The seamens speaks Out
Here we will briefly present the 10 sailors whose diaries and letters constitute part of the text for the War Sailor's Requiem
Adam Egede-Nissen
Adam Egede-Nissen, born in 1911 in Oslo, served as a medical officer during the war and was a passenger on M/T "Nyholt" when she was torpedoed on January 17, 1942, in the North Atlantic. Soon after, Egede-Nissen vividly recounted the long and extremely arduous lifeboat journey where his shipmates froze to death one by one around him. Egede-Nissen became a prominent advocate for the seamen's cause after the war, likely being the first to use the term "seamen's syndrome" to describe the psychological aftereffects experienced by many sailors.
Nils Bjørnsson
Nils Bjørnsson, born in Stavanger in 1915, served in the Navy throughout the war as a deckhand and artillery sailor on several vessels in convoy escort duty, experiencing a torpedo attack himself in 1941. One of the tasks of naval vessels was to rescue stranded sailors from the sea. However, they were only able to save very few, which haunted many of them for the rest of their lives. In 1955, Bjørnsson lost both arms in a work accident. Nevertheless, he understood the necessity of documenting his traumas, and towards the end of his life, he published the book "To Be or Not to Be: Under the Naval Flag in the Second World War."
Ole Hegre
Ole Hegre was a telegraphist, born in Oslo 1897. He wrote a long letter in diary style to a friend in the United States from D/S "K. G. Meldahl" in convoy across the Atlantic Ocean in the fall of 1941. Here, he describes the nerve-wracking wait from day to day for the explosion - which never came. He concludes many paragraphs in the letter with "We carry on," a repetitive literary device that formed the basis for a shanty in the War Sailors' Requiem.
Hans Petter Henriksen
Hans Petter Henriksen was born in 1885 in Lista and served, among other roles, as the second mate on D/S "Sjofna" along the English coast and kept diaries throughout most of the war. He detailed the daily German air raids and how fear took hold of the crew. When "Sjofna" ran aground on November 23, 1944, the diaries from the past years were lost.
Dag Midbøe
Dag Midbøe was born in 1923 in Skudeneshavn and served as an engineer on various tankers throughout the war. He survived the torpedoing of M/T "Leiv Eriksson" on June 27, 1942. In the 1980s, he began writing about life as a wartime sailor, resulting in the book "50 Convoys," a vivid depiction of camaraderie, daily life, drama, and fear. In an interview with Magne Misje, he also expressed bitterness over Norwegian society's lack of understanding and recognition of the sailors' efforts.
Harald Nicolaisen
Harald Nicolaisen from Oslo, born in 1914, served as the second mate and telegraphist on the tanker "Beduin" until it was torpedoed on March 16, 1941. After being rescued ashore, he wrote a longer manuscript called "With 11,000 Tons of Aviation Fuel over the North Atlantic." The manuscript seems to be based on diary notes and includes descriptions of the crew's reactions to several torpedoings of tankers in the convoy in the days leading up to their own hit. The manuscript is published on the War Seamen Register website.
Oskar Pedersen
Oskar Pedersen was born in 1918 in Spangereid at Lindesnes. He served as an engineer, stoker, and sailor on various boats during the war, surviving torpedo attacks both on the south coast of Britain and in the Atlantic Ocean. His account is recounted in "Seamen at War" by Aage A. Wilhelmsen.
John Oskar Skjold
John Oskar Skjold was born in 1918 and resides in Halden. He served as an engineer on D/S "Borgholm," which sailed with D/S "Biarritz" from the Netherlands in January 1940. The crew of "Borgholm" witnessed the torpedoing and sinking of "Biarritz" on January 25 before the attack on Norway. Clearly in shock, Skjold immediately wrote a disturbing letter to his wife, Amy, back home in Norway. However, in April 1940, Skjold was home on leave and he didn't manage to get back out before Norway was occupied, thus joining the home fleet. He died in an Allied air raid on D/S "Breda" on September 6, 1944. His former ship, "Borgholm," sailed from Norway two days before the invasion and returned home unscathed in 1945.
Herman Torgersen
Herman Torgersen, born in 1895 in Larvik, was a steward on the American freighter S/S "Raceland" bound for Murmansk in March 1942. The ship lost its convoy and was sunk in an air attack on March 28 between Bjørnøya and Nordkapp. Torgersen joined a lifeboat that sailed through storm and winter cold for eleven days without food or drink. Many went insane and froze to death along the way. The survivors, in a desperate state, washed ashore in Norway, where they were arrested and sent to a prison camp in Germany. He was released and sent home in November 1943. The journalist Lise Lindbæk published the anthology "A Thousand Norwegian Ships Both During and After the War," and in the 1947 version, we find Torgersen's account.
Leif Vetlesen
Leif Vetlesen, born in 1921 in Oslo, served as a sailor on several Norwegian ships during the war. He later became one of the central spokespersons for the seamen's cause and has written several books about the wartime sailors. In the War Sailor's Requiem, excerpts from his poem "The Sea, Death, and Love" can be heard, which was also featured in the NRK series "Eternal Honor" from 1995.