One day during the occupation, Jakob Hjelle, a strongly-built man of medium height who had followed his father's footsteps into a peaceful career as a woodcarver, took a bus from Osøyri towards the isolated town of Lønningdal that was used as a base for underground operations because of its remote location. The area around Lønningdal and nearby Øvredal was known as Indregardane (Inner Farms). Because of the scarcity of gasoline in Norway during the war, buses and other vehicles had a gas generator mounted at the rear. The gas generators looked like an old-fashioned cylindrical wood stove. It was always touch and go whether the bus would be able to climb over the steepest hills, and the passengers often had to get out and push it over the last hill.

Hjelle stood at the front of the bus, in the step just inside the door. He had a Colt 45 in a holster under one arm. There was always one control point on the route where passes were checked. Around a bend, a group of Germans were waving the bus to a stop. When the bus stopped and the door opened, Hjelle stepped out so that the soldiers could enter and check passes and luggage. When they were finished and left, he resumed his place inside the door. He was the only one whose pass was not checked.

The soldiers did not have the slightest idea that Hjelle was one of the leaders of the underground resistance in Os. He had turned 28 that fall. Because he was a self-employed woodcarver, he did not have set working hours. He had enjoyed roaming the mountains and forests since he was young, and no one could come and go unnoticed like Jakob Hjelle. The trick of standing in a bus's doorway was just one example of his ability to avoid detection. Over the last few years he had become a full time resistance fighter, with his woodcarving being a perfect cover.

Hjelle was the one person who knew Helén Mowinckel Nilsen's true identity. Mowinckel Nilsen even let Hjelle know where he got his orders from. As the underground organization in Os had developed and formalized, Hjelle was put in charge of one of the two companies and in practice shared command with Mowinckel Nilsen.

Their underground group had a good supply of weapons. From time to time, boats from Shetland carried weapons to Austevoll. The Bergen and Os groups used their own small boats to transport the weapons from Austevoll to Bergen, Os and neighboring areas.

One team, the “Cover Group,” was formed soon after the occupation. The members of this team were responsible for guiding, guarding and supplying food to people who were in hiding. They kept track of rumours that the occupation troops and collaborators had observed suspicious behaviour. Norwegians wanted by the Germans, and sometimes Russians who had escaped from prison camps, hid out in huts and remote camps, especially in the mountainous forests in the eastern part of Os. Hjelle was the leader of the Cover Group and was personally involved in its activities.

The Germans suspected that something was going on in the mountains and patrolled the area. The patrols always came back with the same report “nichts vedächtig zu sehen” (nothing suspicious to see), which was proof of the Cover Group's effectiveness.

In the summer of 1943, the year before the Canadians' emergency landing at Søre Neset, Jakob Hjelle had been arrested and kept in the Espeland prisoner camp near Bergen, along with five fellow underground members. What they were arrested for was not too serious. The Nazis had organized a big event in the town. But when the big day came, with a trumpet blast and chorus from the Germans, not a Norwegian was to be seen.

Jakob Hjelle and five others were accused of organizing the fiasco. While the charge was not baseless, it was very hard to prove. The Germans put them behind bars as a security measure, but mostly for show. After three months, the offenders were released and were back home. Hjelle was delighted that the Germans had had not been able to figure out what he really did. Hjelle lived in Troppabakken, near Osøyri.

The woodcarver was at work in his shop carving the head of a woman when a breathless Mowinckel Nilsen arrived and briefly described what he had just seen. Hjelle exclaimed in response: “No kidding!”

Mowinckel Nilsen went on, “If the landing was successful and the crew was able to escape, we need to contact them before the Germans get them.” The task of making initial contact with the aircrew was assigned to the members of the company in western Os. Hjelle thought that it would be a miracle if they could contact the Allied crew before the Germans got to them, but miracles had happened before. They could only wait for news from Søre Neset, the area where the Wellington had appeared to land, but they had no doubt they would soon hear something.

Mowinckel Nilsen always saw opportunities when others were willing to give up. His optimistic nature did not desert him this time either. He planned to bike into Lønningdal to prepare a possible hiding place for the aircrew. He was aware that they might not be able to rescue the crew, but he had to prepare for the possibility. He had no difficulty imagining what the the Germans would do if the aircrew managed to avoid capture, and he did not want to risk getting captured in the expected all-out search. He therefore thought it advisable to let others make the first direct attempts to contact the crew.

Mowinckel Nilsen and Hjelle agreed that if the crew was captured, a rescue by force was not a good idea because they were expecting a boat from Shetland to deliver a substantial cargo of large weapons and explosives to Austevoll. The planning for that landing required detailed planning and caution and was a major effort. They could risk losing the the supplies by diverting their efforts to an assault on the Germans. Therefore they had to figure out a way of making sure that the crew would not fall into clutches of the Gestapo.

After leaving Hjelle, Mowinckel Nilsen retraced his route on his way east. The same guard was on duty at the check-point. Mowinckel Nilsen nodded to him, pointed in the air, and asked in German: “Dieses Flugzeug, Kein Fliegalarm, warum? (The airplane – no alarm – why?)”

“Weiss nicht (Don't know)” replied the guard with a shake of his head. The bicyclist wished him a good day before continuing on to Lønningdal.

While German officers studied maps of Os and the charts of the fjords to the west in an attempt to coordinate their many patrols, Hjelle picked up up his carver's tool and returned to his workbench but could not stop thinking about what had happened. Later in the day, he left his chisel and took a trip into town.

Hjelle saw a group of soldiers on patrol marching past the church. Some of the soldiers had been been in the village so long they they would give a friendly greeting when they met the locals. The responses were not as friendly – it was not very popular to be on nodding terms with the German soldiers. It was not just the lines and the lack of everything that people were tired of, but the entire occupation. They looked forward to the day when they would no longer be stopped by soldiers and have their passes checked. The annoyances were of many kinds and could happen at any time. They were subject to having their houses searched by soldiers rummaging through drawers and cupboards from attic to basement. Perhaps worst of all was that they could not let off steam by complaining about the situation. If a person was a not careful in choosing words when talking about Germans and Nazis, there was a risk of being taken in for interrogation.

But this day would be different for the people of Os. There was only one subject of the semi-whispered conversations, and that was the fate of the crew of the plane that so many people had seen apparently land.

Hjelle was lucky enough to run into Johan Viken, who was a courier between the resistance group in Os and their counterparts in Bergen. Viken was an athlete and before the war had been a competitive high jumper. He had worked for Milorg for several years, but recently had started working for the XU intelligence unit [18]. Hjelle was one of his main sources of information.

They stood chatting outside a house, trying to look innocent, when they were interrupted by a young cyclist from Søre Neset who stopped and looked at them with an enormous grin.
“They got away!”

He said that a big bomber had landed, using a grassy hill for a landing strip. He explained that the farmer who owned the ground had long planned to plow it up, but now it was plowed without the farmer having to do anything.

When the youngster left, Hjelle said to Viken: “I think we need to get some men over there soon.” Just then, a truck in green and gray camouflage, loaded with soldiers on benches with rifles sticking up between their knees, went past, groaning in first gear as it swung around a bend. It was headed for Søre Neset, and was followed by two men on a heavy motorcycle, with the helmet of a third sticking up from its side-car. Johan Viken had to go to Bergen that day and by the time he left Osøyri, neither he nor Hjelle had heard anything more.

The news that the aircrew had disappeared before the Germans arrived soon spread. People's faces lit up as they heard the news. Many forgot to keep poker-faced; they did not often have the opportunity to smile at the Germans' expense. They were further encouraged because even in the vaunted war propaganda of the Germans, it was clear that the fortunes of war in Europe were not exactly in the Germans' favour.

Jakob Hjelle walked back home and tried to work, but it was slow going. The question that bothered him most was what on earth had happened to the crew of the airplane. Søre Neset was not a large peninsula, just a few square kilometres, so it would not be hard for the Germans to cut off the entire area. Most likely, they had already captured the crew.