Jan Baalsrud
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Jan Sigurd Baalsrud,
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(13 December 1917 – 30 December 1988) was a
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in the
Norwegian resistance The Norwegian resistance (Norwegian: ''Motstandsbevegelsen'') to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms: *Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled government, ...
trained by the British during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.


Biography


Early life

Jan Baalsrud was born in
Kristiania Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
(now Oslo), Norway and moved with his family to
Kolbotn Kolbotn is an urban area in Norway's Nordre Follo county. Kolbotn is in the centre of the traditional district, Oppegård. The population is about 6,000. Kolbotn has several elementary schools, four middle schools and a high school. Town is locat ...
in the early 1930s. He lived there until the 1950s. He graduated as a cartographical instrument-maker in 1939.


World War II

During the
German invasion of Norway German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **G ...
in 1940, Baalsrud fought in
Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered t ...
. He later escaped to Sweden, which was neutral, but he was convicted of espionage and expelled from the country. In 1941, Baalsrud reached Great Britain after having travelled through the Soviet Union, Africa and the US. He joined the Norwegian
Company Linge Norwegian Independent Company 1 (NOR.I.C.1, pronounced ''Norisén'' (approx. "noor-ee-sehn") in Norwegian) was a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) group formed in March 1941 originally for the purpose of performing commando raids during ...
. In early 1943, he, three other commandos, and a boat crew of eight, all Norwegians, embarked on a mission to destroy a German airfield control tower at
Bardufoss Bardufoss is a town and commercial centre in Målselv Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The three villages of Andselv, Andslimoen, and Heggelia together form the Bardufoss area. Bardufoss is located in the Målselvdalen val ...
, and recruit for the
Norwegian resistance movement The Norwegian resistance (Norwegian: ''Motstandsbevegelsen'') to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms: *Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled governmen ...
. This mission, Operation Martin, was compromised when Baalsrud and his fellow soldiers, seeking a Resistance contact, accidentally made contact with a civilian shopkeeper who ran the same store as their contact. Fearing for his life and suspecting it was a test by the Germans, he reported them to the local police office, which notified the Germans. The morning after their blunder, on 29 March, their fishing boat ''Brattholm''  – containing around 100 kilograms of explosives intended to destroy the air control tower – was attacked by a German vessel. The Norwegians scuttled their boat by detonating the explosive using a time-delay fuse and fled in small boats, but they were promptly sunk by the Germans. Baalsrud and others swam ashore in ice-cold
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waters. Baalsrud was the only commando to evade capture and, soaking wet and missing one sea boot, he escaped into a snow gully, where he shot and killed a German
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officer with his pistol. Kolker summarises what happened next as follows:
What happened over those nine weeks remains one of the wildest, most unfathomable survival stories of World War II. Baalsrud’s feet froze solid. An avalanche buried him up to his neck. He wandered in a snowstorm for three days. He was entombed alive in snow for another four days and abandoned under open skies for five more. Alone for two more weeks in a cave, he used a knife to amputate several of his own frostbitten toes to stop the spread of gangrene. He spent the last several weeks tied on a stretcher, near death, as teams of Norwegian villagers dragged him up and down hills and snowy mountains.
He evaded capture for approximately two months, suffering from
frostbite Frostbite is a skin injury that occurs when exposed to extreme low temperatures, causing the freezing of the skin or other tissues, commonly affecting the fingers, toes, nose, ears, cheeks and chin areas. Most often, frostbite occurs in the ha ...
and
snow blindness Photokeratitis or ultraviolet keratitis is a painful eye condition caused by exposure of insufficiently protected eyes to the ultraviolet (UV) rays from either natural (e.g. intense sunlight) or artificial (e.g. the electric arc during welding) ...
. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots. It was during this time, that he hid in a wooden hut at Revdal, which he called Hotel Savoy. Baalsrud operated on his feet with a pocket knife, as he suspected he had gangrene in two toes, resulting from the frostbite. Fearing it would spread, he cut off his big toe and the infected bit of the index toe. Not long after that, Baalsrud was left on a high plateau, on a stretcher in the snow, where he was supposed to be collected by the Norwegian resistance. Due to weather and German patrols in the town of Manndalen, Kåfjord, he was there for 27 days and was close to death for lack of food. It was during this time, while he lay behind a snow wall built around a rock to shelter him, that Baalsrud amputated nine of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene. This action saved the rest of his feet. Fellow Norwegians transported Baalsrud by stretcher toward the border with Finland. He was put in the care of some
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(the native people of northern Fenno-Scandinavia). While driving their reindeer on spring passage, they pulled him on a sled across Finland and into neutral Sweden. From Kilpisjärvi, in northern Finland, Baalsrud was collected by a Red Cross seaplane and flown to Boden. Baalsrud spent seven months in a Swedish hospital in Boden before he was flown back to Britain in an RAF de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. He soon went to Scotland to help train other Norwegian patriots, who were going to enter Norway to continue the fight against the Germans. After a long struggle to learn to walk without his toes, Baalsrud eventually was sent to Norway as an agent at his request. He was still in active service at the time of the war's end, in 1945. That ended German occupation, and Baalsrud traveled to Oslo to reunite with his family, whom he had left five years before. Baalsrud was appointed honorary
Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
by the British. He was awarded the St. Olav's medal with Oak Branch by Norway. He was a Second Lieutenant ( Fenrik).


Later years and death

After the war, Baalsrud contributed to the local scout and football associations. In addition, he was chairman of the Norwegian Disabled Veterans Union from 1957 to 1964. In 1962, he moved to Tenerife, Canary Islands, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life. He returned to Norway during his final years. He lived there until his death on 30 December 1988, aged 71. His ashes are buried in Manndalen, in a grave shared with Aslak Aslaksen Fossvoll (1900–1943), one of the local men who helped him escape to Sweden.


Legacy

An annual remembrance march in Baalsrud's honour takes place on 25 July in
Troms Troms (; se, Romsa; fkv, Tromssa; fi, Tromssa) is a former county in northern Norway. On 1 January 2020 it was merged with the neighboring Finnmark county to create the new Troms og Finnmark county. This merger is expected to be reversed by t ...
, where the participants follow his escape route for nine days. A street in Kolbotn, Norway is named Jan Baalsruds plass (Jan Baalsrud's Place) in his honor. In 2020, a bust in bronze created by sculptor Håkon Anton Fagerås on commission was unveiled.


In media


Books

* * *


Films

* '' Ni Liv'' ( En. ''Nine Lives'') – 1957 * '' Den 12. mann'' (En. ''The 12th Man'') – 2017


References


External links


A school paper on Baalsrud
https://web.archive.org/web/20120205182131/http://www.godoy.no/weber/2verdskrigweb/Sara03/index.htm

*[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/externalrequest.asp?requestreference=HS2/161 Piece details HS 2/161—Special Operations Executive: Group C, Scandinavia: Registered Files—Norway—Operation MARTIN; list of Norwegian refugees; Lt Jan Siguard Baalsrud's report], ''The Catalogue'', The National Archives (United Kingdom), The National Archives * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Baalsrud, Jan 1917 births 1988 deaths Military personnel from Oslo Norwegian Army personnel of World War II Norwegian Special Operations Executive personnel Recipients of the St. Olav's Medal with Oak Branch Honorary Members of the Order of the British Empire Norwegian resistance members Sole survivors