Bertram’s six-page autograph manuscript begins with a transcription of the article in The London Gazette, 23 January 1948, as mentioned and illustrated in the earlier post:
An unusual decoration recently awarded (see London Gazette January 23rd 1948. Page 591) by King Haakon of Norway to fur RAFVR officers “for valuable services to Norway’s cause during the war” is the Haakon VII Liberty Cross, known in Norway as the Frihetskors.
Among the four recipients is Mr. Bertram Rota, the well-known West-End bookseller, who served in R.A.F. Air Intelligence departments and who pays high tribute to the efficiency of the Intelligence services of the High Command, Royal Norwegian Forces, in Britain during the occupation of Norway. Particularly impressive was the quiet courage of the Norwegians who would return by overhead or underground routes to their occupied country, to sabotage factories serving the enemy or even to ‘collect’ a useful document.
High spots of air intelligence and planning in those days lay behind the morale-building Mosquito attack on the Gestapo HQ at Oslo, the brilliant raid on the important molybdenum mines at Knaben, the destruction of the German naval base at Trondheim by Lancasters and the U.S. Eighth Air Force’s success against the impossible target, perched high in precipitous mountain country, where heavy water was produced for atomic research.
Bertram continues:
I suppose the award is for having played some part in the organisation which collected and assembled information about enemy activities in Norway, using photographic reconnaissance, agent’s reports, and the first class Intelligence Service of the Norwegian High Command … The ultimate purpose was target selection and the provision of operational material with which the air-crews carried out their attacks.
Amongst operations which will be remembered are the Mosquito attacks on the Gestapo HQ at Oslo (a morale-building job), and on the important molybdenum mines at Knaben, (a specially brilliant operation, later repeated by the American heavy bombers. Also the destruction of the naval base at Trondheim by R.A.F. Lancasters (coinciding nicely with the ceremony of the taking over of the base by the German naval authorities). Populace tremendously impressed by the fact that practically no damage was suffered by civilian property and the only dwellings hit were in German occupation. RAF always very careful about this in the occupied territory of our allies). Also the successful US. 8th Air Force attack on the hydro-electric plant , engaged in the production of “heavy water” for atomic research, at _________ (This plant was also sabotaged in a daring ground operation by agents flown in.) This was an “impossible” target perched high in precipitous mountain country, but it was truly hit, and production was stopped. Final destruction of ??? [illegible] by Lancasters starting from a base in Russia, after the Fleet Air Arm had engaged the battleships.
It was a privilege to work with the Norwegians, whose conduct and courage in adversity and triumph alike were most impressive. They carried and air of calm efficiency, and it was hard to realise that a quiet young officer to whom one talked, perhaps in a London flat, would within a few days, or even hours, be entering Norway by some underground or overhead route, merely to bring back the important factory plan which one happened to know wasi n the top right-hand drawer of a general’s desk in some German-occupied government building. Sometimes they didn’t come back, but usually they did, as quietly as if they’d been to the library to change a book.
Throughout the war Norwegians were continually arriving here, direct from Norway, with news of German activity in their country. Some made a perilous North Sea journey in small boats, some were picked up on the coast or the outlying islands by the Royal Navy “by appointment”. Many had deliberately stayed in Norway for this purpose, and remained there, though in the gravest danger, till the time was ripe and they were called to their HQ in Britain to report.
They and their fighting colleagues who left when the Germans moved in did a grand job and it was honour enough to have shared in some small degree in their efforts and their success.
A later post will consist of scans of some of the other documents previously mentioned.
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