Folke Hauger Johannessen

Folke Hauger Johannessen (born December 2, 1913 in Gothenburg , Sweden ; † April 17, 1997 in Somerset , United Kingdom ) was a Norwegian admiral in the Navy (Kongelige Norske Marine) , who was last Commander in Chief of the Norwegian Armed Forces (Forsvarssjef) from 1964 to 1972 was.

Life

Training as a naval officer and World War II

Johannessen, the youngest of four children of the skipper Thorkild Hauger Johannessen and his wife Valborg Regnman, grew up in Gothenburg and later in Fredrikstad . After attending school, he was hired as a machine boy for a shipping company and between 1931 and 1933 made trips to Europe and America on merchant ships in order to meet the admission requirements for training as a naval officer. He then began officer training at the Naval War School (Sjøkrigsskolen) in Horten in 1930 and graduated in 1938 as a lieutenant at sea . Immediately afterwards he was transferred to the patrol ship KNM Nordkap , with which he went on patrols through northern Norway in winter. A short time later, he became deputy in command of this ship and then deputy in command of the torpedo boat KNM Snøgg, which operates along the coast of Værøy . After the outbreak of World War II , he was deputy commander of the 1,939 KNM Gyller , a destroyer of Sleipner class , with home port Kirkenes and took with this in hostilities after the attack of the German Wehrmacht in Norway on 9 April 1940 in part.

In the autumn of 1940 Johannessen went to Great Britain and was entrusted with the handover of Norwegian warships to the US Navy . In the following years he took part in patrols to protect the war links between the USA and Great Britain. In 1941 he became deputy commandant of HMS St Albans , originally ceded to the US Navy as the destroyer USS Thomas (DD-182) in 1940 under the destroyer-for-bases agreement of the Royal Navy. He then took escorts with this to protect Allied ships against the submarine war and attacks by the navy, such as in 1942 for transports of war material to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk . This was followed by patrols along the east coast of Great Britain and the North Atlantic as the head of an Allied escort group . In the last months of the war he was a staff officer in the Naval Staff in London.

Post-war period and promotion to admiral

After the end of the war, Johannessen returned to Norway and became deputy commander and teacher at the Naval War School in Oslo, where he had a decisive influence on training in the early post-war period through his war experience. In 1948 he took over the post of commander of the destroyer KNM Stavanger , which was deployed off the coast of northern Norway. A short time later he became Deputy Naval Attaché at the Embassy in the United Kingdom in 1948 and then from 1950 to 1952 Chief of Operations in the Staff of the High Command of the Naval Forces SOK (Sjøforsvarets overkommando) , before he was a staff officer at the NATO headquarters in Paris between 1952 and 1954 Palais de Chaillot was. After his return he was in 1954 as captain at sea (Kommandør) chief of the operations staff in the high command of the armed forces and as such played an important role in the basic planning of the Norwegian defense and operational readiness until 1957. After a year of employment between 1957 and 1958 as a staff officer at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander of NATO in the Atlantic SACLANT (Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic) in Norfolk , he became the commander of the Naval War School on his return in 1958. As such, he was entrusted with the introduction of the new training regulations for the naval forces and the relocation of the school to Bergen in 1960. In 1963 he was promoted to Rear Admiral and appointed Deputy Chief of Defense Staff at the Armed Forces Headquarters.

Just one year later, Johannessen was promoted to Vice Admiral on January 1, 1964 and succeeded Lieutenant General Bjarne Øen as Commander in Chief of the Norwegian Armed Forces (Forsvarssjef) . In this role he campaigned for a permanent naval contingent with NATO, which was established in 1967. In addition, the greatest reform of military leadership of the post-war period was carried out with the amalgamation of the High Command in the Ministry of Defense in 1970. The consideration of the totality of the armed forces and the unified leadership of the three branches of the armed forces was of decisive importance for him in these years. He was also a driving force in developing and strengthening the Norwegian defense in the north against the backdrop of Soviet armament on the Kola Peninsula . In 1970 he was promoted to admiral , making him the first commander in chief of the armed forces of Norway to receive this rank. In 1972 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Saint Olav Order . On February 1, 1972 he was replaced as head of Forsvar by General Herman Fredrik Zeiner-Gundersen . From 1972 to 1973 he was the director of the Defense College (Forsvarets høgskole) .

Johannessen was married to Joan Margaret Brown since 1942.

Publications

• Gå på - eller gå under , 1988
• Admiral Folke Hauger Johannessen's intruder 1948–1973. En tidligere admiral and forsvarssjefs tilbakeblikk , posthumously 1998

Web links

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