KNM "HITRA"-2avsnt. - www.simplesite.com/Bryggen

M/S " Farnanda - under 2ndre Verdenskrig 1940 - 1945

Etter Croftholmen....

- Hun ble deretter solgt til private og skulle bygges om til Lystbåt,men
prosjektet ble gitt opp.Til slutt havnet fartøyet i marinebyen Karlskrona
i Sverige.Her skulle den norske eieren sette inn to lokomotivmotorer,
hver på 3000 hk.Dette ble aldri gjort,for i mellomtiden hadde noen åpnet bunnventilene på fartøyet så det sank.Bare forskipet var synlig
over vannet.

I 1981 ble Hitra funnet ved en ren og skjær tilfeldighet.Det kan vi takke
en uheldig russisk ubåtkaptein for.Da russerne grunnstøtte sin ubåt ved
Karlskrona dette året,tiltrakk det seg en enorm mediainteresse.Ved et
TV-innslag kunne man se baugen på Hitra,og via en artikkel i avisa
Farman fikk sjefen for Marinemuseet ,Kommandørkaptein S.Moen
greie på dette.Han kontaktet Hitras gamle skipssjef,Ingvald Eidsheim,
og sammen reiste de til Karlskrona for å få bekreftet at det virkelig var
"vår" Hitra som lå der.Oppdagelsen av Hitra ble rapportert til
Generalinspektøren for Sjøforsvaret,Kontreadmiral Grimstvedt.
Han nedsatte en arbeidsgruppe,"Hitra's Venneforening",som skulle
arbeide for å få fartøyet hjem og få det restaurert.

KNM HITRA's mange venner...

Man skjønte snart at Hitra hadde mange venner.Penger ble samlet
inn,og originaldeler og utstyr kom fra fjern og nær,til og med helt fra Hawaii.I 1983 ble Hitra hevet,satt på en lekter og slept hjem til Norge.
Hun kom til Omas Båtbyggeri på Stord.Gunnar Oma hadde påtatt seg
å restaurere fartøyet tilbake til sin opprinnelige forfatning.
Cirka halvparten av restaureringsutgiftene ble samlet inn fra privat-
persone,foreninger og institusjoner,resten kom inn med stor hjelp fra
maskinverkstedet på Haakonsvern og bevilgninger over forsvarsbud-
sjettet .8.mai 1987,på dagen 42 år etter krigens slutt,ble fartøyet over-
levert fra Verftet til Generalinspektøren for Sjøforsvaret.Da var KNM Hitra igjen blitt et marinefartøy,selv om hun i fremtiden skulle være et
Seilende Museum.

KNM Hitra har etter restaureringn besøkt Scalloway på Shetland tre
ganger. I 1997 besøkte hun også Karlskrona.

5te August 2006.

Shetlandsbussens venner...

Venneforeningen SHETLANDSBUSSENS VENNER ble
etablert den 30.mars 1995.
(Undertegnede er selv LivstidsMedlem i venneforeningen)

Foreningens viktigste formålsparagraf er å etterse"Hitra"
blir tilknyttet iht.Stortingsinnstilling nr.169 av 1984-85.

Foreningen har 2 typer medlemskap :
Livsvarig medlemskap p.t, kr 1000,-
og årlig medlemskap a kr. 100,-

Medlemskap kan tegnes ombord eller ved henvendelse til
en av foreningens Styremedlemmer.

KNM HITA
Postboks 1
HAAKONSVERN,
5886 BERGEN.

5th August 2006.

Anbefaling !!

Undertegnede,

Anbefaler og ber dere som leser mine sider.-
   om å tegne et Medlemsskap i Shetlandsbussens venner
Sammen står vi bedre rystet.Det trenges en hel masse penger for å holde fartøyet i den gode stand,og for at vi
kan få besøk av henne rundt i det ganske land.

Mvh,; Thor Sigve Sætre
            Hjerteskjellveien 7
            4310 Hommersåk,

thor.saetre@lyse.net
            eller
106@sambandstjenesten.no

Leif Larsen (Shetlands Larsen)

Leif Larsen.

A completely modest,totaly unassuming man,known
throughout Norway as 'Shetland's Larsen!' He said,'I didn't very much like the Germans walking around the
streets of my home town!'

He escaped from occupied Norway in February 1941in the fishing smack MOTIG 1 and trained with the Linge Company.
When the crews of the fishing boats were invited to elect their own skippers,Leif Larsen was the first to be elected by the vote of the men who had sailed with him.

Leif Larsen is perhaps the most famous of the Shetland Bus men. In all he made 52 trips to Norway.Perhaps the most
dramatic of these was his mission to Traena in Nordland in
March.1943.A resistance group was based in Traena and
Larsen's task as skipper of the Bergholm was to deliver arms and equipment to the base.On the way back to Shetland
Larsen's boat was attacked by two German planes.Six of the
eight man crew aboard were hit;the young Nils Vika died of his injuries while they were in the lifeboat trying to get ashore .After rowing for four days they reached the Ålesund
area and some time later were picked up by an MTB sent over from Shetland to find them.

Even before the end of the war Leif Larsen had become a
legend and a symbol of the Shetland Bus.
When he was appointed a sub - lieutenant in the Norwegian
Navy he also became eligible for the Distinguished Service
Order,the highest distinction given to a non British officer.
With his eleven distinctions he is the most highly decorated
naval officer of the Second World War.At the time,no other man ,British or Foreign,had everreceived all of these British
military honours.The Victoria Cross is only offered to British
Nationals.

In February,1985 at the age of 79,Leif Larsen paid a return
visit to Shetland.At Scalloway he met Jack Moore,whose firm
repaired the fishing boats and sub-chasers on the slip still
known as the Prince Olaf Slipway.
Larsen made fifty trips from Shetland to Norway,some of them in horrendous conditions.Each of them could have been
his last yet somehow he survived.He received numerous medals for his heroism from several countries among them the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal,the Distinguished Service Order,The Distinguished Service Cross and the Distinguished Service Medal and bar.

He has learned to forgive the Germans for their invasion of his country and he was amused to discover that Norway House,the former net loft in Scalloway,which was home to soo many Norwegians from 1942 to the end of the war,is now the Westshore Garage and the agency for two makes of
German cars.

Kåre Iversen

                            Kåre Iversen.-

His father was a sea pilot and in Kåre's own words'I was brought up,you might say,with my feet and my head mostly in the sea!'When he finished school he joined his father on the pilot boat for two and half years.

After six months at college he spent two years salmon fishing in summer and halibut fishing in winter.He was coasting with
a purse netter in 1940 when Norway was overun by Germany.
He contiued coasting but joined the Norwegian underground.
His activities were discovered by the Germans,so in August 1941,when he was asked by three men if he could take them
away,he persuaded his father to let him take the VILLA 1,the
13 meter long boat which they shared.After adjusting the
compass and obtaining fuel from a helpful Norwegian mercant, in the darkness of night and without lights,they stealthily set sail for Shetland.

(Kåre Iversen explains in his own words how he escaped from
occupied Norway.)
"My father and I had a fishing boat between us which was
42 feet overall.It was named the Villa.After the salmon fishing was finished I went to a slipway with the boat to get
the engine overhauled and have her painted so that the boat and enginewould be in good order when I decided to escape
to Britain.In Augast 1941,I got news that two Norwegians
and a Swede had to get out of Norway,so I got the boat ready
to go with them.

"After arranging for fuel,lub oil and stores to last a month
the only outstanding detail was to acquire a chart for the
North Sea.One of the Norwegian Skippers at the pilotstation (Iverden,Flatanger)where my father worked gave me one of
his charts after he had erased the boat's name from it.The
Germans had an armed whale-catcher as a patrol boat outside the Station but it did not stay on patrol after darkness
came down.I sent my young brother up the hill to watch where the patrol boat went in to anchor.At 8 o'clock the
patrol boat went off duty,so the coast was clear for us to go.

The first two days passed in perfect weather conditions.But
at 3.10 on our third day trouble arrived. I was coming out of the engine room when I saw througth the wheelhause door
that a German flying boat was coming straight for us. At the
time two of us were down in the engine room,two in the
forward cabin.After the first burst of gunfire,I went out on deck and released all the halyards to let the sails drop to the
deck,then went back down to  the engine room .The Germans continued shooting at us for twenty minutes.Their gunfire
riddled the weel house and holed the boat just above the
water line with their shelling.Whenever we rolled,a big rush
of water now came in to the hold.The flying boat try to land
but the sea was too rough,so they gave up theattempt.Villa
was just drifting.

Whe set course again for Shetland and I drove the engine to
its maximum.   I myself was in the engine room from four o'-
clock on Saturday afternoon until five o'clock on Sunday.At 6
a.m.on the Monday I was on top of the weelhouse when I
spotted land to the west of us.We knew that it was somewhere in Shetland but where?There was only one thing to do- put two of the boys ashore.  They found an old rowing
boat and come back to us.we had drooped anchor and stopped the
engine,ready to go ashore and find out how far we were to Lerwick.
We made the beach to and pulled the boat clear from the water
then began to walk up througt some fields.We came to a farmhouse
and the lady of the house,told us that we were on an island called
Fetlar and that our boat was at anchor at Sandwick."

After questioning in Lerwick,Kåre was among 101 Norwegians
who left Lerwick for Buckie in three fishing boats.From Buckies
they went to London were Kåre joined,and was trained by the
Linge Company.

From London he came back to Lunna,in Shetland.His first trip was
with Leif Larsen on board the ARTHUR.The story of that trip,in
one of the worst storms for 70 years,is told by David Howarth in
his book."The Shetland Bus".Kåre stayet with Larsen for the
remainder of 1941 until the end of spring 1942.

Among the fishing boats he sailed on were ARTHUR,FEIE,
SIGLAOS and HELAND.He joined the submarine -chaser
HESSA in Desember 1943 and was still with her in Ålesund
in May 1945 when peace was restored to Norway.

The link between Scalloway and Norway was strengthened on 6th December 1944 when Kåre married Scalloway lass,
Cissie Slater.

Palmer Bjørnøy,(Shetland Bus.)

On the rigth is Palmer Bjørnøy.

Palmer Bjørnoy was the engineer on the NORDSJOEN when,
after a successful mine - laying expedition the boat had to be
abandoned.

It was to be his home village that the crew,with Larsen as leader,made their way and from there that they 'acquired the
ARTHUR.Bjørnoy sailed with Larsen as engineer on ARTHUR,
including the mission against the TIRPITZ.

After ARTHUR had been scutled,the men split into two groups
to make their escape to Sweden.He helped to lead one of the
groups.After a journey in intense cold trough the mountains
he got frostbite and had to have several toes amputated in a
Swedish hospital where he remained for nine months before
returning to Scalloway.
He later joined as Chief Engineer on VIGRA.

The "Old" Shetlands Bus.

Norway during World War II

When the war started ,Norway was a neutral country and was
not allied to either Britain or Germany.As a result Norway did
not feel she needed to maaintain anything more than a mini-
mum of armed force.Despite Norway's neutrality the Germans felt that the occupation of Norway would bring them several benefits.

Firstly it would help the Germans to break the naval blockade
that the British were operating to prevent supplies reaching
Germany .The British had used this tactic before in the first war and it had proved to have a very damaging impact upon Germany.

Secondly Norwegian ports would provide ideal bases from
which German U-boats could launch attacks against British
Shipping

Thirdly it was vital that the Germans controlled the Norwegian
port of Narvik through which essential supplies of iron ore
were transported to Germany.This iron ore was needed by
the German armaments industry.

The occupying German forces quickly made their presence
felt upon the Norwegian people.Nazi troop parades were
common in the streets.The Norwegian flag was remoed from
public displays to be replaced by the swastika,the symbol of
the Nazi Party.Rationing was introduced immediately.To make matters worse German troops bought up many of the
goods in the shops using Norwegian currency printed in Germany.

The Nazis made it very difficult for anyone to organise protest against their rule by banning all public gatherings and disco-
uraging people from stopping to chat to their friends in the street.

        "Heavy seas were a normal part of the risky trip
                             to Norway and Back."

                        The Shetland Bus.
                                    "Hands Across the Sea"

Welcome to what is thought to be the only webbsite
specifically Commenmorating what became known as;
                           'The Shetland Bus',
a Shetland based boat operation to and from Norway,that took place during the Second World War (1939 - 1945.)

This webbsite is dedicated to all those who gave of their lives
in the exstremely hazardous boat trips between Shetland and
Norway,to assist the Norwegian resistance movement.The
conditions under which they operated,the difficulties of
crossing the North Sea at night,with no ligths and far from
any possible help,can scarcely be imagined today.Always
present in the minds of those on board would have been the
threat of discovery and the risk of being shot at by German
planes or boats,and possibly captured when they finaly
reached the Norwegian Coast.

KNM Hitra.

KNM Hitra er et stykke levende norsk krigshistorie.Båten var
ett av tre fartøyer.De 2 andre båtene var Hessa og Vigra.Den
kjente Shetlands-Larsen(Leif Andreas Larsen)var skipssjef på
KNM Vigra.KNBF Region Vest "adopterte"KNM Hitra under
Båttinget i Bergen i april og har tegnet livsvarig medlemskap.
Vi er stolte over at KNM Hitra nå fører KNBF-vimpelen i masten!

Den Kongelige Norske Marine,fikk båtene fra USA i 1943.
Båtene ble brukt i den viktige trafikken ,mellom Shetland og
Norge de siste krigsårene.
Fartøytypen var opprinelig kontruert som Kystubåtjagere.
Totalt ble det bygget 440 fartøyer.

Venneforeningen "Shetlandsbussens Venner"ble etablert i
1995.Den har som oppgave å etterse at "Hitra"blir ivaretatt
iht.Stortingsinnstilling nr 169 av 1984-85.

Det er utgitt et hefte som beskriver Hitra's historie og båtens
data.Foreningen har 2 typer medlemskap:Livsvarig medlem-
skap(som undertegnede har.)og årlig medlemskap.

Henvendelser om medlemskap og informasjon rettes til:
"Shetlandsbussens Venner"
KNM Hitra
Postboks 1 Haakonsvern
5887 Bergen.

KNM Vigra.

KNM Vigra,

Lunna.

Lunna.

A base for the operations to Norway was established at Lunna
in the East Mainland. It seemed an ideal location in many ways.The headquarters was Lunna House,an old manor dating from the 1660's

It was situated on a narrow isthmus with good harbours in the east and west.It was also secluded which would help with the necessity to keep the operations secret.

Although Lunna was ideal in many ways it had its drawbacks.
The Lunna base was a lonely place and life ashore often
became monotonous for the crews.

All communication with the outside world was difficult.
As time went on it became evident that the base should be moved.

The most important reason for this was that its main advantage,its isolation,has become a weapon against it.The
base was known and in a possible German sea or air raid they would be completely helpless.

Lunna was an ideal base for the secret organisation begin off the main road and away from the main shipping areas with a good depth of water besides the stone pier.

There were plenty of stone sheds to serve as stores and the
large mansion house there made ideal headquarters.The main drawback was the distance from the repair yards of
Lerwick and Scalloway and the frustrating delays in having
vital repairs carried out.

During the summer of 1942 the base was moved to Scalloway.This was on the wrong side of Shetland for going
to Norway,and even if there is a sheltered,natural harbour,
the waters off this part of the coast are difficult dangerous.

However,Lerwick was already taken up with naval units.
The cooperation of Jack Moore and his engineering firm William Moore and Son weighed heavilly in favour of
Scalloway as efficent maitenance had becom essential.
The Prince Olav Slipway was built at Moore's workshop to
repair the boats of "the Shetland gang" as they were called
in Norway.

The slipway was opened in the autumn of 1942 by Kong Olav
who was then the crown prince.

Minnetavle over ofrene i Telavåg

Telavåg.

Probably the worst act of reprisal was the assault on the
fishing village of Telavåg,in the spring of 1942.

The Slipway in Scalloway on Shetland.1942.

"The Slipway in Scalloway on Shetland 1942 -44.

Telavåg - Norway-Norwegen-Norvege.

Telavåg - Norway-Norwegen- Norvege.

(Picture 1 )

Reichkommisar Josef Terboven and his officer's in Telavåg,
30th April 1942.

The war events at Telavåg make chilling reading,but have
been summed up by the Norwegians in the phrase.

"They burnt our homes,
they killed our men "

Probably the worst act of reprisal was the assault on the
fishing village of Telavåg in the spring of 1942.

Two Gestapo officers had been shot and killed there on the 26th April by two men brought over from Shetland.

One of the agents,Arne Vaerum ,was also killed in the ensuing
battle,the other agent being Emil G Hvaal.They had come from Shetland,and landed outside of Telavåg earlier that month .

They both belonged to the Norwegian Independent Company
Number 1,popularly known as the Linge company(Kompani -
Linge.)This company was specially trained in Scotland for
mission to occupied Norway.

The German retaliation for this shooting was terrible.The male
population of Telavåg was sent to a consentration camp where 31 of them died.The women and children from the village were interned.The village itself was levelled to the ground.