The Norwegian campaign involved the attempt by Allied forces to defend northern Norway coupled with the resistance of the Norwegian military to the country's invasion by Nazi Germany in World War II.
Grini prison camp was a Nazi concentration camp in Bærum, Norway, which operated between 1941 and May 1945. Ila Detention and Security Prison is now located here.
HNoMS Olav Tryggvason was a minelayer that was built by the naval shipyard at Horten in the early 1930s with the yard number 119. She served in the Royal Norwegian Navy until captured by the Germans in 1940. The Germans renamed her first Albatros II, and a few days later Brummer. She was wrecked in a British bombing raid in northern Germany in April 1945.
HNoMS Kjell was the final ship of twenty-seven 2nd class torpedo boats built for the Royal Norwegian Navy, launched at the Royal Norwegian Navy's shipyard in Horten on 12 March 1912 with build number 106. Kjell saw more than 32 years of service, the first 28 years in the Royal Norwegian Navy during the First World War and in the interwar period, the last four in the Kriegsmarine, having been captured in the first days of the 1940 Norwegian campaign. After being rebuilt as a minesweeper by the Germans, she was sunk by Royal Air Force de Havilland Mosquito fighter bombers on 28 September 1944. Divers rediscovered the shipwreck in 2006.
HNoMS Sæl was the penultimate vessel of the ten 1. class torpedo boats of the Royal Norwegian Navy. She was built at the Royal Norwegian Navy Shipyard in Horten in 1901, with yard number 85. She was to see close to 40 years service with the Royal Norwegian Navy, taking part in the preparations for war in connection with the dissolution the union with Sweden in 1905, enforcing Norwegian neutrality during the First World War and opposing the German invasion of Norway in 1940. She was lost in battle with Kriegsmarine vessels at Ånuglo in the Hardangerfjord on 18 April 1940.
SS Henry was a Norwegian steam-powered cargo ship best known for being one of the two ships sunk in one of the most controversial incidents in Norway during the Second World War.
SS Irma was a 1,322-ton steamship built by the British shipyard Sir Raylton Dixon & Co. Ltd. in Middlesbrough in the north-east of England. She was delivered to the Norwegian passenger ship company Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab of Bergen in 1905. Irma sailed for the company until she was attacked and sunk by two MTBs belonging to the Royal Norwegian Navy on 13 February 1944.
"Theta" was a radio communications group that operated in Bergen, Norway during the German occupation of Norway, communicating with the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). The group was operative from December 1941 to June 1942.
Odd Kjell Starheim, DSO was a Norwegian resistance fighter and SOE agent during the Second World War. He died when a Norwegian ship he had captured off the coast of Norway was sunk by German bombers on its way back to the United Kingdom.
Operation Leader was an air attack conducted against German shipping in the vicinity of Bodø, Norway, on 4 October 1943, during World War II. The raid was executed by aircraft flying from the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Ranger, which was attached to the British Home Fleet. The American airmen located many German and Norwegian ships in this area, destroyed five and are believed to have damaged another seven. Two German aircraft searching for the Allied fleet were shot down. Three American aircraft were destroyed in combat during the operation, and another crashed while landing.
Operation Rubble in January 1941, was a British blockade running operation during the Second World War, in which five Norwegian merchant ships escaped from neutral Sweden to Britain through a Nazi German blockade of the Skagerrak, carrying valuable cargoes of specialised steel products.
MS Ravnaas was a Norwegian cargo ship built in 1931, and sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Pacific Ocean in December 1941.
MT Vardaas was a Norwegian oil tanker, built in 1931. She could carry 12,683 DWT. Sailing for Arnt J. Mørland's shipping company and Nortraship, while on its way from Cape Town to Trinidad carrying dead freight, the ship was hit by a torpedo from the German submarine U-564 on 30 August 1942. All crew of 41 escaped in lifeboats and landed in Plymouth Bay, Tobago.
The kvarstad vessels were a number of Norwegian ships held in arrest in Gothenburg during World War II. The ships had been visiting Swedish ports when the German invasion of Norway took place in April 1940. They were eventually claimed by Nortraship, which represented the Norwegian exile government and the British Government, but also by the Germany-supported Quisling regime in Norway. The fate of the ships was disputed through a number of diplomatic notes and trials between the involved parties. The disputed vessels originally numbered 42 ships, with a total of 170,000 ton dw. Some of the ships returned early to occupied Norway, some after recommendation from the Administrative Council. In January 1941 the British Operation Rubble succeeded in bringing five of the ships to the Orkney Islands.
MV Storsten was a Norwegian tanker built in 1926, and sunk by German aircraft in the Skagerrak on 1 April 1942.
HNoMS Storm was a 1.-class torpedo boat constructed in 1898. Storm served the Royal Norwegian Navy for almost 42 years, including neutrality protection duties during the First World War. She was lost in the 1940 Norwegian campaign of the Second World War. During the Norwegian Campaign, she was the only Norwegian warship that launched a torpedo against the invading Germans.
MTB 345 was an experimental motor torpedo boat constructed in 1941, which saw limited service with the Royal Navy before being transferred to the exiled Royal Norwegian Navy on 16 March 1943. She sailed with the Royal Norwegian Navy for three months in 1943, until captured by German forces on 28 July 1943, during her second mission to the coast of occupied Norway. Two days after their capture, the crew of MTB 345 were executed by the Germans based on Hitler's Commando Order. Following their capture of MTB 345, the Germans pressed the motor torpedo boat into Kriegsmarine service, renaming her SA 12. The fate of SA 12 since December 1943 is unknown.
HNoMS Brand was a 1.-class torpedo boat constructed in 1898. She served the Royal Norwegian Navy for more than four decades, including neutrality protection duties during the First World War. Having once again been employed on neutrality protection duty at the outbreak of the Second World War, Brand was captured by the Germans during their invasion of Norway in April 1940.
Rolf Hauge was a Norwegian army officer with the rank of colonel. Having participated in the 1940 Norwegian Campaign, opposing the German invasion of Norway, he later served with the Norwegian Armed Forces in exile, commanding No. 5 Norwegian Troop of the No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando.
Niels Larsen Bruun was a Norwegian officer who served in the Royal Norwegian Navy for more than four decades. Bruun took part in neutrality protection duties during the First World War, seeing service on several naval vessels and assuming his first command. He continued his service in the inter-war years, teaching at naval schools in addition to shipboard service.
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