Viking Boys by John Quaife

Author:John Quaife
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Big Sky Publishing
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Norwegians

On the morning of 5 December 1944, Sverre Hagen was working in the forest on the northern shore of Ørsta fjord opposite the point at Selbervika. Around the fjord, roads, bus stops and such general features are commonly named for the families that live and farm in particular areas. The Hagen family was long established on the north shore of the fjord about 2 kilometres from the township, by the Hagen bus stop. Nineteen-year-old Sverre was collecting wood just a few hundred metres further on from his family home, near Skorgeura and the Lystad school. There was a party of German Todt soldiers3 also collecting wood nearby. Sverre was about to witness the Beaufighter attack from a position that was only about 600 metres from where the Geuse took up station in the middle of the fjord. He was just 4 kilometres from Ørsta township.

During the night, three large German ships and one Norwegian vessel, the MV Cygnus from Bergen, dropped anchor in the fjord. Two brothers, Ole and Tore Snefjellaa, observed and reported these vessels from their mountainside hut at Oksavika. The brothers operated as part of the Norwegian Special Intelligence Service, reporting the movement of German shipping within Vartdal fjord, the major fjord leading south from Ȧlesund. Since April 1944 they operated from their small, cold hut reporting by radio to England.

Jon Vinjevoll and his brother also saw the vessels arrive in the fjord. To avoid the scrutiny of the Germans and the restrictions of their severe food rationing, the Vinjevoll brothers were secretly grinding wheat in the middle of the night at the Skorgeura mill on the north shore of the fjord. Jon took a special interest in the arrival of the vessels as he was also a member of the Norwegian home front in Ørsta.

The morning in the fjord was quiet and peaceful. There was no breeze and the water of the fjord was calm. There was a scattering of snow around the fjord and a blanket of snow on the higher ground and the surrounding Sunnmøre Alps. It was a beautiful day with clear skies but the temperature was below freezing. The locals of Ørsta village awoke to find a large German ship had appeared just offshore and others were positioned further down the fjord in the bay at Selbervika. At one stage during the morning the calm silence of the fjord was broken by the clanking of an anchor chain as the MV Cygnus prepared to move up the fjord from Selbervika to the town wharf.

German convoys had been in the fjord before. The first time it happened, the locals were quite alarmed by the presence of German ships seemingly right on their doorsteps. They did not welcome the thought of the vessels coming under attack in their peaceful fjord. But the ships had never been attacked until that one day in December when the war finally came to Ørsta. On that crisp clear day, when the air raid alert went up from the gunboat at the town wharf everything stopped - the war finally arrived.

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