Five stars to an. Their fishing boat, the Brattholm, carried a secret cargo of bombs and explosive devices. Espen Alnes Journalist. 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. Out of Print--Limited Availability. Advertisement Source: The New York Times. Fellow Norwegians transported Baalsrud by stretcher toward the border with Finland. MRS. EVELYN WATSON, JAN BAALSRUD MARRY - The New York Times Together, he and the old man stared out at the valley where, 44 years earlier, he had staggered, snow-blind, after an avalanche, making his way to the safety of Marius's farm. From there, the route zigzags south 130 kilometres up and down mountains and across rivers, concluding at last at the border Norway shares with Sweden and Finland. The little hut that is there now is a replica; the original one was burned down by some kids several years ago. All I can hear is the howling of the wind, blasting between the planks of wood. Baalsrud and his men hastily detonated all eight tons of explosives they had with them, then jumped aboard their dinghy, and sought to flee. He spent five days under the open sky, growing confused, despondent and finally hopeless. An unimaginable strength and resilience had taken hold of Baalsrud. Dagmar Idrupsen is one of the last people still living who saw Baalsrud during his escape. Thank you! Han var fenrik i Kompani Linge under 2. verdenskrig. When the next group of helpers finally found Baalsrud, they still couldn't take him all the way to Sweden. [6], (fee usually required to view pdf of full original recommendation), Member of the Order of the British Empire, "Recommendations for Honours and Awards (Army)Image detailsBaalsrud, J S", "(+) Hemmelig avduking av Jan Baalsrud-bysten", https://web.archive.org/web/20120205182131/http://www.godoy.no/weber/2verdskrigweb/Sara03/index.htm. The northern Norwegian fjord where a crippled Jan Baalsrud was taken across on a stretcher to a shed he called the "Hotel Savoy".Credit:Jon Tonks. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Nazi-Fleeing Arctic Survival Thriller "The 12th Man" Truly Chilling The books are but one reflection of how Baalsrud's story has aged into an inspiring parable about the character of Norwegians: their resilience, their selflessness, their devotion to community. While he awaited their delayed return with provisions, his toes severely deteriorated. Now unable to walk unaided, he wondered if he would be best to end his suffering and ease the risk to those helping him. This was when Baalsrud's journey took its grimmest turn yet. His assignments: swim underwater, fastening explosive devices (limpets, or magnetic bombs) to German seaplanes, and to recruit Norwegian resistance fighters. He joined Linge Company, a group of young Norwegians who trained with the Allies in special ops and then sailed back on stealth missions, across the North Sea from Shetland, Scotland, and into occupied Norway, using the maze of fjords as cover. Like his famous relative, Haug is reserved. Unknown Binding. Another warded off a German soldier while keeping him hidden, and a midwife offered to disguise him as a woman in labor. The hole is a slight exaggeration; Baalsrudhula is actually just a crack in the rock. Source: National Archives of Norway. richard matvichuk wife Jan Baalsruds fantastiske flukt fra tyskerne i Troms vren 1943 ble internasjonalt kjent gjennom filmen Ni liv, basert p Baalsruds egen beretning i David Howarths bok We die alone. The 12th Man. Jan Baalsrud was born on December 13, 1917 in Oslo, Norway. A normal man in many ways, he had a genius for survival. Jan Baalsrud was the only survivor. Norway offered a desirable naval stronghold in the North Atlantic, considerable natural resources, and of course a symbolic contribution to the growing Nazi empire. His remaining toes were succumbing to frostbite, risking severe infection. Brave visitors can attempt the grueling route that Baalsrud took, now marked on certain maps with a small red B. World War II [ edit] During the German invasion of Norway in 1940, Baalsrud fought in Vestfold. Norwegian Independent Company 1 was one such unit, and is better known as Kompani Linge after its leader, Captain Martin Linge. Jan married Jovelyn Evy, Miller Baalsrud in 1951, at age 33. And though Arthur, his wife, and Ellen's mother died while in hiding, the kindness of these . Jan Baalsruds longest stay anywhere during his escape was in a mountain fissure at the top of the Manndalen valley. Eventually, through the support of local villagers who put their own lives in danger to help him, he found freedom and went on to live a relatively normal life until his death in 1988 at the age of 71. But then the old soldier grinned grimly, gritting his teeth, and glanced at Are. Instead, in a remarkably co-ordinated effort, many in the village came together to help harbour the fugitive and get him on his way, all without the Germans noticing. As if all this wasn't enough, an avalanche threw him down the mountainside, leaving him concussed and partially buried in snow. He wasn't holding secret information that could win the war; he had no special value to the military. Jeg har valgt bruke den geodetiske trekantformen grafisk i relieff p . Det er reist to minnesmerke om Brattholm-tragedien, - i Troms og Toftefjord. Baalsrud was visibly frail. Baalsrud barely survived. WikiMatrix. The men lit a fuse, waiting until the last minute to jump before the Brattholm exploded. At 71 years old, Jan Baalsrud height not available right now. The story is recounted in David Howarths book We Die Alone, first published in 1955. The trail is easy to follow, almost free from rocky sections and with only short stretches of bog. Eventually, traveling by reindeer sleigh, with his pursuers now hot on his tail, he made it through Nazi-occupied Finland to Sweden. He aimed and pulled the trigger. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud died in Oslo on December 30th, 1988. The country would remain under their control until 1945. He graduated as a cartographical instrument-maker in 1939. Eventually, the family returned and moved him to another town, where he waited for over two weeks in a cold, dark, cave in the Skaidijonni Valley. Since the spread of gangrene was continuing, he amputated the rest of his toes, and would later say he seriously contemplated suicide. Haug is Baalsrud's second cousin, but he met the man only once, as a boy; he remembers Baalsrud refusing to talk with his relatives about his wartime experiences. We therefore travelled around the Lyngenfjord to see where it all happened. Jan Baalsrud - Wikipedia Sometime during those days, Baalsrud took the knife and cut into several of his toes, hoping to bleed out the frostbite-caused infection that he feared would spread up his legs. Contact: Jan Lindrupsen on +47 906 13 455. He died in 1988, 12 days after celebrating his 70th. It remains all but impassable in winter. The 12th Man - the film about Jan Baalsrud - Visit Lyngenfjord Stunned Silence: The woman who was supposed to wrote down Baalsrud`s story for the record, is seen with her sheet completely blank at the end of the movie. Faced with freezing temperatures and brutal conditions his story is an incredible one. The 12th Man is the story of Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian resistance fighter, one of a dozen saboteurs trained by British intelligence to carry out a raid on an air traffic control tower in the . He fully amputated one of his big toes and sliced the dead flesh off the tips of several others. But not until after being shot and injured, going snowblind, and even having to amputate some of his toes by himself to avoid gangrene from spreading. He made it to an arctic village, nearing death. Hotel Savoy is situated off the E6 just north of the boundary between the municipalities of Storfjord and Kfjord, 14 km north of Skibotn. Only he had managed to escape and he would certainly be killed if caught. Source: Geocaching.com. The Jan Baalsrud Expedition - Old Brightonians Alfred A. Vik), while Jan Baalsrud escaped to Sweden. 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, and recruit for the Norwegian resistance movement. "They needed to keep him alive in order to keep the dream of freedom alive. It's you.". view all Jovelyn Evy Miller Baalsrud's Timeline But the family promised to help him. "Next time it's war, it's not me coming down this ice. A 30 minutes audio programme by Jim Mayer retracing Jan's route, including interviews with some of those who helped him escape. Baalsrud's assignment was to swim underwater and fasten some of the explosive devices limpets, or magnetic bombs to seaplanes in order to sink them. At the end of March 1943, Jan Baalsrud and 11 other intelligence officers from Kompani Linge and crew were sailing to Troms on the MS Bratholm to organise teams of saboteurs in occupied Norway. The teacher made it in pieces, and it was assembled on the other side of the fjord. first read this incredible tale of one man's refusal to die alone forty years ago--have been recommending to people ever since. Han skal spele Jan Baalsrud - NRK Kultur og underholdning The threat of gangrene increased every day, forcing Baalsrud to do the unfathomable: He used a pocket knife to slice off the tips of his toes and amputated his big toe to save the rest of his feet from infection. Mountainous terrain on the Norway-Finland border. Until the day he died, he felt an extreme gratitude towards the civilians who had helped him hide from the Germans during his escape to neutral Sweden. At the end of the war, he returned to Norway to witness his country's liberation first-hand. Then came a blizzard. jan baalsrud wife. The file points out that he left a wife and four small daughters under the age of nine. Howarth, a journalist and Royal Navy officer, wrote We Die Alone based largely on the Norwegian military report on the escape that Baalsrud filed during his recovery and interviews with Baalsrud himself. His little dog, a brown mutt, runs to the bow, his nose poking over the edge, aiming down. He had been bold enough to swim in the same icy waters that they had crossed by boat. 50 Mind-Blowing True Survival Stories (Hiking, Kidnapping, Lost at Sea Narrowly escaping the clutches of Nazi soldiers who were just one door away, he was taken in by a family who helped him to freedom. Baalsrud joked to them that it was every bit as nice as the Hotel Savoy. If you journey to the center of the Earth, An enormous black hole has left the center of Take a Virtual Tour of the Worlds Most Mysterious Seed Vault, Its About Time: ESA Agrees to Agree on Lunar Timekeeping, Amazon Ordeal: Man Survives 31 Days on Worm Diet, This Map Will Show You How Much Wild Space is Left on the Planet, Black Hole The Size of 20 Million Suns Speeding Through Space, Two Orcas Kill 17 Sharks in One Day, Eat Only Their Livers, Orca Cares For Pilot Whale Calf in Never Before Seen Behavior, Everest Prep Begins, Icefall Doctors on Their Way. "She said afterward that he was in such bad shape that it would have been better if he was dead than still alive," her son Dag says. After Germany took hold of Norway, the countrys politicians, royalty, and many civilians fled to safer countries. Years later, in 2017, a film called The 12th Man explored a new version of the events. Jan then survived an avalanche and had frostbite along with snow blindness. From Mikkelvik/Mariagrden, a ferry sails to Bromnes on the island of Rebbenesya. In this barn, the family of Are and Kjellaug Gronvoll hid Baalsrud from Nazi pursuers during his escape to Sweden in 1943. Everywhere you look, you're in both the middle of nowhere and the centre of the universe. But in warmer weather, anyone can walk the trail, or most of it. None of them did, as Haug and Karlsen Scott recount in their book, and many did more than just offer shelter. When the mountains became too steep, they enlisted a local carpentry teacher to build a sled to carry him. Jovelyn Evy Miller Baalsrud (Miller) (1925 - 1963) - Genealogy There was the man who warded off a neighbour, known to be on the German payroll, who came by while Baalsrud was inside. Jan Baalsrud Wiki, Biography, Net Worth, Age, Family, Facts and More June 24, 2022 . David Howarths book We Die Alone (1955) retells Baalsruds story and was made into a film soon after its release. Every year at the end of July, the Jan Baalsrud March takes place. His last wish was to be buried in the fjords, in the village of Mandal, alongside the grave of Aslak Fossvoll, a Norwegian resistance leader who visited Baalsrud in the cave at Skaidijonni, only to die of diphtheria four weeks after Baalsrud made it safely to Sweden. image. The motorboat captain has a location saved on his GPS, and he guides the boat there. Jan Baalsrud Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2 Linge and his men were supported by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and received training in Scotland before returning to their home country to conduct raids and sabotage missions against the Nazis. "I don't know," Baalsrud said. Wife of Jan Sigurd Baalsrud Underveis mter de ogs det nord-norske folket som reddet han. "Jan was also depressed after the war; I heard from his brother," Haug says. He was shielded from German soldiers and shunted between villages, desperately trying to cross into Sweden. Despite this, she described his sensitivity, courtesy, and grateful attitude towards her family as they helped him. It's a silent, tiny bay, bordered on three sides by stark moss-green outcroppings. For decades, his escape made him a national folk hero, even as the man himself remained frustratingly opaque, almost unknowable. From behind the rock, he saw the soldiers getting closer, within range. Jan Baalsrud - Biography - IMDb Jan Baalsrud 37yo Norwegian Former Secret Editorial Stock Photo - Stock Passing over the mountain was critical to his escape, but he was ill-equipped for such a venture. "He became the symbol and the hope for the resistance," said Dutch-Norwegian film director Harald Zwart, who is currently shooting a remake of Baalsrud's story as a snowy version of The Fugitive. He was very poorly clothed and had a gunshot wound on his foot. What happened over those nine weeks remains one of the wildest, most unfathomable survival stories of World War II. He graduated as a cartographical instrument-maker in 1939. This was where Baalsrud was left for nine more days, lying buried in a cave of snow most of the time, waiting for help to return. In 2001, he and a co-author, Astrid Karlsen Scott, published Defiant Courage, a day-by-day reconstruction of Baalsrud's story that exhaustively praises the people of the fjords who smuggled him past German patrols, ministered to his frostbitten feet and hid him in lofts, barns and sheds. The year was 1943, and Norway was under German occupation. (He did not accept the offer.) Nordsjfarten - Minnesmerke i Troms - Kulturhistorisk leksikon