Hot Porridge
True to his word Nilsen arrived back about a half hour later and with him were two men. We were on the move again; following them for about a half hour, we eventually turned into a lane-way leading to a farmhouse. We hurried up the lane to the house and crowded in the entrance to remove our boots and shoes. Three other men nodded greetings to us, one who spoke English very well indicated that we should take seats around a very large table set in the middle of the dining room, which was just inside the entrance. As we sat around the table we noticed that two women were busy in the kitchen, which was situated just off the dining room.
Nilsen explained that we were going to have some hot food, rest for a while and then we would be on our way once again. He explained that we had a rather tough trip ahead of us and that he hoped that we were used to hiking up mountainsides.
Years later we learned that we were in the home of Martha and Valentin Valentinsen. After each of us were handed a cereal dish and spoon, food, which turned out to be a massive bowl of porridge, was served. The bowl was set in the middle of the table and we helped ourselves. Having had so little food during the previous six days we were famished and we set in with a vengeance.
As we ate, Nilsen asked us where we were based in England. We explained that we were not going to give him any information relating to ourselves other than our rank, name and serial number. He smiled and said that everything would be all right, that we had nothing to worry about.
He identified himself as a Norwegian agent and said that he was connected to and in radio contact with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) dealing with the planning and execution of sabotage and other secret operations in Norway. He commented that he had spent some months in Scotland for training and had been parachuted back to Norway to help organize and train the resistance groups in the area. We hoped that what he was telling us was the truth, but we became suspicious of him when he continued asking questions about the location or our squadron, its strength, and the type of operations we carried out. We explained to him the classified nature of his questions and that we could not possibly give him the information he wanted. He persisted, attempting to allay our fears by telling us more about his escape from Norway to England, his subsequent training and his mission in Norway.
Once again we developed misgivings about the group we were with. As men tioned before we knew that German intelligence employed many varied means of obtaining information from downed airmen. We wondered if he was imparting the information about himself in order to get us to let our guard down. We became very apprehensive but did our best not to show our concern. We wondered if all that had taken place since our rescue from Bjørnen could have been an elaborate scheme to obtain information from us.
We reiterated our intention not to give him information that we considered to be classified. Apparently realizing that he was not going to succeed in obtaining the sort of information he had requested, Nilsen explained that it was imperative we give him some proof of our identification. He required it, he said, to enable him to satisfy Intelligence in England that he was indeed in contact with our crew. He further explained that some of the psychology used to try to make the German task to find us more difficult had backfired in a strange manner. In order to keep the Germans from spreading out in their search, the Milorg had started the rumour that the plane that had crashed contained eight commandos who were heavily armed. This explained the frenzied activities of the Germans in their search for us. They surely would not have spent the manpower and equipment they disbursed in their search for us had they known that we were just six lightly armed airmen.
He had sent a courier to Bergen with instructions to advise England that he was in contact with a crew that had crashed. In attempting to convey as much information as possible, in his radio message to England, the radio operator, having heard the rumour but not realizing the truth, sent a message that indicated that Nilsen was in contact with a crew of eight and not six. This caused quite a flap in England and Nilsen was asked to identify the crew in some manner before any action would be taken. We, after a fair amount of discussion, settled on my nickname as the means of identifying our crew. Having red hair, I was known to one and all as "Red". No one on the squadron referred to me in any other way. In his next communication with SOE one of the crew was identified as "Red".
Nilsen then told us that as we were poorly shod for the next leg of our trip, arrangements had been made for us to have a change of footwear where possible. They then took out a number of pairs of old rubber boots and some heavy old wool socks. We were more than happy for the change in footwear. I in particular had been without shoes since the first day. To make matters worse, I had burned holes in my socks on the lantern at Strono, in an attempt to dry them. We were given added articles of clothing which we pulled on over our battledress tunics. We were each given a backpack to carry and, thanking Martha Valentinsen for the food, we were on our way once again.
Fortified by the food we had eaten, and rested somewhat since arriving at the boathouse about two hours earlier, we headed out the lane towards the narrow road that ran alongside the small farm. We were undeniably a very motley lot. The boys in the crew were all now adorned with borrowed clothes over their battledress, some with head-covering and some without. The Norwegians all wore waterproof hats and coats as protection from the rain, we however did not.