The Shetland Bus

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Flemington housed a separate staging area for fugitives “wanted” by the Germans — refugees who had just arrived from one of the long and exhaustive expeditions across the North Sea and the crew who were desperate for a fresh meal and a shower. The operational base at Lunna on the east coast was later moved to Scalloway , where the boats were repaired , until the end of the war. Aksel of Giske, 65 feet (20m) long, the first "Shetland Bus" boat, arrived Shetland on 5 May 1941 with 20 refugees. Skipper Anders Nærøy chose the Aksel on the first official "Shetland Bus" mission, on 30 August 1941. Aksel later made several journeys to Norway with different skippers. By then, the original museum had outgrown its old premises on Main Street, and so the Society instigated a six-year project to fund and create the current museum in larger premises adjacent to the castle.

When Germany launched Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, French and British troops and ships were sent to help the Norwegians. Several coastal towns were bombed and destroyed by the Germans, and during April and May, the British ships had to retreat from mid-Norway. On 29 April, HMS Glasgow left the devastated city of Molde with King Haakon VII, Crown Prince Olav, members of the Norwegian Government, and most of the gold from the Norwegian National Bank. In northern Norway, the fighting lasted for another month. A few weeks after the occupation began, the first boats of an "armada" of fishing vessels and other boats began to arrive in Shetland. Some boats made several journeys across the North Sea carrying refugees. [3]Initially it operated informally, and then became a formal part of the war effort completing more than 200 trips. Not all of those trips were successful, and 44 lives were lost during the crossings. Pal Hope, defence attache for the UK, said: “Visiting (Shetland) now with the rough conditions, we can only imagine what it was like in the small vessels they were operating at the time. The last of the crew of Vita was Jens Haldorssen. He was a quiet, gentle, and studious man. His quietness made him conspicuous in our gang, most of whose members were extrovert and noisy, and his appearance also was not what one would expect in a seaman of proven toughness. With a thin ascetic face, and large calm and innocent brown eyes, he looked more like a priest or a poet. He spoke fluent English with an idiom all his own, and I always enjoyed hearing him telling a story in a slow, rather mournful voice, in which the most powerful swear words passed almost unnoticed (30)." They had bunks for six or eight men in the forecastle, and two in the small cabin aft,” Howarth wrote. “The hold amidships could carry eight or ten tons of small arms and explosives, and the wheelhouse, which was built on top of the engine casing, usually had a small chart-room opening off it, and a galley behind.” In the early weeks of April 1940, the first combat air assault in history saw German paratroopers , or Fallschirmjägers , leap from Junkers Ju-52s onto Aalborg Airport in Denmark and the Sola Air Station in Norway. Nazi Germany launched Operation Weserübung , the first major invasion to strike from the air, land, and sea. The tactic was so effective that Norway surrendered within two months. Their leadership, along with leaders of other European nations, was forced into exile in Great Britain.

Malakoff & Moore’s Slip, Scalloway, Shetland. Built in World War II to service MTBs that went between Shetland and Norway, this slip was one of the links in the Shetland Bus. Now it is used for servicing fishing boats and salmon farm vessels. Photo courtesy of John Dally / Malakoff & Moore’s Slip, Scalloway, Shetland / CC BY-SA 2.0. Under the cover of darkness, a group of small boats, collectively known as the Shetland Bus, ferried people and weapons between Norway and the isles.The commandos and raiders suffered the loss of Linge and 52 others as a part of the five Allied nation coalition. The mission, however, forced Adolf Hitler to respond with the construction of “Festung Norwegen,” a defensive fortification of 10 German divisions. In addition, four fishing oil factories were destroyed, an estimated 120 Nazis died, and eight warships were sunk. Occupation of Norway was strategic for the Nazis because it would allow them to establish naval ports and air bases to engage the Allies across Europe. Cut off from the rest of the world, Norwegian civilians were in need of salvation. A miracle came in the form of a clandestine mission headquartered hundreds of miles away using a motley crew of Norwegian fisherman with guidance from officers of Britain’s Special Operations Executive ( SOE).

In 1943, Larsen and some of his crew escaped after German aircraft bombed his boat by rowing for several to reach the Norwegian coastline. The Shetland Bus Memorial is located at Scalloway, and the local museum has a permanent exhibition relating to the activities of the Shetland Bus. [12] In 2018 Norwegian visitors were among those attending a service at the memorial to commemorate the 75th anniversary of an improvement in the safety of operations as a result of the introduction of new ships - the Hitria, Vigra and Hessa [13] In popular culture [ edit ] One of the highlights of the book was a scheme to destroy the German battleship Tirpitz while it sat in a Norwegian fjord. The unit made extensive preparations and nearly succeeded. The plan was to use a vessel called a chariot, kind of like a two-man torpedo. The chariot would be launched at night from a fishing boat, guided by two men, and taken right to their target. Then they would unscrew the warhead, attach it to the Tirpitz with magnets, set a timer, and be on their way across the Norwegian frontier into neutral Sweden. They practiced, prepared, got through a German control point where their boat was searched, and nearly made it to the Tirpitz before the two chariots (being towed behind the ship so they wouldn’t be noticed during inspection) disappeared—somehow the lines broke. Sørvaag, Trygve (2002). Shetland Bus: Faces and Places 60 Years On (Shetland Times Ltd) ISBN 9781898852889The crews of the Shetland Bus ( Shetlandsgjengen) were men of the coast, fishermen and sailors with detailed local knowledge. Most came over after the occupation, some with their own vessels, others with vessels that were "stolen" with the owner's approval. They were young men, most of them in their twenties, some even younger. Many of them did several tours in the spring and summer of 1940, evacuating British soldiers who had been stranded in Norway after the Norwegian Campaign and other British citizens living in Norway. [8] Leif Larsen [ edit ] Shetlands Larsen, Norwegian leader of the "Bus" operations in World War II Many of the boats were "Hardanger Cutters", with a straight bow and long stern from the Bergen area, others the more rounded "Møre Cutters", from the area around Ålesund. It appeared that the "Møre Cutter" was the strongest and best-fitted for the heavy weather in the North Sea. The boats were of many kinds and shapes, but most of those used as a "Shetland Bus", were from 50–70 feet (15–21m) long, with two masts and equipped with a 30 to 70hp single-cylinder semi-diesel engine, which made the characteristic "tonk-tonk" sound.

At the onset of World War II, the Kingdom of Norway was not allied with the Axis or Allied Powers, leading both factions to consider invading the country due to its strategic position in the North Sea. While the British in particular drew plans to mine Norwegian waters and prevent Axis ships from transiting these waters, Nazi Germany actually invaded and occupied the country in 1940. To begin with, the Shetland Bus operation consisted of fourteen Norwegian fishing boats of differing sizes. But the vessel which undertook the first Shetland Bus journey was the Aksel, whose captain was August Nanny. His crew on that inaugural journey which left for Bergen from Hamnavoe, on the west side of Lunna Ness, on 30 August 1941, were Mindor Berge, Ivar Brekke, Andreas Gjertsen, and Bard Grotle. T he Shetland Bus operation may be considered successful in that it supplied Norwegian resistance movements with weapons and took many refugees from Norway to Shetland, and that it managed to bind just shy of 300,000 German troops in Norway. However, because of this operation, forty-four men lost their lives, and the Norwegian public may not have been too happy having a huge number of German men patrolling their country. It could have been due to this operation that D-Day was an Allied victory, and many other key areas throughout Western Europe could have been hugely affected by the influence of the Shetland Bus. This small operation, secret to almost everybody, could have played a major role in these battles, influencing the course of the entire war itself. This could be an exaggeration, but the implications of the operation may well have had an effect this big. The castle is typical of Scottish castles of the time. There were four storeys and an attic, but the most impressive space is undoubtedly the great hall, which occupies the first floor and was apparently richly decorated in its day. The smaller, more agile 50- to 70-foot fishing boats provided a fitting disguise. David Howarth, another British SOE officer who joined Mitchell in June 1941 and authored the book “The Shetland Bus: A WWII Epic of Escape, Survival, and Adventure,” described their design.At the beginning of the war, small Norwegian fishing boats were used to transport intelligence and supplies, and offer Norwegian refugees passage to Britain. The operation was under British command, but later it became a joint effort. Following the war, his legend continued as he pioneered aluminum lifeboats and tested their mettle himself across an 800-mile voyage with a mixed batch of amateur seafarers and seasoned veterans. One of his crew quipped they were “hanging on for dear life.” Larsen, however, described it as “a nice little holiday” and “a cakewalk.”