Jun 18, Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen (b.1872) flew to the North Pole with a crew of
rescuers to search for the survivors of the dirigible Italia. They
were never seen again.
(ON, 10/00, p.8)(Ind, 4/27/02,
1930 Feb 5, Sonja Henie (17),
Norwegian figure skating star, won her fourth consecutive world's
amateur singles championship.
(NY Times, 2/6/1930, p.30)
1930 May 13, Fridtjof Nansen
(68), Norwegian Arctic explorer (1893-1896), died in Oslo.
(ON, 7/05, p.5)
1931 Nov 30, The submarine
Nautilus was sunk near Bergen, Norway. Hubert Wilkins, Australian
explorer, had used the ship in a failed attempt to sail beneath the
(ON, 1/02, p.8)
1940 Apr 8, British troops
landed at Narwik to mine Norway’s territorial waters.
(ON, 11/05, p.3)
1940 Apr 9, The Nazi army
invaded and occupied Denmark and Norway. German forces landed along
the Norwegian coast and made a paratrooper assault on Oslo and
(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.C-1)(SFEC, 1/26/97, p.A14)(AP,
4/9/97)(ON, 11/05, p.3)
1940 Apr 10, Vidkun Quisling
formed a Norwegian pro-Nazi "national government."
1940 Apr 10, The HMS Hunter, a
British destroyer, went down with 110 men in the fist Battle of
Narvik as the Royal Navy tried to keep German forces from
overrunning a strategic Norwegian port. Germany lost 4 destroyers in
the battle. In 2008 a Norwegian minehunter found the wreck
1940 Apr 14, Allied troops
landed in Norway.
1940 Apr 15, French and British
troops landed at Narvik, Norway.
1940 Apr 29, Norwegian King
Haakon and government fled to England.
1940 May 5, Norwegian
government in exile formed in London.
1940 May 7-1940 May 8, The
British House of Commons debated the disastrous Norwegian campaign.
1940 May 10, Winston Churchill
took office as PM. Churchill formed a new government and served as
the Conservative head of a coalition government with the opposition
Labor Party. The debate over the Norway campaign led directly to
Churchill replacing Chamberlain.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A6)(PCh, 1992, p.864)(Econ,
1940 Jun 9, Norway surrendered
to the Nazis during World War II, effective at midnight.
1940 Sep 25, German High
Commissioner in Norway set up the Vidikun Quisling government.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A10)(MC, 9/25/01)
1940 Nov 9, Germany invaded
Norway and Denmark. [see Apr 9, 1940]
1941 Jun 26, In Norway an
adviser to collaborationist leader Vidkun Quisling suggested in a
letter, four days after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, that
northern Russia would be better used by Germanic peoples because
Slavic peoples "don't know how to make use of the land." The
document was not made public until 2010.
1941 Jul 16, Dag Solstad,
Norwegian novelist and playwright, was born.
1942 Oct, An advance team of 4
Norwegian commandos parachuted into Norway as part of Operation
Grouse to destroy the German-operated heavy-water Vemork plant on
the Mane River near Rjukan.
(ON, 4/07, p.2)
1942 Nov 26, The German ship SS
Donau prepared to leave the Oslo wharf with 332 Norwegian Jews bound
for death camps.
1942 Nov, A Royal Air Force
bomber and 2 gliders, carrying 34 British commandos, crash landed in
Norway. This was part of Operation Freshman, which planned a raid on
the heavy-water plant at Vemork. The survivors were captured by
German soldiers and executed by the Gestapo.
(ON, 4/07, p.2)
1942-43 Under the Quisling government 767 Jews
were deported to Auschwitz. An estimated 1,100 Jews fled to Sweden
and bureaucrats looted the possessions of 1,179 Jewish families and
71 Jewish companies.
(SFC, 6/25/97, p.A10)
1943 Feb 28, In Operation
Gunnerside Norwegian commandos flown in from Britain bombed the Nazi
heavy water plant near Rjukan. The raid was later depicted in the
1965 film "The Heroes of Telemark." The 9 commandos included Claus
Helberg (d.2003) and Knut Haukelid (d.1994).
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.A27)(ON, 4/07, p.4)
1943 Nov 16, One hundred and
forty American bombers flew from British bases to Vemork, Norway, to
destroy the Nazi heavy water facility near Rjukan, where production
had resumed despite a commando raid in February. Only 14 of some 700
bombs hit the plant killing 24 civilians. The bombing did not harm
the 