Everyone seems to be going to Norway this year. Jon & Sally went to Lapland around the New Year, Ian, one of our yoga chums, went with his partner Mike last week to Bergen for a few days and David & Sally are exploring the fjords in the southwest when it’s warmer later in the year. I realised I already have some lovely memories of this fantastic Scandinavian country and I actually know a real Norwegian, Anders Schonberg, who currently lives in Cascais, Portugal and, with his wife Chloe, runs the AI company Plansom (www.plansom.com). (See PS)
Geographically, Norway is a northern European country of mountains, glaciers and deep coastal fjords. At around 100,000kms, its coastline is the second longest in the world, although this includes their 50,000 islands; the mainland coastline is 2,650kms. Its major land border is with Sweden, but it also borders Finland and Russia. A constitutional monarchy (Note 1), it currently has a population of 5.6 million (8% that of the UK) and enormous wealth due to its oil and gas industry. The country has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, valued last year at $1.4 trillion.
Every year, in recognition of the UK’s support for Norway during WW2, Norway donates a huge Christmas tree that’s erected in Trafalgar Square. Part of that support was the development of tactics to take the war back to Occupied Europe. Operation Claymore, a British/Norwegian commando raid on the Lofoten Islands in March 1941, was the first of 12 commando raids directed against the Germans in Norway. One of the instructors at RMA Sandhurst when I was there was a Colonel Dennis O’Flaherty who, so the story went, had lost an eye during this raid; his eyepatch gave him a piratical look. We cadets didn’t get close enough to determine whether it was true!
In August 1974 I sailed a 42ft yacht from the north coast of Germany to Oslo (see PC 229 ‘Kiel to Oslo’ May 2022). We stopped overnight at Horten on the west of the fjord to recharge the yacht’s batteries.
It was my first time in Oslo and thought it a delightful city, if not a little pricey. I’ve inserted a stock photograph of the grand Oslo fjord, one of the highlights of this 1000 kms trip, as I was using a cinecamera and have no ‘still’ photographs.
In 1976, after 4 years at Regimental duty in Germany, I was posted to UKLF HQ in Salisbury, to a ‘Staff Captain’s role. At the time the headquarters had a total of some 190 officers (this may be not be too accurate!) – a ‘gathering of generals’, a ‘clutch of colonels’, ‘masses of majors’ and about three captains; we felt quite special! I was to be responsible for some of the quartermaster aspects of the UK’s Ace Mobile Force (Land) (AMF(L) & Amphibious Forces– fortunately I didn’t need to complete the Royal Marine Commando course. The AMF(L) was, and probably still is, NATO’s fast reaction force, operating on its flanks.
A couple of months before I joined on 1st January 1977, I had flown from Germany to Oslo, then on to Bergen and caught the train up to Voss, to meet the then current holder of the role, a Major Colin Constable. We stayed in the Fleischer’s hotel where I was introduced to the Norwegian breakfast buffet. If you liked fish or cheese, you would not go hungry. (Note 2) In Voss, some 100kms inland from Bergen, one of my responsibilities would be to find and book accommodation for troops undergoing ‘Winter Warfare Training’.
After a couple of days, we flew back to the UK on a RAF C130 Hercules. On Colin’s advice, I bought some enormous prawns from the fish market in Bergen and put them far up in the tail of the aeroplane, where they froze during the flight to RAF Lyneham.
In April 1977 the AMF(L) held a three-day CPX (Command Post Exercise – no troops) in Bodø, a coastal city just north of the Arctic Circle. It’s always interesting to work with other NATO nationalities, but my memories are of little sun and some wonderful fish!
Captain John Odell, Major Jeff Pink and Norwegian Reserve Colonel Knut Strøm
The next month Major Jeff Pink, Captain John Odel and I joined Norwegian Reserve Colonel Knut Strøm in Voss and spent a week negotiating and securing the accommodation for the 1978 Winter Warfare Training.
Leaving The Army in 1985, I joined Short Brothers’ London Office and was given Scandinavia as my Area of Responsibility, pitching the company’s Javelin SAM system. Sweden made a competing one, so I visited Finland, Denmark and Norway to discuss possibilities. Our local Norwegian agent, an anglophile called Fleming Devor, bought himself a Mark 10 Jaguar to improve his image! We came close to achieving a sale in Denmark, but Norway stayed with its Swedish systems.
And then, in February 2004. I went in search of the Northern Lights, flying to Oslo and north to Tromsø, to join the M/S Polarlys.
The Norwegian company Hurtigruten run these ships rather like coastal buses; people got on and off whenever we stopped on our way to Bergen.
Sadly, the Northern Lights only made a mediocre appearance during our three-day trip and my memory is of cold, of the black & white coastal landscape and of a Force 10 storm as we left the more sheltered inshore waters and headed south towards Bergen.
The captain came around at breakfast asking how we had slept; ‘hanging on in our bunks, Captain’ was the general response – from those of us brave enough to eat anything.
Richard 6th February 2026
Hove
PS We call someone from Sweden a Swede, someone from Denmark a Dane, someone from Finland a Finn, so should we call someone from Norway a Norge …..?
Note 1 King Haakon VII was exiled in London during the Nazi Occupation in WW2. The monarchy is in the news today as the oldest son of Mette-Marit, the Crown Princess, Marius Borg Hoiby, is on trial accuses of raping four women.
Note 2 It’s the same in India. If you like curry, either at breakfast, lunch or supper, or all three, you will not go hungry!
postcards 