Bjarne Øen

Bjarne Øen (1943)

Adolf Bjarne Øen (born November 6, 1898 in Kristiania ; † September 20, 1994 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian lieutenant general in the air force (Luftforsvaret) , who last from 1957 to 1963 was chief of the defense staff or commander in chief of the Norwegian armed forces (Forsvarssjef) and additionally between 1958 and 1959 was also chairman of the NATO military committee . He played an important role in recent Norwegian military history in the reconstruction of the air force in Great Britain after the attack by the German Wehrmacht on Norway on April 9, 1940, as well as in the subsequent cooperation with the Royal Air Force until the end of the Second World War . As chief of the defense staff or commander in chief of the Norwegian armed forces, he shaped the defense policy thinking in Norway during the Cold War .

Life

Training as an officer and World War II

Øen, son of the sergeant and later chief cashier Ole O. Øen and his wife Marie Eline Stuve, grew up in Kristiania and passed the examen artium there in 1917. In 1920 he began his officer training at the War School ( Krigsskolen ) , which he continued in 1923 at the Military College (Den militære høiskole) and in 1924 at the Army Aviation School (Hærens flyveskole) in Kjeller . Afterwards he was himself a flight instructor at the Army Aviation School between 1924 and 1925 and, after further training in the field of military and civil aviation in the USA , acted again as an instructor at the Army Aviation School from 1927 to 1935. In 1929 he managed to rescue the other two passengers by making an emergency landing with his burning plane. He suffered burns on his face and body and was awarded the Royal Medal of Merit in Gold (Kongens fortjenstmedalje i gull) . After a subsequent assignment as head of the aviation department of the Army Aviation Force (Hærens Flyvertropper) in Trøndelag , he was entrusted with the construction of Oslo-Fornebu airport near Bærum and was its first boss since 1938.

After the attack by the German Wehrmacht on Norway on April 9, 1940 , Øen became the acting inspector general of the Army Aviation Force and, after the fall of southern Norway, led a group of flight officers to Great Britain in order to prepare flight missions to northern Norway from there. On his initiative, the decided exiled Norwegian government in London the establishment of Little Norway , a recruiting and training camp for the Air Force FTL ( Flyvåpnenes Treningsleir ) in the Canadian Toronto . On November 10, 1940, he became the first chief of the FTL as a major until he was replaced by Ole Reistad in early 1941. This made it possible to provide trained airmen for service with the Allies. He then became chief of staff of the Joint Air Force Command FFK (Flyvåpnenes Felleskommando) , whose commander was Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen . Within the newly created High Command of the Armed Forces in London , he became head of the so-called Fourth Office FO IV ("fjerde kontor") in February 1942 , which was entrusted with operations to save Norway. He secured the Norwegian air missions and flights through intensive cooperation with the British special operations force SOE ( Special Operations Executive ) , but with the Norwegian resistance group Norwegian Independent Company No. 1 from Captain Martin Linge and through contact with Jens Christian Hauge , the head of the military secret organization Milorg . In February 1945 he secretly visited Norway in order to prepare with Milorg for the liberation from the German occupation forces.

Post-war period and promotion to lieutenant general

Grave of Lieutenant General Bjarne Øen and his second wife Synnøve Helene Broch

After the end of the Second World War, Øen campaigned for the development of an air force as an independent military force. In 1945 he was promoted to colonel and was subsequently from 1946 to 1951 as major general in command of the air force (sjef for Luftforsvaret) . In this role he initiated the conversion of the war flight departments to an air force that had to adapt to new tasks and technological challenges. At the same time he promoted the provision of military developments for civil electronics and aviation. In 1947 he became a Star Commander of the Order of Saint Olav . During the increase in tension between the Western Powers and the Eastern Bloc in the wake of the Cold War , he acted between 1952 and 1954 as head of the Norwegian military mission in Great Britain and at the same time as a representative in the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces of NATO SHAPE ( Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ) in Rocquencourt near Paris . On his return he served as director of the newly established Defense College (Forsvarets høgskole) between 1954 and 1957 .

Most recently, on January 10, 1957, he was promoted to Lieutenant General (Generalløytnant) and succeeded Lieutenant General Finn Lambrechts as Chief of Defense Staff (Sjef for Forsvarsstaben) . Since January 1, 1963, he held the new title of Commander-in-Chief of the Norwegian Armed Forces (Forsvarssjef) . As chief of the defense staff or commander in chief of the Norwegian armed forces, he shaped the defense policy thinking in Norway during the Cold War . Due to the growing nuclear armament of the great powers USA and Soviet Union, he explained to the United General Staff on June 19, 1959 that the conventional equipment of the land and coastal protection units represented only a limited readiness for defense and thus quick strategic gains would arise in the event of an enemy attack. This made it clear that Norway's own defense was not sufficient in the event of an attack, but could possibly lead to an alliance under the North Atlantic Treaty . He also represented this during his function as chairman of the NATO military committee , which he held as the successor to the Dutchman Benjamin Richard Pieter Frans Hasselman from 1958 until his replacement by the Portuguese JA Beleza Ferras in 1959.

Øen was married twice, in his first marriage from 1930 until her death in 1979 with Nina Rigmor Schjærwe, and in his second marriage between 1991 and his death in 1994 with Synnøve Helene Broch, née Krosseng.

publication

• Lærebok i lufttaktikk , 1938

Web links

• Entry in the Norsk biografisk leksikon
• Entry in store norske leksikon