大象传媒

Minesweeping around Norway

I was a signalman in the Royal Navy from September 1940 to December 1945. From March 1941 to September 1945, I, with a number of other communication ratings, that is, signalmen and wireless operators, were seconded to the Royal Norwegian navy, which was based at various ports and naval stations in this country, following the occupation of Norway by Hitler and the escape of most of the Norwegian naval contingents, with their ships.

We were allocated to some of these ships, which worked with British vessels, for communication purposes one to another. I was sent to a Norwegian minesweeper, H.N.M.S. (His Norwegian Majesty's Ship) BREVIK. The Norwegians invariably spoke good English but often had difficulty in understanding and compiling messages in technical language to be passed between British forces and themselves, these messages we British ratings were able to interpret into simpler language for the Norwegians' benefit, in any case, there were insufficient trained communication Norwegian ratings to man all their ships.

Early in May 1945, when the surrender of the German forces in Norway and Denmark was imminent, the fleet of Norwegian minesweepers to which I was attached, sailed from Plymouth bound for Stavanger in Norway. On arrival at Stavanger, following the surrender, we re-fuelled and the next day, proceeded to Oslo. The German navy there, although having surrendered, still manned the naval shore station situated on top of the municipal buildings at the waterfront, under allied control. The German manning was necessary, because many of their ships and submarines were still berthed at the various quays and in the harbour and, messages were required to be passed between ships and shore in either direction. However, when the Norwegian ships arrived, the Norwegian authorities took command of the shore station and I was included in the party to take duty there.

The Norwegians flew their flag from the building in place of the German flag which had been taken down when they surrendered. This German flag was given to me as a souvenir and I have retained it ever since.

Incidentally, I was on duty at the shore station when the King of Norway, King Haakon, who had escaped to Britain when the Germans occupied his country, returned to Oslo in a Royal Navy cruiser. I received some of the messages from the cruiser to be passed to the shore authorities. A public holiday was declared to celebrate the King's homecoming and there was tremendous rejoicing throughout Norway. A few days later we commenced minesweeping through some of the Norwegian fjords and latterly carried out minesweeping and escort duties through the Kiel Canal, Denmark and off the Baltic coast of Northern Germany.

I returned to Britain in October 1945 and was demobilised the following December after 5 1/4 years of naval service, 4 1/2 which were spent mainly minesweeping and occasional convoy escort duties, mostly around the coasts and harbours of England and South and West Wales ports and through the English Channel between Falmouth and Dover, then, as I have already said, in Norwegian, Denmark and northern German waters.

V. A. J. Hurley
8th July 2005