October 7 – 10, 1944

On October 7, Gunnar Wiig-Anderson received the following message from Home Station: “Boat arrives Thursday night with Voss radio-operator and equipment. Will you meet the sub-chaser by boat or do we need to contact someone else?”

The next day, Wiig-Andersen replied: “Small motorboat will meet at Følesvåg.”

“Boat arrives Følesvåg Wednesday night to pick up six RAF aircrew and Voss operator. Sufficient storage capacity for 200 boxes weighing 4.5 tons. Boxes can be camouflaged, but not all below deck. Your boat must be on the lookout from sunset to sunrise.”

One evening, Helén Mowinckel Nilsen and one of his men were listening to the BBC in a shed in Lønningdal. Among the coded messages was one that caused their attention: “Keep the meatballs hot.”

Jakob Hjelle also reacted to the message. He was alone with his “Sweetheart” in a cabin in Øvredal when he heard it. “Sweetheart” was the name for radio receivers that were either brought by British agents or airdropped to resistance groups in Norway and the continent. The message meant that they had 48 hours to get the Canadians to the pick-up location in Austevoll.

The inhabitants of Little Canada developed a routine – when they got tired of poker, they would explore the forest, often going up a hill that gave them a view of the surrounding landscape. Øvredal and Olsen visited them most often, and sometimes Lyssand came whistling one of the popular tunes of the time, such as “Pike, fortell meg et eventyr” (Girl, Tell Me a Story) or “Bel Amie.” The Canadians wanted to hear what the Germans were doing to search for them, but the language barrier was a problem and they had only a somewhat hazy understanding of what was going on.

On October 9, Mowinckel Nilsen, Harmens, Øvredal and Hjelle arrived and told the Canadians to collect their belongings and get ready to go. Although they looked forward to their return to Britain, they had some regrets about leaving Little Canada. It had been a safe and peaceful refuge and they had made good friends, some of whom they might never see again.

But they had to go. Mowinckel Nilsen believed that had to go because the Canadians had diverted the underground's attention from their other efforts, which had had ground to a stop with all the resources devoted to trying to help the Canadians.

Former police officer Dyngeland and still strong Communist Olsen wanted to go with the group heading down the hill as an extra escort. Hjelle gave a revolver to Olsen, who checked that it was loaded before he stuck it in his belt. The Canadians turned to get one last view of the rustic cabin that had been their refuge.

They descended the same slopes they struggled up the week before. It was far easier this time. Not only were they going downhill, they did not have to carry heavy backpacks. The Canadians were taken aback when they saw the cliffs and overhangs. They looked at the rocks that had given them such problems on the hike in, and asked if there wasn't some way to go around them. Mowinckel Nilsen replied that that would take too much time. They had gone up it in the dark and could go down it while they still had some daylight. Eventually, they reached the bottom of the hill where they waited until the valley was shrouded in darkness. They set off across the valley, with Hjelle and Øvredal fifty meters ahead of the rest.

At one point they heard a sound from a thicket off to one side. They stopped and listened, ready to fight if attacked, but heard nothing else – they had probably scared away a deer.

They eventually came to a house on the edge of the forest. Hjelle knocked on the door and spoke with the man who answered before he gave the signal for the others to follow. Knut Øvredal and sisters Ingeborg and Marta Øvredal welcomed to the house. Although they were expecting the Canadians, they were visibly nervous. A squad of Germans who had arrived at Lønningdal by boat had been there searching for the Canadians. Hjelle immediate ordered a man outside to stand guard.

One of the Canadians saw a picture of the remains of a bombed building on the front page of a newspaper on a table. Long Kjell explained that the picture was of the school that had been hit during the bombing attack.

They gathered in the dining room for sour cream porridge and smoked meats – a very Norwegian meal. After they ate, the Canadians got to rest for a few hours while some of the Norwegians remained on guard outside.

Firestone had the novel experience of getting to sleep in a bed built into an alcove in a wall. He fell asleep as soon as he lay down, but was soon shaken awake by Mowinckel Nilsen, who stood over him with a belt in his hand and signalled Firestone to be quiet. Mowinckel Nilsen asked him to put the belt on instead of the belt he was wearing. Firestone did as he was asked without question. On Shetland, he was to give the belt to the base commander. The belt carried a message in a hidden pocket. If Firestone were imminent danger of being arrested, he had to destroy the message. Firestone agreed to do as asked.

In the morning, they received news that a German squad was out on patrol. After a quick and very early breakfast, the aircrew set out with Hjelle and Øvredal, while Mowinckel Nilsen and Harmens went by a separate route. Gordon Biddle and his crew shook hands and thanked the family for their hospitality.

Hjelle had ordered extra security in all directions for many miles. Everyone in the group, Candadians and Norwegians were all armed, the airmen with machine-pistols.

One of Hjelle's men, Edvard Lønningdal, tapped into the phone system from his listening post in Lønningdal and listened to every conversation between Lønningdal and the outside world. Another member of the group, Alf Heggland, was stationed in a potato field overlooking the road into town three or four kilometres up the road to Osøyri. To maintain his cover, he was digging up the potatoes.

The Canadians went by dory across Øvredalsvatnet to Lønningdal, and then down to the fjord near where they had landed. From there they rowed into a narrow cove some distance away and were led into a boathouse that was accessible only from the water.

Heggland reported on the underground's private telephone line [31] that a large car with officers and enlisted men had passed them heading into Lønningdal. Hjelle ordered Edward Lønningdal to keep an eye on the car and ordered Haldor Øvredal's brother Fredrik to go to Øvredal to warn Olsen and Trygve Haves, the other man wanted in connection with the explosion in Bergen, so that they could hide in the hills.

But so far the Germans had not noticed anything. They stopped at Ovresdalsvatnet and two enlisted men placed a large telescope on a tripod. An officer came up and used the telescope to search the hillsides and mountain tops. After a quarter of an hour, they took down and stored the telescope. They got in the car and headed towards the shore at slow speed, the officer next to the driver. Edward Lønningdal lay flat on top of a ledge. He saw the Germans stop at the beach, where everyone except the driver got out and looked around, the officer with regular binoculars. But they apparently saw nothing that interested them and all got back in the car an headed out of sight.