker on its way around Cape Horn to Peru. There was no lack of excitement – storms in the Magellan strait, exciting smuggling in Peru, fistfights, stabbings and everything belonging to that profession. I spent some time travelling between Venezuela and Columbia, with small detours down to Aruba and Curacao. It was quite the earner, smuggling weapons and the like. And laughably easy. The customs officials were there, like other places, pretty corrupt. Everyone in Venezuela were mad for guns. Our homely Mil.org. was merely child’s play in comparison. You just had to bribe the customs man with a toy gun that looked good, and he closed his eyes. Naturally, some of them played the part of honest men, and could be quite difficult. But it went well. Then I worked in the oil business, for Standard Oil. Then there was malaria and hospital, and then I buggered off home to Europe, when the doctor said that the climate did not suit my delicate constitution.

Chapter 2

Volunteer in Finland

We sat out at Ljan, with a view of the fjord in to Oslo. We each had a drink, and the summer was waning, the days grew shorter and shorter. Tonight, a big thing was happening, anti-air exercises over Oslo. Everyone was excited, it was a special, almost dramatic feeling across the city. The entirety of Oslo’s anti-air with their three spotlights was going into action. Now we heard the buzz of airplanes in the distance, and there came Norway’s proud air fleet, 4, or was it 7 planes. We thought there was a lot of them. We had never seen so many at one time. Don’t tell me the war caught us unprepared. The world war was already underway. Many had an instinctive feel that it would be hard to keep out of it this time, despite the neutrality watch and the government’s many efforts. And if we joined, it would be against Germany, all sensible people were aware of that. At least we armed ourselves as well as we could, I and many others helped chip in for a cannon for Oslo’s air defence. God knows where that cannon ended up! The Germans drove hard at the Poles, and when the Russians entered Finland, we thought it was to join them and split the prize. To think, the giant Russia against the tiny Finnish people. We thought it ill done, and took the side of the underdog, every one of us. How little we then knew of the reasons for the German-Russian pact, how little did we know of the true motives of the . Since then, we have had an explanation to all that, but at that time, the press was in the forefront of bamboozling us, because it did not know any better. From Aftenposten to Arbeiderbladet, from conservatives to socialists, everyone saw Finland’s struggle as our own. The Finns themselves were skilled propagandists, and all our newspapers overflowed with pictures of dirty and gruesome Russians, which the noble Finns ever beat to death in their millions. It was pretty cold that winter, and everyone knitted socks and sweaters for the Finnish heroes. My God, how we gave to Finland. Everything from silk hats to pianos, not to speak of the rucksacks. I felt that everyone looked at me with accusing eyes, since I did not at once went off to help our brother people. I had managed to start a pretty successful import business, and had a mind to just settle down. Or was it perhaps cowardice? Those damned Finns plagued my conscience day and night, and fought alone against supreme forces. For the cause of Norway, all the magazines read. So I went with Finland for Norway. There was a big celebration and a large crowd at the railway station, newspaper write-ups and the adulation of the people. It was quite the feeling to be hailed as a hero, and we saw the greatness in going all the way to the North pole to fight for Norway’s freedom. There were brass bands and lots of big, poor speeches. It was terribly cold when we left, almost 30 degrees (minus 30 degrees Celsius) – and it got colder the closer we got to Finland. It was a curious mix of freedom-loving Norwegians who left. The whole trip stank of denatured alcohol and boxed spirits. Many of our heroes left the train at the stations to beg for 15 øre (small denomination Norwegian currency, like American cents) for a cup of coffee, mister. Somehow, we meddled our way to Finland. Here, there was at once very much war, with blackout curtains and air raid sirens and actions against communist spies dropped by parachute. Then there was a lot of training, shooting, ski training and head colds until we were on our way to the front line. We were to be on the Salla front. A great number of our countryment were sent to convalescent homes and alcoholic rehabs. Then there were all the writer-types who at once began to describe the and their part in it. They usually ended up in the depots far, far behind the front line. Of the 725 Norwegians who went to Finland, as far as I know, only 125 of them made it to the front line. That is telling of their quality. It was a shame for those boys who really deserved that idealist stamp on their papers. I thought it was only good lads at the front. It was not all fun and games, but a lot of toil as well. And the temperature was still around 40. (Still minus, still Celsius.) But naturally, it was quite an interesting life. It was, because of the conditions up there, quite a sportive character to the war. We had small ski patrols behind the Russian lines all the time. And the Russians had their own patrols behind our lines. They used to send huge patrols of several hundred men. They were very brave, and despite the newspaper write-ups about them, we gained a huge respect for them. I remember a couple days before the armistice, there was a force of 5-600 men who attacked. It was only a patrol, but it bit back hard. The Russians had all the bad luck in the world and attacked the only place along the Salla front where we had put up barbed wire. The barbed wire had been placed the same day. Here, they dug in, and instead of retreating, they attacked. They were at it for a few hours, and it cost them a hundred men. We had many good times when we lay in our tents, brewing coffee and gossiping. The good friendship which grows under such conditions was here made doubly strong. A good friendship is possibly the most valuable thing in life. We were a good deal of Nazi- and tyranny-haters gathered up here in the wastelands. Several of these boys have later fallen, among those who still live are some of our most decorated men in our armed forces. They have held the line they once chose: To fight against any sort of oppression. It was some of those Finland volunteers who started to resist the Germans. Yet others of our companions have unfortunately gone over to the other side and fought against the Russians, not understanding that they fought counter to Norway’s cause.

Norwegian volunteers in Finland. The war in Finland ended at the Salla front at 11 minutes past 11 the 13th of March 1940. My first reaction was of great joy. I was in a bad position in open swampland in front of the Russian lines. I had been commanded down to the listening post at 6 in the morning, when the first shell came whistling by. The listening post was a dugout in the snow with a fallen log for cover. Here we had to lie, 3 men for 5 hours in 30 degrees negative. It was impossible to go back. the Russians were firing like mad, and they looked to be practicing their guns on our position. There might be many strange ways to halt a war in this world, but none more so than the end of the Finnish Winter War. We were there, in our snowy pit, shells exploding around us nonstop. Snow and branches went skywards all the time, but there were entire series of duds that never exploded, for whatever reason. After a while, we became deaf from all the explosions. It happened to us as happens to anyone in such a situation: we got used to it all, and just laid there, waiting for the big attack that had to follow such a large artillery barrage. The inferno reached such a character that everything melded together. There was non-stop whistling, whining and explosions, and then suddenly it stopped. It was silent like the grave. We were ready, machine gun in position and nerves in high gear. Now, the long-awaited attack would come. Nothing happened, all was quiet. I lay there, tense, looking over at the Russian lines. Fuck, couldn’t these damned Mongols come soon, so we could finish this pile of crap? It was such a quiet along the line, that when someone behind me shouted sergeant Manus, I almost pulled the trigger in my bewilderment. I saw a Swedish officer standing out in the open, waving at me. I thought he had gone mad with shellshock. He looked normal, so I took a chance and crept back to him. He called to me and made a sign to tell me to get up, but I thought that would be just fine for the Russian snipers. When I arrived, he looked at me strangely, but his face was pale – Max, it’s peace, the war is over, he said. We knew nothing at all of negotiations. We who were at the front were kept out of all such things. Then came a lovely time, we could actually laze about all day. There was a little training, of course, but it’s impossible to make volunteers do anything when the thing they volunteered for has ceased to be. It was with the strangest feeling that we saw the Russians approach our lines to collect their dead. The Russians who had fallen lay in the same spots in the snow where they had died for their cause. In the fantastic cold of the Finnish winter of 39-40, it was not long before a corpse became frozen solid. What repeated itself that day has unfortunately happened millions of times later. For me, it’s something revulsive, I want to puke just thinking of having to help stacking dead people on carts or sleds like they were logs. I went around the no-man's-land and looked at the bodies buried in the snow, and agreed with myself on one thing: War was filth. Never again would I join such a business. Never. But in the same moment, doubt crept it: Not even if Norway was at war? I could never hate the poor devils now lying dead in the snow. They were only a number in their line, and probably believed that it was those terrible Finns that had attacked Russia. The Russians impressed us very much, we went over to their lines and saw how they had built them up. They were phenomenal. Today, all the world knows of the skill of the Russian combat engineers. It will take up too much space, and probably be of little interest to anyone if I tried to tell of their arts up there in the cold, snowy forests. I must laugh when I think of the differences in our equipment and the Russians’. I do not need to mention all their automatic weapons, but it was with a queer feeling we struggled to make blockhouses and barricades with our small Mustad sporting axes under the buzzing of Russian tractors and chainsaws. I think the Swedish Volunteer Corps had left their equipment at home. We did not see any of it. We had a few Swedish axes with beautiful birch handles that broke apart in the cold as soon as we looked at them. We blessed our small Norwegian axes, and agreed that it was basically the Norwegian axes that had stopped the Swedish Volunteer Corps from freezing to death.

Chapter 3

The war in Norway

Then we were to return to Norway. The 9th of April in the year of our Lord 1940 we arrived in Torneå (in ). We came marching smartly into the barracks yard and lined up. There was to a be speech in our honour. I thought back to a place far away in the woods of Lappland, where marshal Mannerheim spoke to us and thanked us. Never before or since have I met such a person as him, in all his gloomy greatness. But now there was no speech and no great man. Some insignificant person arrived and told us that Norway had been attacked by the Germans and most of the cities were already occupied. The Norwegians had given up without a struggle. Stand straight! Dismissed! To say that we were struck dumb would be putting it mildly. We stood there, looking at each other in an idiotic fashion. We were pretty thick-skinned, but many of us cried. Mostly in shame, we dreaded to walk the streets and see the pitying glances the Finns would send our way. The Finns had lost the war against their great opponent, but they had fought for what they loved most on this earth, their homeland. We had been filled with propaganda about how important it was to go to Finland and fight for Norway, and yet those at home let the Germans take Norway without a fight. We felt that there was no way we could go on living and still call ourselves Norwegians after this. We were mustered once again, and a Norwegian officer, Norway’s official representative from the Finland Volunteer Committee was to speak to us. Thank God, now we were to receive guidance and get to know what had happened. Then an old Norwegian officer, Hvoslef, came stumbling in. We were ashamed of him, and rued the thoughts of what the Finns and Swedes must think of our officer corps. He reminisced out a terribly bad speech and thanked us for our colossal effort (when I read Norwegian newspapers from when we were at the front, I could see why he was impressed). We were dismissed, and we threw ourselves at him, asking if this business with the Germans really was true. He answered that he knew no more of that than what we already had heard. He told us that it was no more than we should expect that the Germans attacked us after the British had mined the coast. We were taken aback by his attitude. He also said that we could not demand that people defended themselves when the defence had been opposed by the Labour government for so many years. To our question about what to do, he said that we would just go to Oslo. The Germans would not harm us. On the contrary, as military men they would respect us for fighting for our ideals. We were totally helpless and felt like we had been left behind. After a while, we gathered ourselves up and agreed that if no one else would fight, we would. We laughed and cried in turn, idiotically, hysterically, when we first arrived at a train station and saw that the Norwegians were defending themselves bravely. Planes were shot down over Oslo, troop transports were being sunk, and Blücher had gone down with both man and mouse. We were wildly elated, and thought the train moved at a snail’s pace. At every station the train stopped at, we rushed off to get news of the war at home. Judging by the news reports in the papers and on the radio, the fighting grew fiercer. There was now only one thing in our heads, to get home in time to join the fighting. Forgotten now was all the talk that war was filth. Now, it was our own country, and we would avenge those bitter tears we cried in Torneå. At one of the small railway stations, we grabbed a newspaper that listed the entirety of Quisling’s new government. To our great surprise, we saw that the man that had dared to travel all the way up to Finland to welcome us back from the war “with Finland for Norway” had betrayed his own country and was to be appointed as Minister of Defence. The boys went mad with anger at once and there was a frightful tumult aboard the train, as everyone wanted to toss him under the train wheels. Naturally, we could well have done that, but then it was highly possible that we would have been held back in Sweden until the case had been investigated. We therefore decided to bring him to Stockholm and deliver him to the Norwegian legation. Stockholm in those days was really an interesting experience. Our Swedish brothers were apparently so shaken one could think that they actually had a temperament. Now there was a great activity everywhere, people carried sandbags, and blackouts were going up all over Sweden, especially in Stockholm. There was no doubt that the Swedes expected a German attack. I remember that in the legation the 11th of April someone said that Sweden would declare war on Germany in a few hours. That sounded fine to me, and we were even busier than before in trying to get back home to Norway to fight. We expected that at any moment, the Germans might give up the fight in Norway. The newspapers were full of stories of great naval battles in the North Sea, with hundreds of planes on each side. One newspaper had a giant heading in big fat lettering across the page: “The ring of iron around Oslo tightens by the hour”. Oh boy, if only we could get back in time to knock off those swine before our friends at home finished them entirely. We delivered Norway’s new Minister of Defence to the Norwegian legation, with a suggestion that they shoot him inside the legation, since it was Norwegian soil. The legation apparently disagreed, for the next we heard of him, was that he had been named as commander of some place near Elverum. He had been sent over by plane. We have experienced many strange things since then, but at that time we did not know how rotten things were, so we really wondered about the treatment he was given. Today, everyone knows of his great deeds for Quisling. Now he is dead, and that is so. In the old days they said not to speak ill of the dead, but I think that’s damned rubbish. Take Hitler, he is apparently dead, why should I not speak ill of him? I will never forget when we stood there in Torneå and felt that we were lost, and forgotten by our homeland, while a Norwegian officer dared to speak to us the way he did. Later, I almost blew up his mortal remains plus Quisling and Terboven and the whole show during a Nazi funeral, but that’s a different story. We were back in Norway. We toiled through the metre-high wet snow step by step. We were 60 men and changed out going in front to make a path. It was a terrible hardship, we sank to our stomachs in the snow, and then you had to compress the snow and jump back on top, again and again. We were in a long line like geese, one after the other. We stamped and toiled for 10 minutes, and then we changed, and the next man was in the lead. Onward, meter by meter. Captain Benkert, our saintly chief, even though he was Swedish, stuck with us through good and bad, led our unit. Behind us lay Kongsvinger fortress, where the smoke still lay in great banks after the battle. The gods alone must know how many of us fell. We who struggled along here had lost contact with the others in our company. Benckert's company we called it. We had rightly enough been reinforced by 20 men, led by lieutenant Christie. Everyone was so tired that we puked with pure exertion. Everything looked hopeless. We had no food and no dry clothes to change into. We had fought, but what had been the result? Our efforts were neither better or worse than many others at the time we resisted, we were beaten and run over by the Germans. The Germans were at that time something great and terrible, that rolled forward in heavy masses and swept away all resistance by a flick of the wrist. The battle had lasted 6 hours, it was a long battle, and still we felt that it had all been over before we knew it. What was the reason? I won’t bother getting too deep into it, but I can speak of a few small episodes.

In a camo-suit, of the same type we used in Norway during the war.

We arrived at Kongsvinger the 14th of April 1940. We went to the depots, thinking we would be greeted by cheers. After all, we were 140 trained soldiers from the Finnish war. It was the polar opposite. There was a man named major Hoch-Nielsen. We tired of talking to him in the normal fashion, and Benckert talked some sense into him while nudging him with his pistol. The result was that we took what we wanted. There were hundreds of nice fellows that had volunteered to defend the fortress, but had been turned away. We did not let ourselves be turned away. The result was pretty sparse, only 1 rifle per man, but plenty of ammunition. Then we got hold of 1 Madsen machine gun with no magazines and a heavy machine gun. We had a huge muster, and there were plenty of promotions since we mustered an entire company. I was promoted from sergeant to second lieutenant and was given command of the 2nd troop. Benckert advanced from lieutenant to captain and became our company commander. It was a fine thing, and then we went on with our work, there was a lot to do. Unfortunately, the Norwegian forces withdrew from the fortress under orders. We didn’t give a fuck about orders and set to patching up the defences. It was a poor thing. The Norwegian soldiers had destroyed the cannons before they left. We patched up an old museum piece from the Napoleonic times. The shells were “stiftgranater” (I do not know what sort of shells these are). Now we had a cannon, a heavy machine gun, and a Madsen machine gun without ammunition. Yet we felt like we could resist the entire German war machine. It was quite moving to see how the people cheered for us as we marched through the streets of Kongsvinger. They rained chocolates and cigarettes over us. Dear, kind people of Kongsvinger, if you read this, thank you for the encouragement you gave us. We did not feel so big when we went up to the fortress. Our efforts at Kongsvinger fortress may not have been very dazzling, but many of those whom you encouraged with cigarettes and chocolates have since fallen for Norway’s cause. Some shot by the Germans here a home, some tortured to death in the concentration camps, some drowned at sea, some shot down over Germany. For most of us, the battle at Kongsvinger was only the start of our fight against the Germans. Since then we continued on until the capitulation came. Many of the boys have excelled themselves, I need only mention two of the best. Then- lieutenant Johan Christie, D.S.O, D.F.C, with sword and Larsen, later known as Shetlands-Larsen. (This guy deserves recognition as well, he had 52 trips over from Norway to Shetland carrying weapons, intelligence, spies, fugitives and the like for the Norwegian Naval Independent Unit, coordinating with the SOE and SIS. He was awarded the DSO, DSM, CGM and War Cross with 2 swords and ended up as the most highly decorated Allied naval officer in the war.) I grow dizzy at the thought of the mess that happened during the war in Norway, I know only one thing: We tried to do our best. I remember when we stormed up from the road below the fortress where we tried to hold the Germans, how the Germans came on and how we urged to get away. How their mortar shells rained down upon us, how we cheered as a messenger arrived, bearing news of reinforcements, and how we by God’s grace escaped when no reinforcements arrived after all. We had to traverse a bare mountainside in a hail of bullets, but luckily it started raining, so the Germans could not see us. In the meantime, the Germans had come around our backs, they had surrounded us entirely and taken our cars, skis, rucksacks and other gear. The bridge across the river Glomma from Kongsvinger had not been blown, as captain Benckert had ordered. Those who were set to do it did not do it well enough. The bridge was of wood and had just received a bulge in the middle. Everything was against us. The Germans were undoubtedly the better soldiers so long as they stuck to the roads. We never got them to follow us into the woods. Only one single time did any of us get a chance to meet Germans in the forest. There were 32 of them. That made 32 corpses. They got stuck in the snow and took what they got. I went along playing at war until the Germans left Åndalsnes. I am not proud of my effort in the war, it was not much. (Both here and earlier he is speaking of the ‘war’, the official period of war between Norway and Germany – that would be from April 13th to June 7th 1940, and not the later occupation, which lasted until the 8th of May 1945.) We were unlucky, and were trudging behind the German advance all the way – Kongsvinger, Rena, Lillehammer. First, the Norwegian troops pulled back, then the Germans came, and after the Germans, we came trudging on. We suffered more than was good for us, we had some shooting, but I was deeply disappointed in my countrymen. We accepted more soldiers into our company, many became tired of it all and left, and who am I to judge? Benckert was wonderful as long as he lasted. At last we split up. A hundred men each to their own way. Around 20 men continued with captain Benckert, who was trying to capture Hegra fortress four days after the war was called off. He was a great warrior, and the most fearless man I have known. We owe him much thanks. I changed into worker’s overalls, jumped on a German truck and got to Oslo. Here I discovered that my best friend Kolbein was still alive. We had camped together in Finland, and he was my sergeant at Kongsvinger. He had been captured by the Germans and was held at Akershus fortress as a prisoner of war. I stood outside as a free man and waved to him, and I got a chance to speak to him and I was going to run away to northern Norway to continue fighting there, since the war had ended in southern Norway. He begged me to wait a few days, until he had a chance to get out of prison shortly after. I promised to do so. Because of Hitler’s special magnanimity, the Norwegian prisoners were released. Kolbein and I tried to get to northern Norway via Sweden, but it failed, and therefore we started our illegal work. We went to Kongsvinger and dug up the first weapon caches and transported them to safe places. Then the war ended and we went underground for real.

Chapter 4 Underground

I sat in the headquarters with some of my subordinate leaders. The Englishmen had been beaten in France, and we had heard over the radio a little of how they got away at Dunkerque. Poor devils, and yet happier than us. Here we were wading in Germans and disgustingly passive countrymen. When we laid out our plans, one could feel them laughing at us, treating us like boys spoiling for a bit of adventure. One could puke, seeing how they worked for the Germans, how they fought to do business with those swine. The worst of all was maybe to see how the women betrayed us. It got worse and worse. I poured a little into the glass and looked at one of my mates, his lips had gotten thinner, his face harder, and by God, he had reason to look more pissed than most. He had been one of those lucky few that had the opportunity to continue the war in northern Norway, and had now returned to Oslo. He arrived in Oslo, longing wildly for his girl. He had kissed her goodbye, when he had been young and cheerful and went to fight for his country. His return had been different. He went straight to her home and found her with a German officer. There was no blood-dripping tragedy, the boy bottled it up and went on his way. He became one of my best men. Again and again, angry outbursts and fists hitting the desk, and words to the effect that enough was enough, now we would go to England. That was indeed our greatest difficulty, to stop people from going to England. The boys tired quickly, and wanted a more regular thing. I travelled a lot in those days, up and down the country, organizing and looking for weapons. Not everyone was in such a lucky position that they could give all their time to the illegal work like I could. I had plenty of diversion, and thought things were progressing. The whole situation looked pretty bleak, and one needed a good portion of naïve faith to not give up hope of victory. But what we believed or did not believe, did not matter. We would not give up. We held great meetings at that time, and planned lots of stuff, we studied the communist cell-systems and fit much of what we learned into our own organization. First, we went for the different weapons caches. It was not just small stuff that was hidden away in the forests after the Norwegians soldiers had to give up the fight against their greater enemy. I shiver still when I think of the risks we took to get those weapons. Usually, it went something like this: From some contact or other we heard that someone had fought somewhere. Then they had given up the fight, and had buried so and so many weapons. Now we had to find these weapons and transport them to somewhere more secure, where fewer people knew where they were. It was important too to polish and maintain the weapons. Usually they were only wrapped in rags or pieces of sackcloth. It was not always easy to find these places. Many times we had to run around among the local peasants to try to ferret out the location of the weapons. And usually, it was the farmers who had kept the weapons hidden themselves. That was the easy part, and we organized a few such places, appointed some leaders and made them put together teams of around 8 men. After a while, we grew quite silver-tongued, and I think that in many parts of the country, people were expecting a revolution to explode, supported by the English. We got pretty desperate doing this work. I can remember countless time where I travelled up to, say, the Trondheim area and was to find weapons and organize men, without knowing anyone in the area. I could have some knowledge of weapons in the area, because such-and-such had said so-and-so. Then the following happened. I picked out a small crofter’s cottage (We had learned to shy away from the big farms.) Then you entered, cap in hand. Wish a good evening, or something like it. Then we spoke pleasantly in the rustic manner. I’m not too well-versed in country ways, thought I have worked for 8 months on a farm in Chile, but as far as I know they do not grow garlic or wine in the Odalen valley, so I was usually out of my depth. I always started in the same way: “These are hard times,” As you know, there have been hard times for as long as there have been farmers. Then the farmer would spit on the floor, and while he would wipe away the spit with his stockings, we got to talking about how colossally bad everything was now. The maximum pricing was so low they cold starve, the Germans took all the hay, etc., etc. Then we spoke of the war and of how brave we had been. Then I naturally said that I had heard that there had been a lot of Germans killed in that valley. The usual answer was that no, not in this valley, but in the next town over the Germans got a beating. Then the time had come, we had both put feelers out, I had asked if there were many Nazis in the town, and he had usually accused anyone he didn’t like of being a Nazi. I winked at him and asked to speak with him privately. Either we went into another room, or chased the wife and kids out of the room we were in. Then I put the cards on the table and told him that the fight was still going strong, and that it would come to a point soon. We had thousands of armed men etc. Usually we lied a whole lot and consoled ourselves that it was for the good of the country. We had to give them the impression that it was a sensible thing to organize a resistance. It was incredibly easy to get the farmers to join. When I say farmers, it’s not entirely correct. Rather, it was smallholders, crofters and forest workers. The rifle club members were usually the best. If you got your foot inside a rifle club, the work was already done for you. The teams were set up quickly, and we knew how many weapons were around. In those days, we worked to manufacture homemade hand grenades. We had a large-scale production, but the grenades were equally dangerous to us at to the enemy. They were of the type that exploded on impact. We also worked to make lighter Colt machineguns. We were amateurs at everything, but we had spirit. Everything was fun at that time. The best fun was when we could get the Germans to inadvertently help us. I remember one time I had been up around Trondheim, not far from Flornes and had emptied out a cache of weapons. I had some people to help me to the train, but had to travel alone to Oslo. It was four suitcases, filled up with Colt .45 revolvers, ammunition and 2 Madsen machine guns. For some reason I had to change trains at Hamar, and it was quite difficult to transport all my suitcases. The trains were almost troop transports at the time, and there were Germans everywhere I turned. When I started to lug the suitcases out of the train, a host of Germans suddenly wanted to help. It resulted in me nicely walking along the platform, followed by four Germans, each carrying a suitcase for me. Now, this was in 1940, and the relations between us and the Germans was not as bad as it would become. They were almost laying themselves down to be of service in their eagerness to be liked by Norwegians.

Time passed, and we continued to learn. We learned how to get the right people to contribute. The economy was sadly a tough problem. Usually, it was about finding enough money to buy guns. It was usually quite large amounts of guns. And then there was the propaganda, it could be plaques denouncing the girls that ran with Germans, encouraging people to go in for boycotting the cinema, etc. And there was a lot of things. Like when there was a couple of exciting days when Himmler and Dr. Goebbels came to Oslo. We knew they were coming, and climbed around on the roofs above Karl Johan street, across from the fire station. Our plan was to toss a crate of dynamite from the roof and into the motorcade which contained Himmler and Goebbels while it passed by. I asked my chief for permission, but he said no. He was afraid too many people would be shot in retribution. Retribution, yes, a terrible word. Since then, I have found it everywhere. Threats of retribution was the Germans’ best weapon. It took a long time before the right people in the right positions found out that their trump card would only be a trump card for as long as we let them. The day when we no longer cared about retribution, it ceased to be the Germans’ weapon against us. Still, we could not help ourselves, and despite the ban on taking out Himmler and Goebbels, we hung around the KNA and observed what they were doing. We could have sniped them from a building site straight across from the KNA hotel. I laid the plans myself, and climbed the scaffolding to check out the possibilities. It was quite interesting to see how the Germans guarded everything and everyone, and closed off the entire area, and how easy it still would be to gain entrance for one man willing to spend his life. Today, it is with no small amount of bitterness one can think of how many human lives could have been saved if we had dropped a crate of dynamite down into Karl Johan while Himmler and Goebbels were passing by. Now we had learned that in such cases, one should not ask too much about permission, so that when Regiment Nordland was to travel over to Germany, we thought we would change their destination up a bit and send them where they were going a bit before their time, and where most of them probably reside now. As a means to change their destination, we thought to use good old dynamite. I no longer remember how many kilos of dynamite we had planned on using, I only know that we in the dark of the night, 2 men, buried the charge between the train tracks on the stretch between Bekkelaget and Oslo, where the track passes over a large hill above the Mosseveien road. It happened at the time, like so many times later, that something unforeseen came up. This time it happened that Regiment Nordland was to be transported by airplane, not train. We had everything ready, even signal help from the railway workers so we wouldn’t get the wrong train. Oh well, we could do nothing but gather the explosives back up. I have to smile, thinking of what a ruckus it would have been among my good friends up that way if a whole trainful of Nazis had slipped off the rails and been smashed onto the Mosseveien road. Oh well, today some of those guys have had their judgement, in the form of 4-5-year long prison sentences. It’s not my business to act as a judge, but at that time, we thought that there could be no other sentence than the death penalty for such traitors. After a while, we became more and more interested in propaganda, we did the most insane things to spread our cinema boycott posters. At the time, many people put in the newspaper notices under things to buy or flats for rent “good Norwegian” or just “Norwegian”. If there was an address printed, we usually sent them a couple of posters, with a plea for them as “Good Norwegians” to hang them up. We did the same for the addresses of good Norwegians that we learned of. We wrote the, saying that we knew of them and their friendly disposition, and hoped that they would do their bit for the cause and hang up the posters. Today, I shiver when I think of it. We had some good laughs about some of the little posters we made, they were in N.S. colours and had the simple inscription: “Member of ”. They were no bigger than 15cmx10cm, in delicate colours. They were made and launched at Wittusen & Jensen, by Odd and Leif. We even got hold of some very good lists of stores whose owners were N.S. members, both publicly known ones, and those little piggies who were members in secret. They got a real scare, when they turned up at their shops in the morning, and found a couple of wonderful posters, one by the window and one by the door. We had a man inside N.S. working for us. He'd accepted to do us some favours. I myself had ordered him to do it. There have been many misunderstandings around this, and I want to take the opportunity to clear his name. He meant a lot to us at the time. His name is Gustav Bennecke. Bennecke arrived at Fritt Folk (An N.S. newspaper) in the morning the same day we had put up the posters. Bennecke was on the path to becoming Gulbrand Lunde’s (An N.S. Minister) right-hand-man. There was a terrible to and fro down there. It was the day Himmler was at Ridehuset, talking to the Hirdsmen. Now, every phone at Nasjonal Samling was ringing off the hook, and every member of the Hird and every high official was away. The N.S. underlings of course thought that it had been the Hird’s idea. It was laughable, hearing the businessmen of the city calling and yammering and almost crying that their businesses now were sure to be ruined, since it was by the jøssings that they did business. (the word jøssing was not actually invented at the time.) (The Hird being the militant arm of Nasjonal Samling, and jøssings are regular people who did not like N.S., while some N.S. people called themselves Quislings in opposition to the jøssing name. It did not work so well. The word “jøssing” is taken from the Jøssing fjord, where the first stroke of the war happened in Norway, the German troop transport Rio De Janeiro was sunk by a British destroyer in the night of April 8th.) They asked for permission to remove the posters, but no one dared to take responsibility, and everyone agreed that it had been a silly thing to do and was probably done by the Hird, but they were all away. The posters therefore stayed up all day. It was a great victory for us, especially seeing those little pricks who had no idea we had access to Nasjonal Samling’s secret lists. We heard of several cases of people who tried to get out of the party already then. It's funny to think of today when we hear of this or that person getting out of the party at this or that time. Then there was “Vi vil oss et land.” (An illegal newspaper.) The boys who edited that have been forgotten by the world, but they can look back in pride that they really did a great effort in a difficult time. Not many dared the consequences. They did as well as they could. Sadly, we were all amateurs. There were quite a lot of poems in “Vi vil oss et land”, but people loved poems back then. Womenfolk carried poems in their stockings and thought it frightfully exciting. There were poems about the King, about the war, and nasty ones about the Germans and N.S. Then we had exciting news reports of arrests, and news of rapes done by German soldiers. In every issue I think we had something about Olga Bjoner. (Leader of the N.S. Women’s organization) She was our great enemy. I looked around for a printer, and found one at Hamar. The printer, who by the way was Swedish, agreed to print our material, but told us we had to get some special typefaces so that they could not track down the printing press by using writing samples from the different presses. That was done. Tidemandsen at Gulowsen fixed it. Then came the comical journey up to Hamar. I brought along my best man, and together we travelled with 180 kilos of printing press material, typefaces and the like. Lead is quite heavy, so it didn’t take up too much space. We were monumentally stupid, and put all of it in four small suitcases, and it looked pretty dumb to see two men dragging along with two tiny suitcases each. The suitcases were heavy like a lead weight, which was their actual content, too. It almost went awry when I entered the train coupé and cheekily tried to fling the little suitcase onto the luggage rack, and could not get it up there. People stared, and I understood by their whispered conversations that they suspected I carried some of the famous gold which apparently had been secreted away by the government in its flight. (That actually happened too, the country’s entire gold stockpile was loaded into barrels on trucks and driven out of Oslo toward Hamar before the Germans arrived, just like the King and government. It too reached Britain mostly intact.) Then the typesetting was done at one place, and the printing at another. We felt pretty secure at the time. All that we did back then was pretty careless. We laboured hard making the Christmas special of “Vi vil oss et land”. It was printed on lovely thick and glossy luxury paper, all 16 printed pages of it. We made 10. 000 of it. It was not bad, Christmas 1940. Paper was not so hard to come by, back then. Emil Moestue A/S delivered our every need. Naturally, we had to use some “cut outs” between us and Moestue for safety, but we had to tell them the purpose of the paper we bought. Many later times, when I needed paper, I got it through Moestue. The funniest thing was that later – in ‘43, ‘44 and ‘45 - we printed false German newspapers with so-called “black propaganda” on good Norwegian paper. At the time, I was busy with a couple of guys who had come over from England. It was Sverre Midtskau and Finn Juel. I knew Finn Juel from Finland. He had somehow ended up in northern Norway, and from there he had continued on to England, from where he had been sent back by the Intelligence Office. We thought that this was the real deal, and were very impressed. We worked together going forwards. At the time, we had many sources bringing us information, and were probably the best-informed people about the state of Norway. We received reports several times per day about everything, from rapes to the amount of petrol left in the country. Everything grew and grew; we had an organization we called “Frihetskampen” (“The Fight for Freedom”) and we had both military and economic organizations. And then there was the medical side of it. We bought cratefuls of bandages, and made single-use packs all the time. Everything grew over my head. I tried to cut through several times, but it was not easy. Many people lost their patience and wanted to start the war at once, as long as they could get enough weapons. I had constant visits by bosses who wanted to speak with “the boss”. There was a lot of talk, and I understood that it would break down sooner or later. I started cutting off connections, and grew very unpopular. Unfortunately, our organization had grown too big, and I had been too stupid to keep well hidden. The word “cover” had not yet been invented. We had to get Sverre Midtskau back to England. It was Christmastime 1940. It was very hard to find boats to England. At the time, no one thought of going there via Sweden. It had to be the North Sea. We hatched a genial plan, we thought. Everyone today has heard about the Galtesund affair. Our plan was exactly like it. (The Galtesund was a Norwegian coastal ferry, it was hijacked by Company Linge operatives on 15.4.1942 and sailed to Aberdeen.) The boat was called “Mars”, and was a coastal ferry. Finn Juel was the machinist on board, and sailed along the coast, mapping all the German facilities. It quite wonderful to think of him coming over from England during the war, then he takes a job as a machinist on a boat working for the Germans. Even stranger was the fellow who picked up his interrupted studies at Trondheim College and really got his exams done, all the while he was working a transmitter to England, where he had come from after partaking in the entire war in Norway and escaping across the North Sea. Well done, buddy!

But to return to the steamship “Mars”. Finn Juel was the machinist on board, we spoke to him, and he told us that the boat was ready to go from Oslo to Kristiansand and on to Stavanger. Our plan was to sneak on board under cover of night in Kristiansand. There we were to hide in a boat on the poop deck. Finn was to hang out a rope ladder for us. When we then had passed Færder lighthouse, we would get out on deck and take command. We were 4 men, all well-armed. That is to say, 2 pistols each. Two men would go to the bridge and sweet-talk the captain and crew there. One man was to go down to the engines and talk to the guys there, and one was to head out on the deck and talk to the crew. We had made up our speech beforehand, and it was quite dramatic. We would stir the patriotic heartstrings, and underline it with our pistols. Unfortunately, it happened then as so many times later, we failed. We arrived at Kristiansand the day before New Year’s Eve in the year of our Lord 1940. We checked into Hotel Ernst. Naturally, it was full of Germans. We each had a rucksack of food and a Finland fur coat. We would have to stay outside for a good while, and it was cold as hell. We took turns watching the docks to see when “Mars” arrived. Nothing happened that day, nor the next, and we thought that the boat had gone somewhere else. We ordered food and other stuff to celebrate the new year. We were about to start at 20.00. At 19.00, our watchman came in and said that the boat had arrived. It was too dark to see the boat clearly, but it matched the description. We were suddenly in a hurry. Unfortunately, there was a curfew in Kristiansand that day because of some set-to between Germans and Norwegians. It was illegal to be out on the streets after 20.00. We had to go at once. Our plan was to head to the municipal bathhouses, I think. They were down by the inlet. We had to go past a German sentry post, since they had built up a camp nearby, filled with Germans. We passed it, and arrived at the bathhouse. Here we saw clear signs of German soldiers, and it looked to be a favourite spot for Germans who felt homesick and wanted company from Norwegian girls. We basically trudged through the signs of their little trysts. Kolbein had joined us to row us out to the ship and row the boat back; then he would go to Oslo and stay there while I was in England. He and Sverre had pinched a rowboat, and had rowed out to check on the ship before heading to the bathhouse. We set a sentry as soon as we arrived at the bathhouse, and made everything ready for an eventual “silent killing” if any Germans would arrive with a girl. In our mind’s eye we saw how we would strangle those damn girls who ran with the Germans. Then we heard the scraping of the rowboat closing in on the bathhouse. The boys had wound cloth around the oarlock, and came on silently. Our nerves were high-strung when they appeared, but we almost collapsed when they told us it was the wrong ship. It was the sister ship that had arrived. We had to give up the plan. Without knowing the machinist on board, we would have no way of accomplishing our plan. Besides, we had no idea where the boat was headed. Now we were in it. The time was around 21.30, and we could not get back to our hotel because of the curfew. We had to settle in there for the night. That night was hellishly cold. It was the uncommonly low temperature of minus 23 degrees Celsius. Kristiansand is very cold, and especially in a bathhouse. We froze like dogs despite our thick fur coats. It was worst for Kolbein, he only had a hat and coat. At midnight, Sverre pulled out a hip flask filled with whisky, and we each had a sip and said happy new year. In the middle of the night we heard a sudden crash, and the bathhouse was illuminated. It was a German who had been out celebrating New Year's Eve when his car had gone off the road. Now the car hung by its back wheels from the guard rail. There was a lot of screaming and noise, and the women were pretty hysterical. We stood ready with guns in our hands, but it subsided after a while. Later, we were awakened by a gunshot. It was no more than 150 meters to the German barracks and the sentry post. Well, the morning came at last, and it was 5 tired and frozen young men who walked back into Kristiansand. We went straight to the railway station. The first we heard was that the sentry we had passed that evening had been shot in the night. We were suddenly in a hurry to get away. First, we took a phone call to Stavanger, and learned that all went well with the fishing trip – meaning, the ship was ready. We learned that 3 men would be enough. Kolbein and another went back to Oslo, and us three others went on to Stavanger. I was to provide cover if anything went wrong. While we waited for the train, “Mars” arrived. It went on at once, and we learned it had gone on to Mandal. But here we did a mistake many have done after us: We gave up. Mainly because we were tired. We made up a bunch of excuses for ourselves and agreed that we had little chance of catching it in Mandal, etc. The fact is that it would probably have worked if we tried. Instead, we went to Stavanger and got caught up in a terrible check of our fake papers in Egersund, where it apparently also was a curfew after a certain time. We stayed there for the night and went on to Stavanger the next day. We spent three days in Stavanger, and it turned out to be a big nothing. The guy who had said everything was ready hadn’t fixed a single thing. There had been some arrests, and everyone were too scared to go to England on the ferries. We went back, and Sverre found his way to England on another boat.

Chapter 5 Into the trap and out again

Now, we had some plans to make propaganda brochures in German, explaining to the Germans how futile it would be to continue the war. Our plan was to make 100.000 of them, 10 different types, 10.000 of each. I went to a cabin we had set aside for such use, and started making different sketches.

Here too, I put the final touch to an order to liquidate Minister Hagelin. I had received orders that he was to be shot. It was to scare off the other “ministers”. I had word that there would be no repercussions, as he was not German, but Norwegian. He was apparently quite dangerous and evil. Enough about that, I had made a plan where we were to shoot him from the roof of the Munkedamsveien road. It was 50-60 meters across to Victoria Terrasse. There were guards around, but from the window in the loft there was a good chance to wait unseen until he came out, and then pluck him. When the shot fell, one of the boys down by the gate was to close it. We two who shot were to run down into the courtyard, then jump over a fence and get into the next courtyard. Then out into another street, where we had a car waiting. I had written this plan down, waiting for it to be accepted, and I also carried a report of two weeks’ work on me. I rarely carried anything written down, but I was to deliver my report to major Rogness, whom I usually met in the street. We walked along together, and then it wasn’t always so easy to remember everything that needed to be said. This time it was for two weeks, since he had been away. On the whole, I carried a lot of stuff on me, amongst other things, there was sketches for posters, and a whole manuscript for the newspaper “Frihetskampen”. It was Sunday the 16th of January 1941 in the evening. I had just parted from my friend Reinholdt Eriksen, who had been helping me out at the cabin. The time was around 22.30 when I arrived at my apartment in Vidarsgate 4. I noticed nothing. It struck me that I ought to put the rucksack away before I entered, but I was tired and kept hold of it. I stuck the key in the lock, opened the door and entered, and then I was trapped. Six men stood there, looking at me. “This is the state police,” they said. You know, it’s not much one can do in such a situation. In a good book, the hero would do a lot of stuff, he would have knocked out the first, kicked the second, taken a gun from the third and shot the fourth, and the last two would have their hands in the air. I thought of trying something like it, but I could do nothing else than give them a sheepish grin and say: “Good evening, how are things?” Then they came at me, and when they were done, I stood quite alone on the floor, shorn of my backpack with all its contents and all my pockets turned inside out.

I asked weakly if I could be allowed into the bedroom for a headache pill, but they just stared angrily at me. I agonized over the 50 kilos of dynamite I had hidden away in there, and which I supposed had not been moved yet. Now, the headache pill stuff was the brightest idea I had at that moment, and when it didn’t work, I tried to think clearer. I was as scared as one can be and acted all silly. I held my hand up and asked if I couldn’t be allowed out into the yard. I was commanded to shut up. Then I explained that I actually didn’t mean the yard, seeing as it was all dark, and they could believe I was trying to run away. But I had to go out to piss, or else I would piss on the floor, being so nervous. The part about peeing on the floor had an effect, and when I made preparations to do it, I was allowed to go to the bathroom. In my mind, I saw myself storming along the corridor and down the stairs and out into the dark night to a friend’s home, who would tell me how brave I had been. Unfortunately, two brutal-looking men followed me into the bathroom. Now I had to take a leak, whether I wanted to or not. Orders were orders. I was taken back into the living room, and since they had read some of the stuff in my unlucky backpack, had learned that I was something of a big deal in illegal circles. One of the guys got ecstatic, and said that now they had the entire resistance movement, and looked at me lovingly. I thought it was a bad thing about all the dynamite we had stashed. It was 450 kilos of it, and I was afraid it would disappear. Then I sized up my distance from the window, pointed over to a board on the wall with some medals (some from Finland and some rifle medals).

Now everything happened like in a movie. Everyone looked where I pointed, and I went off like a rocket through the blackout curtain and the glass window. It was a large pane, almost department store-sized, I had to get through, and I came on head first. I must have lost consciousness when I hit the glass, at least I can remember up to the pane, and no more. It was from the first floor, so relatively high up. I had would never have dared to jump so far if there had been water underneath. I came to in the car, where I lay handcuffed, puking like a pig. My shoulder hurt and I passed out again. I came back at Ullevål Hospital, as I was being wheeled in to be x-rayed. I overheard a discussion between my guardians and a doctor. The guards said that it would be fine if I was examined while handcuffed, while the doctor responded that I could die at any moment. Then someone shone a light on me, and the doctor said that I had broken a shoulder, broken my back and had a major concussion. I thought it was a bit much, and apparently my guards agreed, because they agreed to wait outside the room, so as not to disturb the doctor. There was a very cute nurse who held my hand and comforted me, and I was sad for my broken back. So, I thought, since I was done for anyway, I might spread a little glamour. I told them that I was a very important person that the Germans must not in any circumstance get hold of if we were to win the war. Therefore, I told the doctor, while gazing into the nurse’s eyes, that if he thought himself a good and true Norwegian, he would not hand me over to the Germans, but rather give me a poison syringe. I had probably read of those in a detective magazine. Then the doctor said, now holding my hand, that there wasn’t much wrong with my back, just two bones knocked out of kilter, and that I would be all right again. I puked a little more and began a more serious conversation. I had to alert the boys to the fact that I had been captured. Unfortunately, my head was quite bad and my memory was hazy, and I kept on passing out. I gave them some friends’ addresses. I took a risk giving them their names, but felt that I had to do it. They promised me to warn them, and I was then wheeled into a solitary room under escort by my two guards, guns drawn. They sat down on the edge of the bed, scowling at me, fingers on the trigger. I tried to puke on them, but there was nothing but bile left in me. Then a saving angel arrived, in the form of Nurse Liv. She came gliding in in the morning, and at once put up a piece of paper: “No admittance.” She chased the guards out, telling them that I was dying. She then mounted the paper on the door, and then I was relieved of any guards in my room for the foreseeable future. The two numbskulls who had been assigned to guard me placed themselves loyally outside the door, where they took turns to sit watching the door, gun in hand. There were 6 men in all on rotation. I wasn’t quite so clever in the first few days. I lay there puking for a couple of days, but then I started to get better. My back and shoulder hurt, and I had to lie totally flat on account of my head. When my mind cleared somewhat, I tried to get an overview of the situation, and found that the window was not at all bad. It was boarded up to protect against shrapnel from an eventual bombing attack, but there was a hatch in the top that they opened every day. Now, I had to get in contact with the outside world. The nurse that I had gazed into the eyes of was probably useable, but she was an operations nurse, and was quite hard to get a hold of. Therefore, I launched a frontal assault on the night shift nurse, who was another honourable person. God bless the nurses and doctors of Ullevål hospital, they were wonderful. Now, I had the nurse on my wavelength, and she agreed to work as a go-between for me and my guys outside the hospital. Now I had contact with the guys outside. Almost every day, I received small notes smuggled to me in the strangest ways. It was quite a high-stakes game. A couple of hundred people had been arrested, and I felt pretty bad to have all that on my conscience, and to tell you the truth, I was fully prepared to kill myself before they brought me in for questioning. In my mind, I could see information spilling from me like peas from a sack. I was, and still is, sure that I could not stand to be questioned. Never in my work have I ever assumed any person could resist torture. The small notes of information kept streaming in. I had sent notes telling then that everyone could lay the blame on me, we had to assume that I was done for anyway. Those who had been imprisoned therefore learned that I had broken my back and was dying. Accusations of what I had done now showered over me. There was not the smallest thing that I wasn’t responsible for. Espionage, transmitters, newspaper printing and distribution, assassination plans, export of pilots, money collections, liquidations, organization of guerrilla forces etc. To name some of it. To top off the whole sorry thing, Sverre Midtskau returned, probably as Norway’s first paratrooper. I was arrested on the 16th of January, and I think that Sverre arrived on the 19th or 20th, and unfortunately went straight over to the office machine workshop Kolbein and I ran. Gestapo sat there waiting for him, poor Sverre, it must have been a terrible shock, and a dreadful feeling when being transported to interrogation. This was serious business, and he would have to chance to save his life if they learned he had come from England. Sverre was wonderful, and lied rings around both the Germans and the state police. He admitted many strange things, in all. Unfortunately, he had on him a note with numbers, of which one especially would be damning if the Germans learned what they meant. Sverre chose to say it was the number of a post box in . And a man in Bergen was arrested because he owned that box. We consoled ourselves with the thought that hopefully it was a Nazi or a “stripe”(Norwegian that supported the Nazis and Quisling’s government, though not a Nazi themselves) that owned the box, in any case, Sverre gained some breathing room. Sverre played the Germans for fools for 10 months, and when they cobbled together the pieces, the good Sverre Midtskau fled Nr. 19.

The police file on the Manus case was over 1000 pages long.

Kolbein had been taken a few hours before I was arrested, and they got hold of a group of people that were connected to us. Some thankfully escaped, including the most important ones. There was a good chance of several death penalties, spearheaded by Fridtjof Tidemann Johansen, Kolbein Lauring and yours truly. This was now life or death for many people, and I had to disappear. Dead men don’t speak, as they say, but that was a way out I did not personally relish, so it would have to be escape. Besides the nurse, the person I must thank most for this is . He was a great comrade and an impassioned idealist. He later died in a concentration camp in Germany. He could die knowing he had done Norway a great service. He was arrested 3 times. The third time it went wrong. Then came Germany, and the end. He was one of the silent, forgotten heroes, who did the heavy lifting at a time when everyone thought Germany was winning. Honoured be his memory. Per Jacobsen smuggled in a fishing line to me, and then all was ready. I had laid the plan myself, it wasn’t exactly a stroke of genius, but it would do. The nurse was in on it. The plan was for Per Jacobsen to drive a car up close to where I lay, facing the garden. Then they would cut a hole in the mesh fencing, and I would lower myself out the window with a rope they brought. The rope would be tied to the fishing line, which I would have to lower down first for them to tie it onto. But it went wrong the night I was to escape. I was pretty high strung, it was quite scary, and we were certain it would be the last chance we got. Fehmer had demanded that I was to be interrogated, and we could expect me to be picked up at any moment, no matter how sick I was. (Siegfried Wolfgang Fehmer, a German policeman and Gestapo member. He often tortured his prisoners sadistically, and was convicted on at least 20 counts of torture and shot after the war.) The night came, and when the appointed time came, I was ready to go. The guard was very wary, so I was quite delayed. When all was calm, I saw that the boys weren’t there. They had not gotten the car they were going to use yet. It was terrible, keeping calm and waiting. But two days later, everything was ready. Now there were two nurses in on it. One was my mail carrier, and the other would take a blow and let me knock her out. Night came, and I actually lay ready, waiting for the Gestapo to come and get me. There had been a blowup between the head surgeon and Fehmer. Fehmer demanded my release, and the head surgeon refused. But we understood that this would not work for long. But to shorten the story, everything went to plan. At 3 in the morning, everything was ready. The boys were in place underneath the window. Then came the exciting moment. Could I manage to get out of the window? I had been lying flat out on my back for 27 days without moving. Could I stand? I was rather dizzy, but everything went well. I was up in the window looking down, and there were the guys, clad in white camo suits. I knew that if I couldn’t get out, the boys would have to try and shoot me. Many lives were on the line, and I could not risk an interrogation, no matter the cost. I said a touching goodbye to the nurse, and when I extricated myself from the embrace, I smacked her. Then I struggled up to the window hatch and down onto the edge of the roof. I hoisted up the rope with the fishing line, tied it around a crossbeam and lowered the end down to the boys below. My right arm was pretty useless. I was quite dizzy, and dared not look down. The first floor on Ullevål is quite high up, around 10 meters. The guys held the rope at an angle, and I slid down slowly, using one arm and my legs. The right was as mentioned, useless. It must have looked quite comical to see me come sliding downward with my ass hanging out. I was in a hospital nightgown, which is more like an apron. It was a lovely feeling to stand on the ground once more, covered in snow. The boys were clad in white camo suits, and we were in a devil-may-care mood. I was handed a gun, and things looked more rosy at once. If we were stopped now, at least some of them would pay for it. We reached the car, and I got into some clothes. The nurse who had been my messenger to the boys was also in the car. She gave me some pick-me-ups. We had barely got the car moving and was going along the Kirkeveien road when we heard the sirens come blaring. He was quick to act, that Fehmer. We gloated, thinking of what a ruckus we would make, but we were still nervous, since we were still far from safe. We had used far too much time. One of the boys had pulled down the entire rope and brought it along, so it would take some time before the Germans could figure out how I had disappeared. We drove past a couple of German barracks on our way to Røa. Naturally, we thought the German sentries looked suspiciously at us. Somewhere at Røa I exited the car alongside one of my helpers, who was to show me the way up to a cabin. Here, they had made a big mistake. The guys hadn’t believed I was as in as poor a shape as I was, and they had not counted on me not being able to make the trip I now had to do on skis. I was very bad. I was far from recovered from my concussion, my right arm was useless and my back hurt all over. I did not think that the trip would be so long. How long it was, I do not know, and it does not really matter, but I walked for 6 hours straight. We went to the Lommedalen valley. And I raved on, fuelled by medicines and aquavit which we had brought. We went the wrong way, and I was in pretty bad shape once we finally arrived. Now my strength returned, and I was bursting with joy for being safe. The fellow who had followed me up had to return to Oslo and asked if I was going to be OK by myself, and I naturally answered yes. He left straight away and left me to the stillness and tranquillity of the cabin there in the silence of the white, snow-covered wood. I remember making some coffee, eating a bit and then trying to sleep – but then my nerves started going off. The 27 days I had spent in a permanent state of awareness waiting to be taken to an interrogation had exhausted me more than I had thought. I felt that the enemy was surrounding me, and even though I knew it was stupid, I went off into the woods a distance from the cabin, so that I could watch it if the Germans arrived. Thankfully, it was a lovely and sunny spring day. In the first days, I had a white-knuckled grip on the pistol, determined to fight to the last breath. When darkness fell, I crawled into the cabin and had a little party for myself. I crawled in every sense of the word. I was so sore that I screamed a little every time I moved. My muscles were in terrible shape after being functionless for so long and then suddenly be forced to struggle for 6 hours on skis. Fear of the Germans always disappeared in the dark. I stayed at the cabin for 10 or 12 days, and in that time the boys often came up to greet me. The news they brought was pretty alarming. The Gestapo and state police had gone all in on trying to find me, and even started up their big, stupid apparatus.

It was kind of bad that my photograph had been spread all across Norway in the Police Times and wanted posters. Thankfully, it was not a very good photograph of me, but the fact remained that it had been posted nationwide, and I had to change my looks up a bit. It was the usual colouring of hair and eyebrows. And because of my daily watchfulness in the forest, I had acquired a nice bronze tone in my face, so that I looked healthy.

The Germans and the Hird raided huts all over Nordmarka, and we were given the impression they were searching for me. That meant it was best to get over to Sweden as quickly as possible.

Picture text:

The Police Times, nr. 23, 1941

2. The night between the 13th and 14th March 19131 – probably around 00.30 - Maximo Manus, 22 A 3, (see picture) escaped the Surgery Ward of Ullevål Hospital, probably through the window and into the street. Manus was born 9.12.14 in Bergen, is approx. 1,75m tall, very well built, fit, blonde hair, very marked facial features, speaks Oslo dialect. He was hurt in the back 15.2. this year, and from then until he escaped has been at Ullevål hospital. Manus has participated as a volunteer in the Finnish War. He is a dangerous person, and would probably use weapons when being arrested. He has been charged with different crimes, amongst others violence. A thorough search must be started at once and at an eventual arrest, we ask that you telegraph the state police immediately. - State police The trip went well, but there were a couple of happenings along the way. A famous skier followed me, Andreas Aubert, who later has done great service to this country. We worked together in those days, and he represented the Sørkedalen Company, and I suspected he was buying all their gear from his own pocket. It was quite hard for him, having a cripple like me along, but he was a wonderful chum. Our first exciting experience came at Majorstua. We were driving a municipal car, and the driver was known as a tough fighter, of the sort that always blabbed on about “Getting the Germans with his bare fists”. I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach when we passed large posters with “Those who do x will be shot”. The first German sentries made me feel very small; then the car stopped, and the driver said through chattering teeth that he felt unwell and did not dare drive us any further. There we were, just below Majorstua. There was nothing for it. To really put the situation on edge, a police van appeared across the street, and several people were put inside.

Andreas and I put our skis on our shoulders and went off. Our plan was foiled. We knew that two men were posted at Østbanen railway station, checking everyone’s papers. And they had naturally studied my picture and knew what I looked like. Because of that, we had made our route outside Østbanen. We had planned to drive directly to Bryn station and take the train from there. Now we had to go through Østbanen anyway. We hopped on a tram, and how a calm descended on me, the type you get when you’re in the thick of it and know that the mission has to be completed, and that you must rely on luck. Then we arrived at Østbanen. Andreas entered and bought tickets, while I waited for him in the toilets. That was full of Germans and 4 boys from the Hird, and I knew one of them. I was suddenly quite busy and turned around, and the Hirdman was absolutely in deadly danger until he left the toilet without noticing me. I waited for an eternity, until Andreas finally arrived. Everything was OK, he had the tickets. There were two policemen there, controlling the travellers, and probably looking for me. We had to chance it, and I switched my skis onto my injured arm, so that I could swing my other arm around and seem healthy. I thanked God and the weather for the nice colour I had got on my face, it covered the paleness well. I had tucked some cotton between my lips and teeth, so that I looked fuller in the face. Then it was just a matter of taking a deep breath and go forth. It was quite exciting, or rather, extremely exciting. Andreas was in front, a giant of a man, calm and steady like a mountain. I reminded myself not to make any pained expressions, but my shoulder hurt like fuck. Andreas handed over the tickets and pointed back towards me, two bound for Hamar. Just as I passed the policeman, I dropped the magazines I had bought for the ride, bent down to pick them up, and looked back to see if I had dropped any more, until I was past him. Then we got on the train. Andreas told me that the train was virtually filled with lads going over to England by way of Ålesund. He had met two friends who were part of a group of 12 lads all going that way. The boys had to be mad, travelling in a group like that. The worst of it was that the train was of course full of Hirdsmen, Gestapo and state policemen. But Hamar was a quite innocent place, and far from England. We changed to the Elverum train, and in Elverum we got on the narrow-gauge rail to Flisa. It was full of German soldiers, who offered us cigarettes and were very chummy. They were bound for border duty.

We jumped off at Flisa and met with our contact, who showed us the way to the forest where we were to set out from. He followed us part of the way. I was in pretty bad shape by then, and crawled along for two days. Then we finally reached the border, and naturally we made the mistake many others did. We passed what looked like a border, and thought we were in Sweden. Then we met a lumberjack who told us we were still in Norway. But at last we found the crossing, and entered Sweden.

Chapter 6

Through Soviet to Port Said

I stood there with an expression of mild intoxication, at a small railway station in Russia, just across the border from Finland. I assume I looked kind of mopey. I had some reason to, the train had just left without me, and there I was, alone in Russia with no papers. It was a stupid situation I had got myself into. We had been celebrating our arrival in Russia with a couple of glasses of vodka, which they sold at the railway station in the same manner they sell soda and ice cream at home. We were quite excited in advance, especially myself, as I remembered them pretty well from the Finnish War. The vodka probably went straight to my head, and when one of the lads said he had been ripped off, I was going to fix it. I had been out and about before. My knowledge of Russian went only as far as one word, namely “tavaristj”, which the Russians had called out when they lay wounded in the snow, and no one was allowed to come and get them. For some strange reason I was then handed back a stack of roubles. And then I came back to the track and found that the train had gone. There I stood, feeling pretty glum. Much had happened since I left Norway. In Sweden we had received a less than warm welcome from the local official, who probably was a bit striped. He sent 6 young men back to Norway while we were there, he said that he had strict orders from the legation to only accept political refugees. I was in little doubt, as the legation had told them to expect me. But I had to strip, and they searched all my belongings. The official and his helped played detective, and my God, they were welcome to it. It was a little irritating being cross-examined by them, but no matter. As long as they didn’t pull out my fingernails or tried harder interrogation methods, they were welcome to play at being G- men without me caring too much. Then I came to the refugee camp Øreryd. This was a strange place, to put it mildly. I could somehow understand the legation when they chose to send people back.