Writing for Fun
January 2016
I Never Thought I'd See Him Again - Bob Wendelkin
I was sitting watching the TV, it was a programme about parachuting, at that moment they were about to land. There was a knock at the front door, I was expecting the Insurance man to call as I was thinking about taking out an insurance policy. As he came in just before I switched off the TV to discuss business I made a remark about the importance of crossing your left leg over the right just before you land so that if the parachute didn't open they would find it easier to unscrew you from the ground.
It was his reply the surprised me.
'I always found parachuting and landing in the dark the most difficult,' was his reply.
'When did you do that?' I asked.
'Oh it was during the war when I did my parachute training, I had quite a few jumps before I was accepted as being fully trained,' he replied.
'Did you ever do any jumps into combat?' I asked.
'No, I wasn't that sort of soldier,' he replied.
'Where did you jump?' expecting him to say that he had become an Instructor.
'I was parachuted into Norway, as an Agent,' was his surprise reply.
'Even in those days you were trying selling insurance,' I joked.
'No I was a part of the SoE, I was given the job of looking for Landing Places for light aircraft,' he replied with a smile.
'How did you manage that?' I asked taking the subject more seriously.
'Well I assumed the identity of one of the Norwegians who came to the UK when the Germans invaded Norway during the war. I had all his papers and I had been given all his history, I even met him so that I could become almost his clone. I was to be dropped near his parent's farm near to the place of interest but away from the general population of the area to reduce the risk of me being spotted by someone who may have known him,' he said.
'Was it very dangerous?' I asked.
'Well despite what the Norwegians say these days, quite a few were in support of the Germans and Quisling, the bloke who was a Nazi and tried to run Norway during the war as a German puppet. No, what made it dangerous was that some people were Quisling supporters and they could very easily turn me into the Gestapo and that would have led to torture and the firing squad. That was a risk I was prepared to take but what I was afraid of was the penalty that the family who gave me shelter would have to pay if I was turned in, but fortunately it never happened. When I landed they were waiting for me and took me to their home. I was able to give them the latest news of their son and tell them he was fit and well,' he said.
'Why were you looking for landing places?' I asked.
'Well I didn't know at the time, I was just instructed as my first task to look for places where a plane or probably gliders could land. I was given the specification of the area to be found but not the reason for the site. I wasn't told because if I was caught I couldn't reveal any information. It was only after the war did I find out why I was there.'
'Well don't keep me in suspense. Why?' I asked.
'Well the reason was to find a place where our troops could be landed so they could attack the Heavy Water Plant at Telemark, which was making heavy water for the German Atomic Bomb research. After the attack they could have an opportunity to be airlifted out if they needed it, but they didn't as they failed. A successful attack was eventually made by the Norwegians. They I believe walked out to Sweden, so my efforts were not really needed.
'I also had the task of doing research on what the Germans were doing. The Germans were interested in driving a railway up to the north of Norway. This was something the Norwegians were not going to do until well into the 1950's; this railway met with a lot approval from the Norwegian population and hence this popularity could have put me in some of the danger,' he continued.
'I see.'
'As a part of my job I was given an area to survey, and it was this that caused me problems and my exit from Norway. I was doing a survey in a town at the south of my given area when I saw a man that didn't seem to fit into the town. I wondered if he was Gestapo so I quickly removed myself from the town and went back to the farm. About a week later I went to another town still in the south of my area of interest. To my surprise who should I see was the same man, once was enough but twice was not a coincidence, I believe I had been spotted by the enemy. For the sake of my life and the family I was living with I had to get out.'
'How did you do that?' I asked.
'In those days, I suppose it's the same today, by sea, by air or walk out to Sweden. I radioed London telling them that I would walk out to Sweden then they could pick me up from neutral territory. I went to my secret hoard where I kept my Swedish money and my British Passport. London had radioed to some of the Norwegian patriots who would take me to the border. They reckoned it would take a few days to walk there, so that night we set off. I'm pleased to say we had an uneventful trip; we saw a few Germans patrolling the border but from what I could see they were just a bit fed up with being out in the cold in a foreign country.'
'Then what happened?'
'Well, London was contacted and told of my arrival and the Embassy looked after me until a plane could be arranged. I was not at that time that important; I had done my job so I had to wait until they had a good reason to risk a Mosquito aircraft to pick me up with some other more import cargo.'
'Well you obviously got home, what did you do next?'
'I was given the job of coordinating the information coming out of Norway, perhaps the biggest hazard for us in Norway was the Tirpitz. Churchill wanted it sunk and put out of the war so it was my job to collect information that might be useful to getting the job done. The Germans made the mistake of sailing her south and within range of our Lancasters.'
'Well they got her, didn't they?'
'One day I was in my office in Hendon when who should come through the door was the very man that I had seen in Norway. I never thought I'd ever see his face again, but it turned out that he was also an agent and it just so happened that he was looking at the towns to the north of his range when I was looking at those to the south of my range. He said he hadn't spotted me which made me feel better because I had done my act of hiding well. So we both went out for a drink and exchanged stories.
As a side note, most of the above story is true. My insurance man did parachute into Norway and he did pull out because he thought he had been spotted by the Gestapo who turned out to be the British Agent he met in Hendon.