Leif Andreas Larsen
Leif Andreas Larsen (born January 9, 1906 in Bergen ; † October 12, 1990 ibid), known as "Shetland Larsen", was a Norwegian seaman and was a highly decorated naval officer in the service of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II and national hero.
Shetland bus
The SOE operated a secret boat service from Lunna and Scalloway on the Shetland Islands , the Shetland Bus , to Norway , which was occupied by the German Empire , in order to supply the resistance movements there with weapons, equipment and trainers and to send refugees and volunteers to England on the way back bring. After his escape from Norway, the Norwegian Larsen joined the Norwegian SOE unit Company Linge and, as a skipper, undertook 52 such dangerous enemy voyages in the North Atlantic. Initially on fishing trawlers and from the end of 1943 on the submarine hunter Vigra provided by the US Navy .
Operation Title
On October 30, 1942, under the direction of Larsen, the fishing boat Arthur, on behalf of the SOE, was supposed to bring two manned Chariot torpedoes close enough to the battleship Tirpitz lying in the Fættenfjord east of Trondheim to use the Chariots to place two warheads by combat divers. When the Arthur arrived late in the Trondheimfjord on October 31 after a machine failure, she got into bad weather and the Chariots were lost. As a result, the crew decided 16 km from their destination in the early morning of November 1st to abandon and sink the Arthur. The command went ashore in Norway and was able to reach neutral Sweden on its own. One man was captured by the Germans and executed according to the command order .
Awards
- Finnish medal for participants in the winter war against the Soviet Union
- British Distinguished Service Cross
- British Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
- British Distinguished Service Medal
- British Distinguished Service Order
- Norwegian war cross with two swords
- Norwegian delta medallions April 9, 1940 - May 8, 1945
- Norwegian St. Olavs medal with oak leaves
- Norwegian Haakon VII 70th Anniversary Medal
- Norwegian Krigsmedaljen with three stars
- US Medal of Freedom
- Namesake for the Larsenbrekka in the Antarctic
literature
- Leif (Shetland) Larsen at Norsk Biografisk Leksikon
- Frithjof Saelen: None but the Brave: The Story of "Shetlands" Larsen , Souvenir Press, 1955
Web links
- Shetland bus
- Battleship Tirpitz - Operation Title on Battleship.com
- Shetlandsgjengen - Suicide Mission, 1954 , IMDb.Com, film about the Shetland bus with Leif Larsen as the actor
- Leif Andreas Larsen in the store norske leksikon (Norwegian)
Individual evidence
- ^ Leif "Shetlands-Larsen" naval officer and war hero , Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, accessed January 24, 2016
- ↑ The crewmen , The Shetland Bus retrieved January 24, 2016
- ↑ Niklas Zetterling, Michael Tamelander: Tirpitz: The Life and Death of Germany's Last Super Battleship , Casemate Publishers, 2009, ISBN 9781935149187 , p. 162 ff.
- ↑ Michael Tillotson: SOE and The Resistance: As told in the Times , A&C Black, 2011, ISBN 9781441143563 , pp. 59 ff.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Larsen, Leif Andreas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Shetland Larsen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Norwegian naval officer and boatman of the Shetland bus |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 9, 1906 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bergen (Norway) |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 12, 1990 |
| Place of death | Bergen , Norway |