It would rather go well

It gets serious

2 books in 1

Max Manus

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: Gregers Gram | 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, Stockholm

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 It is not a historical document that I present here, but a portrayal of what some of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 Oslo 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, Norway’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 Norwegians 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 Soviet Union. 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 Winter War 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.