As seen through the eyes of a 13 year old By Åge Albertsen
The pins on the map of Europe that my father had were showing an update of allied and German front-lines were pressed so tightly together that we knew the war would soon be over, but this day was just about soccer.
May 7th, Fetsund YMCA was to play a soccer game against Sørumsand YMCA and I was on the team. I dressed for the occasion; knickerbockers, thick socks and heavy sport shoes. It was best to be well protected when you were playing left wing and trying to score against a large fullback from Sørumsand .
I was biking up Hovinhøgda when a paper in the ditch caught my eye. I was born curious so I picked up the paper. It was a leaflet that had been spread all over the area. It read, 'Our struggle is crowned with victory. Norway is free again.'
I biked like mad down to Fetsund and showed the leaflet to everyone I met. This was a report that the German forces in Norway had surrendered unconditionally. All of a sudden many plans were changed, even the football game was cancelled. What were we to do?
We sneaked up to Fetsund bridge where the Germans had holed up throughout the war with barbed wire barriers, trenches, machinegun nests - small bunkers - on each side of the underpass near the bridge itself. In front of this underpass there was a boom and a sentry post for the guard that was always there. For the Germans this was a very important checkpoint and everyone who passed here had to show that they had authorization to pass the Glomma. Accepted forms of passes were the Borderer's ID or a Pass issued by the Nazi authorities. In addition to this all adults had to carry with them at all times an ID card. All vehicles were carefully checked in the constant hunt for refugees on their way to Sweden or escapees from some camp or prison.
We had been told for years that Fetsund bridged had been mined and was ready to be blown should the situation call for it. At Vilberg fortress there was a red button. One push of this button was enough to blow the bridge to smithereens! True or not, it was an exciting story.
It looked unusually quiet at the bridge, something that was very unsatisfying for curious boys so we biked around for a while in hopes of seeing something exciting. So much happened in such a short space of time that is difficult now to recall exactly when everything occurred.
The same day (or was it the day after - the official first day of peace) we heard that we could hear a live London broadcast on the radio at Garder - Vilberg fortress's closest neighbor. There were already many people there when we arrived. We didn't see any Germans and everything looked to be calm and peaceful. People talked in whispers about the war that we still could not believe had ended and the days to come.
Suddenly, on the veranda on the second floor we saw it: A RADIO. In the fall of 1941 the Germans demanded that everyone deliver their radios under pain of severe punishment if you failed to comply. If you listened to the radio broadcasts from London and got caught, you could expect a long prison sentence. The same went for those who listened to the London broadcasts and wrote the secret newspapers and then delivered these to 'good' Norwegians. The radio we saw on the veranda had surely been hidden away in some crafty hiding place and had now been brought out again. It had been almost four years since we could gaze on such an instrument without risking a prison sentence.
We stood there and waited solemnly amidst the fruit trees and berry bushes. And then we heard, the signal from BBC: "Boom-boom-boom-boooom, boom-boom-boom-boooom" and then we heard Toralf Øsknevad's familiar voice: "This is London", followed by the latest news on the situation in Norway and Europe and a confirmation of what we already knew: Norway was once again a free country. Those of us who were here at Garder at this moment were involved in an important event in Norway's history.
Many were embracing each other and crying. Had we really survived the war, and had what we were waiting for for five years really happened and was Norway free again? There were many questions.
This had to be celebrated. Now there was to be a May 17th parade even though it was several days too early. There was a large Norwegian flag and a snare drum. A Fetsund girl took the flag and I - in my capacity as drummer for the YMCA - took the drum and we got the parade going forward down towards Fetsund. The Germans of Vilberg fortress were nowhere to be seen, no other Germans were visible either until we got down to Fetsund itself. I felt very small walking at the head of the parade, which I imagined later, became quite large. We passed the Town Hall and Melnes' store before we saw the first flag besides ours.
People were yelling and singing all the songs that had been forbidden: The National Anthem "Ja, vi elsker", "God save the king" and other near and dear songs that had been forbidden us for several years. We had practiced the time's form of grafitti' and during the war years on walls and railings there had appeared "Long live the king" and "H7" (Haakon VII) written, scratched in or painted during the gloom and dark of the night. The Germans and the Hird (Quisling's paramilitary collaborators) had tried in vain to remove these symbols which now lit our way, we greeted them with shouts of hurrah that echoed off the walls as we approached downtown.
But, what were we to do now? Behind me in the parade they started to shout: Over the bridge! Over the bridge! We marched on and passed the road up to the station and the outhouse that was there then. Then I saw it: The barbed wire, the bunkers, the trenches, the boom and the GUARD, with the steel helmet, boots, gun and hand grenades. The situation became frightening: What now? Continue! was the shout I heard behind me, but my steps became shorter and shorter as the distance to the boom grew less and less. The boom, this hated and physical hindrance, covered in barbed wire, blocked our path to the bridge.
Suddenly the soldier moved, lifted the boom and with a clang of his steel heels presented his gun, as stiff as a tin soldier. With my heart in throat, my pulse racing and sweaty palms around the drum sticks I stumbled passed the guard and the parade continued through the 'hole in the railroad', a little less boisterous than a little while ago.
When we got to the bridge itself we could see right in the bunker that was placed on the east side of the bridge. In the slits we could see faces and helmets, so I was very nervous when I went across the bridge. Flags were waving and people were screaming with joy. We passed the bunker without incident but we had to go back too. The same thing happened again, the north route was also closed off with a boom and a soldier in the sentry house. The boom went up and the soldier saluted as we passed, and we breathed a sigh of relief as we marched on. Nothing unpleasant had happened.
When we got back to the center of town we saw, for the first time, the resistance boys that were taking control of Fetsund. They were staying at the dairy in Fetsund. I saw familiar people in civilian clothes sporting the soon to become familiar armband with the Norwegian flag. The Resistancet leaders had made an agreement with the German High Command that resistance soldiers with this armband would be recognized as regular Norwegian soldiers. The parade ended. There were perhaps not that many in the parade, it was perhaps hardly noticed amidst the joy of the peace. But for me it was something great and memorable that I had been a part of in the first hours of Norway's freedom. The news of peace spread like wildfire now and we could see more and more flags being raised on flagpoles that had gone unused for years.
One of my friends lived near Vilberg. He had gotten to know some of the guards up there and I had been with him a couple of times. It was not exactly correct to visit the enemy in this way, but these were soldiers that had been conscripted into the Wehrmacht and several of them were just 6 or 7 years older than me and had had little chance to do anything about the situation they found themselves in. They looked on our visits as a change of pace and though it was exciting to see soldiers and weapons up close it was the service that attracted us. We got white bread with cheese and jam! And milk to drink. We also got factory-made candy and drops.
The Germans had a well-trained guard dog, a beautiful German Shepherd male. On my way home from a visit to Fetsund I met my friend who had this dog with him. The Germans had just found out that they were to be picked up for transport to one of the POW camps and they had to dispose of all unnecessary things, dog included. The man who was responsible for the dog came crying to my friend and asked him to take him, and after a meeting with his parents he said yes. The dog became of course 'Freddy' and lived out his life as family pet in peaceful Fetsund.
In the space of just a few days our world was turned on end, from being an occupied land things changed completely and we could say, sing and do things that until recently had been expressly forbidden. Several of us heard 'Norway in red, white and blue' for the first time, a song that was sung again and again during these days, together with 'Victory is ours' which was a more or less a 'battle cry' about victory over a dangerous enemy. This 'song' has later developed into a popular 'we have won' song heard at the end of all kinds of athletic events not ending with a draw.
Us boys were on the run 24 hours a day, something was always happening. One day we all went and waited for the 'Swede', the train from Sweden, which was supposed to have some famous people on it this time. We went to the station, the train pulled in, stopped, and there on the step was the 'voice of London' himself, Øksnevad. He gave short speech and congratulated everyone on the peace that had at long last arrived. He challenged people to be calm and not to do things that could have consequences for our future. Also on the train were representatives for the free Norwegian authority and Norwegian police forces. The police consisted of refugees that had been trained in Sweden and were now to help maintain law and order.
Regular Norwegian and allied soldiers were stationed in the area. One day a troop, the "Red Devils" arrived - allied paratroopers with their distinctive red berets. These were tough guys. They gave us chocolate; it tasted great!
The peace process continued as planned. There were few episodes connected to the disarming of the Germans. Most of them were sent back to Germany within the year, but some received prison terms and had to wait a bit longer before being reunited with their 'Vaterland', stripped of any plans for a Great German Empire'.
The peace came, but left us sitting with many thoughts. War is terrible. The only positive thing - if one can use that expression - about such an experience is that the ballast one has received through these experiences can be a good thing to take with you and remember later in life when everything looks black and the situation is tough to handle.
That the future did not become what we had envisioned that summer of peace can only be noted, but that's another story.
Updated 8. May 1999 by The Local History Resource Centre, Fet, NORWAY