Historic Shetland Bus Convoy Sails Again 80 Years After World War II

On Sunday night a small flotilla of historic boats will leave the shelter of Bergen’s colourful harbour and head out to the North Sea and across to the Shetland Isles once more.

Some of the boats have not made this crossing since World War II, when they played a critical but little-known role in helping to liberate Norway from German occupation.

The Shetland Buses carried refugees, Allied and Norwegian servicemen and resistance fighters from Norway to the Shetlands.

On the return journey, the boats brought radios, explosives and weapons back to Norway, as well as agents trained on the islands by the newly-formed British Special Operations Executive. Most of the agents were Norwegians who could identify targets such as factories and power plants.

Ian Fleming, who would go on to write the James Bond books, orchestrated the missions.

It was a hazardous journey, fraught with the danger of mines and the risk of detection by German submarines and aircraft. The crews carried rifles hidden in oil drums under fishing nets on deck; occasionally they used them to fire at enemy aircraft.

To reduce the chances of being spotted, the Shetland Buses sailed in icy waters in winter under cover of 24-hour darkness from ports in the far north such as Svalbard and Tromsø. The crews relied on charts, their knowledge and compasses to navigate.

This time, the crews will be using GPS and sailing in daylight. Their mission is to pay tribute to all Norwegian war sailors who risked or lost their lives, culminating in ceremonies and celebrations in Lerwick, Shetland on the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day on May 8. The Liberation Convoy will also thank the people of the Shetlands and Scotland for their help during the war. The boats will later sail to other ports in the Shetlands, Scotland and England.

Overall, the Shetland buses carried out over two hundred missions, earning their nickname because of the punctuality and reliability. Ten boats sank, and 44 men lost their lives before 1943, when the U.S. government donated three submarine chasers. After this there were no more fatalities.

Shetland Bus Convoys

“Everyone who crewed those small boats and ships taking the route knew they were risking their lives, but the fragile link it provided between the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys and occupied Norway was just too important,” says Per Ola Holm, the skipper of MK Andholmen, one of the fishing boats sailing to Scotland.

Each boat has a story. The Erkna carried as many as 60 refugees to safety on one voyage, while the Arnefjord ferried Norwegian soldiers to safety from Eastern Noway the Germans secured the region.

The Arnefjord’s owner Markus Nese later hired the boat to a fisherman who took it across to the Shetlands. “My grandfather got a coded message – ‘godt grisekjop i Vik’ – a good sale of piglets in Vik – and knew the boat had made it,” says Morton Neset, Nese’s grandson. “But two weeks later, he was arrested by the Gestapo and detained after a Nazi sympathiser gossiped about his son and a friend secretly fitting a larger oil tank at night before the journey.”

Nese was interrogated but released after several months. Not long afterwards in September 1941, he sailed the Arnefjord to the Shetlands, where the Special Operations Executive used her to ferry agents between the islands.

The Flight From Norway

When Germany invaded Norway on April 9 1940, it commanded all Norwegian sailors to sail their boats into neutral or German ports. Not one single sailor one did that, according to war historian Ragnhild Bie. Both her grandfathers sailed in the war.

Most who could sailed to the north of Norway, where Allied and Norwegian troops were waging a counteroffensive against the Germans. But this collapsed after the invasion of France when the Allied forces had to pull out.

On June 7, the official Norwegian government commanded that Norwegian boats should sail to Allied ports.

The D/S Hestmanden, which will be part of the Liberation Convoy, was preparing to leave from the harbour at Tromsø.

“The story is that the crew recognised the King and Crown Prince as they boarded HMS Devonshire which would take them to England, and cheered and saluted them,” recounts Bie.

There’s a similar scene in Atlantic Crossing, the tv mini-series that depicts the friendship between the Norwegian Crown Princess Martha and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Hestmanden spent the rest of war carrying cargo to Allied countries. It was the only Norwegian cargo ship to see active service in two World Wars.

How Norway Kept The Allied World Afloat

Almost everyone involved with the Liberation Convoy seems to have a grandfather or relation who risked their lives as a sailor during the war. This is not altogether surprising; when war broke out, Norway had the world’s fourth-largest merchant naval fleet. For the duration of the war, its sailors supplied Allied countries, crisscrossing the world several times with coal, oil, food, wool and other supplies vital to the war effort. Most sailors were unable to return to Norway until some time after the war.

Over 4,000 ‘ordinary’ sailors died on board Norwegian ships during World War Two. Yet the courage and sacrifice of the Norwegian sailors was unrecognised and unrewarded by the Norwegian government for decades.

Vilde Regine Tellnes’s grandfather, Harald Lunde, was a war sailor who survived being torpedoed twice. In October 12, 1940, his ship, Davanger, was struck by a German U-boat (U-48) and sank within four minutes.

Out of the crew, 17 men died, including the captain. “My grandfather was one of 12 survivors who managed to escape in a lifeboat,” recounts Tellnes. “They drifted at sea for 7 days, during which he witnessed several of his friends die before they finally reached the Irish coast on October 18.

He later survived another torpedo attack aboard Berganger in 1942. Lunde was relatively fortunate, though his memories – about which he rarely spoke – must have haunted him for the rest of his life. After joining the merchant navy before the war, he was not to return home at all for eight years leaving Tellnes’ grandmother was bringing up 6 children while running a farm.

The Norwegian government only officially acknowledged Lunde’s wartime service in 1973 and paid him a small amount of compensation. “He received 9,000 NOK in compensation (equivalent to 180 kroner per month), which felt like a token sum considering the sacrifices he had made.”

The crews of the Shetland Buses played an important part in supporting the resistance and covert Allied operations in Norway. Although there were only 40,000 members of the resistance, they helped to keep nearly 350,000 German soldiers in Norway busy when they were badly needed on other fronts.

“The people of Shetland have vivid memories and recollections of the covert Shetland Bus operations during the Second World War,” says the Lord Lieutenant of Shetland, Lindsay Tullock. “The Liberation Convoy is a fitting tribute.”

As the world faces increasing turbulence and uncertainty, the need to celebrate peace, strengthen friendships and reflect on the past and what brings us together. The Shetland Bus Convoys are a fitting reminder of those ties.