6 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Issue No. 40 December 2006

By Joyce Peace—daughter of Kåre Iversen hen I was a bairn growing up in Scalloway, I It was after this trip that things began to be spoken didn’t fully realise what The Shetland Bus was. about the clandestine wartime naval operation between WI did know that it wasn’t a bus Shetland and Norway. with four wheels. I also knew it went My father, Kåre Iversen, was born in to Norway but I was just too young to October 1918 at Invorda, Flatanger. He understand. I knew that Dad had done had two sisters and a brother. He was something in the war but it wasn’t talked brought up on an island called Villa about. where his father was a ship’s pilot. After When I was six we went to Norway on Dad left school he too worked on the pilot holiday; Dad, Mam and me. We went by boat with his father. He went to college, I Norwegian fishing boat from Lerwick, think in Trondhiem and later on went to but I can’t remember where we landed. the salmon and halibut fishing. We spent a few weeks in Namsos, the When war broke out he town where Dad grew up. We returned to couldn’t rest as the town of Shetland and I went back to school. Namsos where the family now lived was At school I was called a half caste and occupied by the Germans. He made up his a foreigner; I did not like that. As far as I mind that when the salmon season was was concerned nobody in our house was over he would make plans to escape. The a foreigner, however name calling contin- Villa, a 42ft fishing boat he owned with ued at school. his father would be hauled up the slip- I suppose by this time I realised that way and painted. The engine would be Dad was a foreigner. One thing he did overhauled ready for the right time for was call me Yoyce as he couldn’t get his him to escape along with two other Nor- tongue round the J in Joyce. But then he wegians and a Swede who also wanted to had always done that. reach Britain. By the time I was nine or ten years old Getting fuel was a bit hazardous as I was asking more about The Shetland Bus and what Dad coupons were required but a friendly merchant let him had done. As he was at the whaling in South Georgia at have the necessary amount. He also got two barrels of that time it was my mother who had to answer my ques- lub oil from another merchant who asked if he was going tions. She would just say that it was a secret service that to England. he had been involved in and that we wouldn’t speak of The Germans had an armed whale-catcher as a patrol it. boat but it did not stay on patrol after darkness. Dad sent In 1958 when I was twelve we went to Norway on holi- his young brother up the hill to watch where the patrol day again. All the family went including my three sis- boat went to anchor. At 8 o’clock the patrol boat went off ters. This time we went from Shetland to Aberdeen on the duty and Dad and his crew set sail for Shetland. The jour- St. Clair and then got a train to Edinburgh. We stayed ney was not without there in a hotel in Leith that Dad used when travelling to incident when they and from South Georgia. were attacked by a When we were in Leith we visited Edinburgh Zoo where German flying boat. a lot of penguins had just arrived from South Georgia on The Villa was badly the ship that Dad had been on. Dad had helped feed them damaged but luckily on the voyage and when we got to the penguin enclosure no one was hurt and Dad shouted names to them and they came running to four days later they him. landed at Fetlar, one The Villa Anyway we continued our journey by train to New- of the north isles of Shetland. From there they were tak- castle where we joined the MV Venus which took us to en to Lerwick along with a sergeant of the Home Guard. Bergen. In Bergen I met the now famous Lief Larsen. He After arriving in Lerwick the four men were questioned was working in the docks in a warehouse. He gave us all by Customs and Immigration officials and their belong- an apple and I remember thinking what a peerie (small) ings searched before they were taken to a hut where they man he was. were allowed to sleep. A Issue No. 40 December 2006 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY 7

FLater, the Villa and two other Norwegian boats together door ripped off and the other pushed inwards. The Arthur with Dad, his crew members and over 100 Norwegian had also taken a lot of water in the hold and engine room. refugees were sent to Buckie. Arne Albertsen and Karstein On arrival the four were taken Sangholt went to take down to Aberdeen to catch the train to the mizzen sails and had been London where they were to be swept overboard. Arne had an trained in a special Norwegian arm that stuck out at an odd unit known as Company Linge angle, the result of it being after its commander Captain badly set when he had broken Martin Linge a Norwegian actor it as a boy of 15. It was to save and now resistance man. his life now as it caught in the When his training was over stays and he was hauled back Dad was sent back to Aberdeen on the boat. Poor Karstein was and consequently Shetland never seen again. where he eventually arrived at When we were in Norway in Lunna, the first base for The 1996 we visited my nieces at Arne Albertsen caught in the stays Shetland Bus. Captain Martin Linge the Askvoll Kommune. While there we were taken to meet He hadn’t been at Lunna long a man who has his own private museum at Stavenes. He when a boat came into the bay. it was not the boat that was a cousin to Karstein Sangholt. The museum was on had been expected and some of the men ran to the beach its own pier and the man told us that where we were and launched the rowing boats to make for the now standing was the exact spot, neither to the left nor right, anchored fishing boat. but the exact spot where my father had stepped on to the Five men were aboard, all pier all those years ago. looking dirty and bearded. We were invited to his house later and while we were One asked if anyone had any there, an old lady (who turned out to be his mother) came cigarettes. That was Lief Larsen into the living-room on a zimmer. We thought she was and it was father’s first meeting about 80 and she thought that we had come to see her. with him. Larsen’s boat was She got quite excited when she heard our accents and the Arthur and when he said forgot all about her zimmer. We asked if she could speak he needed an engineer Dad English. ‘English’ she said, ‘I can speak Doric!’ volunteered. It turned out that she and her husband had looked On Dad’s first trip on the after British spies in the area.The Germans knew the Arthur there was a crew of spies were there but it was such a barren mountainous seven. They collected the stores, place that they could not locate them. The Germans had fuel and special cargo for their already tortured and murdered one family who had been Leif Larsen assignment and left Lunna in sheltering spies and the British knew this. They also favourable weather bound for an knew that the net was closing in on the new family and island west of Florø. it was decided to take them out. A seaplane was sent to On passage to Norway Dad Stavenes to take the family to Scotland where they spent and another member of the several years in Peterhead—hence the Doric. crew, Karstein Sangholt, were on The cousin also took us to a small school where he had watch together. Karstein asked numerous artifacts that he had acquired to do with the Dad if he had any firearms and war. He told us that at one time the Hitra had been at Dad told him that he had an old anchor at Stavenes but that they had to leave in a hurry German Luger pistol from 1914. dropping the anchor and anchor chain to speed their Karstein said he would give Dad departure. Many years after the war, when the Hitra was a Colt 32 and ammunition. Dad found and it was decided to restore her, Karstein’s cousin was pleased but asked him why got in touch with the he was not keeping it for himself. restorers and told them Karstein said that he would not he knew where the anchor be needing the pistol after the trip My dad Kåre Iversen and chain could be found was finished. Dad asked him if he was leaving the Arthur and it was subsequently but Karstein said that he was not but that he just knew refitted to the vessel. that he wouldn’t need the Colt any more and in any case One of the men who he had another gun. had been at Stodden The Arthur reached its destination without incident Park on the Thames and the cargo was discharged (it was explosives and with Dad was to go on other things to be used in sabotage). A course was set Attacked on the homeward trip a mission on the 26th back to Shetland and on the way the skipper Lief Larsen October 1941. After completing a successful trip the boat said to Dad that he did not like the look of the sky. Dad was on its homeward journey to Lunna when a German agreed saying that he thought they were in for a hell of plane attacked the boat and killed one of the crewmen, a storm. Dad was right. The storm struck tearing away Nils Nesse. In father’s words, ‘Nils was the first of the some of the bulwarks. The wheelhouse was battered, one Shetland Gang to be killed by the bloody krauts.’ 8 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Issue No. 40 December 2006

FThey were betrayed and only one man escaped. His name Rothesay and familiarise themselves with the boats. Dad was Jan Baalsrud, a name I had grown up with. It was was chosen as first engineer and they had to make a trip about the only thing I can really remember Dad telling to Ireland and back to Rothesay before they were allowed me about the war. When we were young and complaining to take the boats to Scalloway in Shetland. about our feet being cold he It was now December 1943 and the sub-chasers plied would say, ‘Your feet are never back and forth to Norway with no casualties. The summer as cold as Jan Baalsrud’s’ months were spent painting and doing up the boats ready and he would then tell us for the following winter. what happened to him. After On the 6th December 1944 the link between escaping capture Baalsrud Scalloway and continued to evade the Nazis Norway was as he battled his way across strengthened Norway in horrendous winter when my dad weather. married a He suffered frostbite Scalloway lass and snow blindness and Cissie Slater. was forced to amputate a Dad got the significant portion of his next day off Jan Baalsrud toes with a knife. He became work! entirely dependent on the hundreds of villagers and the With the new Norwegian underground who eventually passed him to boats ready a reindeer herder who brought him over the Swedish for sea Dad border to safety. He spent several months recovering in was appointed a Swedish hospital but he eventually managed to return Chief Engin- to Britain to continue his service. His story is told in an eer of the Mam and dad, December 1944 excellent book ‘Defiant Courage’. Vigra. Their On the 23rd of March 1943, another boat, the Bergholm first trip was to pick up refugees from Norway. One of skippered by Leif Larsen, was also lost after being them was a woman who ‘got right up Dad’s nose’. I think attacked by German planes. from reading Dad’s book this person thought she was a Larsen and the crew, many of them wounded, rowed for cut above the others on the boat. In one incident she was several days until they reached the coast of Lesund. One seasick all over the mess table when she could have easily man died of his wounds but the others were eventually reached a nearby toilet. rescued by an MTB from Shetland. Dad also served on the other sub-chasers until the end The loss of these boats was very bad news and the of the war. He had been one of the Shetland Bus Gang Norwegians who were left felt they could only continue from 8th September 1941 until the 8th May 1945. He with the operation if they could find faster boats that was awarded five medals including the British Empire could carry more guns. Medal and these have now been shared among members About this time Dad got some of our family. leave and he and two others went After the war Dad, my Mother and me left Shetland to Aberdeen where they stayed for Norway but he couldn’t get work there. The public for several days. Leave over, they didn’t know that he had been involved in the secret were sent to Portsmouth for gun service and he was called a Quisling*. He said that he training. Dad was surely quite good got into more scraps in the year we were in Namsos than using a gun as he said he was the in the whole of the war. The only job he could get was only one at that particular time chopping down trees in the forest and he hadn’t spent who shot down a target on both the last four years risking days. After Portsmouth it was up life and limb for that. to London and then to Lowestoft 20mm Oerlikon. Probably one of We returned to for still more training so it was the guns that dad trained on at Scalloway and he went quite a few weeks that they Portsmouth. on a fishing boat that had been away from Shetland. operated from William Eventually they were issued with vouchers from Kings Moore’s slipway — the Cross to Lerwick Railway Station.Just like today many same slipway where they people then did not realise that Shetland and Orkney are tended to the Shetland separate island groups. Bus boats. Soon after Dad got back from Lowestoft they were About 1949 or ‘50 he told that they had been supplied with three American Mam, dad and me, off to Norway in the went to the whaling in submarine chasers — the Hitra, Hessa and Vigra — a summer of 1946 South Georgia where he gift from the US Navy to the Norwegians. These boats stayed for fifteen years. had been transported as deck cargo aboard a larger He was one of the last Europeans to work there before vessel and eventually arrived at Rothesay on the River the Japanese took over. Clyde in Scotland. Five men had been selected to go to After South Georgia he went to the creels locally A Issue No. 40 December 2006 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY 9

F for a while then Christian Salvensen contacted him to time with the Shetland Bus Gang. Among these was the go on their purse netter. I think it was about the first one Citation which accompanied the award of the British in this country but it was not a success. From there he Empire Medal and it reads: had a spell coasting for different companies. When he retired he spent his time between Scalloway and Norway. BRITISH EMPIRE MEDAL (Military Division) In August 2001 the Hitra once again sailed into approved 9th August 1946 Scalloway. She had disappeared after the war but had Quartermaster Kåre Emil Iversen been discovered half sunk in a breaker’s yard in Sweden. Royal Norwegian Navy She was rescued Quartermaster Iversen was engaged in special and fully restored operations to Norway throughout four winter to her wartime seasons having joined the unit on 16th Septem- condition by the ber 1941. Royal Norwegian He sailed in all on forty-eight operations both by Naval Museum. fishing boat and subchaser and it is to his credit The visit to that in spite of misfortunes and heavy losses Shetland was which attended the operations of the winter of marked with 1942-43 he showed indiminished keeness to lots of different continue in this service. functions. Dad These operations were confined to winter months, was invited to and the ships had to sail through conditions of them all and storm and darkness which were extremely try- attended most of ing for morale. It speaks highly for Quartermas- them. The Hitra The Hitra returns to Scalloway ter Iversen’s courage and endurance that he was was supposed to able and willing to face four such winters. leave Scalloway on the Tuesday morning but it wasn’t a good forecast so the skipper decided to delay sailing until Wednesday. The small sketches which appear in the article were done by a Dad was at the pier to see the boat sail at 10 o’clock that good Norwegian friend of my father—F Petteröe. morning. He died later that day. *Vidkun Quisling 1887-1945, was a Norwegian politician It was only after his death that we found the many who collaborted with the Nazis. He was tried for high treason photographs and papers he had kept relating to his and executed by a firing squad in 1945.

Our thanks to the Orkney Photographic Archive for the use of the cover photograph of the Strynd by Tom Kent, a close in Kirkwall with an interesting history he Strynd, in the centre of Kirkwall, About the middle of the 18th century Robert Morrison’s houses were oc- takes its name from a small burn cupied by, among others, a John Traill, a Captain of Marines. He was soon Tthat ran through from Papdale to to entertain a Royal personage in his home—Prince William Henry, Duke of the Peerie Sea. It was also known as Clarence, later to become King William IV. the ‘King Passage.’ Around the 1800s a Rev Broadfoot came to live in the Strynd. By a strange The buildings on the right of the pho- coincidence and completely unknown to me when I chose the cover photo- tograph, which were renovated in the graph, this was the same Rev Broadfoot whose son features in the ‘snippet’ late 20th century have an interesting on page 19.Behind the wall on the left of the picture was the Kirkwall resi- history. They were built about 1730 by dence of the Stewarts of Burray and had been since 1695 when Sir Archibald Robert Morrison. The site had belonged Stewart bought the property from James Baikie of Tankerness. to his father a well known Kirkwall Stewart was another colourful character—an ardent Royalist who joined property owner. Young Morrison how- the Duke of Hamilton in support of Charles I. He was captured but escaped to ever did not have father’s business acu- follow Montrose from Kirkwall in 1650. He was captured again at the rout at men and his money ran out before the Corbisdale, condemned to death but escaped again. He then joined the Prince buildings were finished. He was, however, treasurer of the church so he just in his attempt to regain his father’s throne but was captured again. True to dipped into the holy coffers in order to complete houses. form he escaped once more and when the Restoration came Charles II made Alas Robert died soon after and an audit of the church funds revealed a him a baronet. All the Stewarts were not as honourable , however, and this deficit of some £65. This, together with other debts, fell upon his daughter is the same family who, about 1725, were involved in the murder of Captain who had just discovered that she was having a ‘misfortune’ by one, John James Moodie of Melsetter. Watt. A final point of interest about the Strynd is that a small garden at the north Watt, however, married her and eventually cleared the debts by paying east end was the Kirkwall Botanic Garden in the 18th century. back the church and assigning the houses to the Town Council. And probably none of this was known to the young lad with the snowballs.