The 12th Man

by Astrid Karlsen Scott

The sun had been dazzling throughout their journey, making the snow crystals sparkle like highly polished diamonds. The unending white upland shimmered. When Aslak gathered roots for the fire for late afternoon-coffee he suddenly went snow blind. The intense pain made him unable to scoop up the snow for the coffee pot. Jan knew well what his friend was experiencing and was filled with empathy.

  The three men discussed this new development. Per Thomas said if they were going to get Jan across the border, they had to continue as planned, and leave Aslak behind. Per Thomas would come for him on the way back. Aslak fully agreed, though Jan felt terrible about the situation.

  June 1, 1943: The next morning at two, Jan and Per Thomas readied to leave. The snow conditions were holding good and the wind was tolerable. This close to the Finnish border they were nearing the danger zone. The German patrols were stationed within close vicinity of each other and they were on the alert for fugitives.

  It was a difficult time for Jan in light of the physical suffering and loneliness he had endured during the last two months, and all that his helpers had sacrificed. Would it now all come to naught as they neared the border?

  “Per Thomas, if the Germans come, we cannot, under any circumstances, be taken prisoners.” Jan fondled his gun.

  “I understand. Take my gun Jan, it is better than yours.” He dug out the carbine rifle from the bottom of his pulk, and they exchanged weapons.

  “And here is my knife. It is sharp and will cut straight through!” He handed Jan the knife.

  The men agreed that if a situation should arise where there was no hope for them, Jan should first shoot Per Thomas and then himself. With mixed feelings Jan and Per Thomas left Aslak behind. A mixture of emotions swept over all three of them. They were so close, and yet they could not predict what the next few hours held in store for them.

  “På gjensyn,” so long, a somber Jan waved, but Aslak could not see.

  Coming from the east, they continued south down Sørhellinga toward the lower plateau. In the early morning the reindeer herd reached Lake Coahppejåvri where they stopped for their last rest near the Finnish border. They left the reindeer herd. From here on it would only be Per Thomas and Jan in the one pulk and three of the strongest and fastest reindeer bucks. The third reindeer was brought in case an accident should happen to one of the others.

  The two men descended around the Saana Mountain’s extended valley. Lake Kilpisjårvi, the last stretch of the crossover to Sweden, was in sight. The men’s nerves were taut. Only a few miles to freedom, surely they would make it now. Per Thomas bore down on the bucks; they whizzed headlong across the snow.

  Shots rang out!

  Again and again the shots flew through the air. Jan twisted around to get a look. “They will never catch us Per Thomas, they are too far behind!”

  “May you be right!”

  Per Thomas walloped the reindeer with his whip and they lurched forward at breakneck speed.

  They came out by Saamivaarat on the Finnish side of the border. A short distance away flowed a brook with a bridge crossing over.

  “The Germans have a patrol station close to that bridge,” Per Thomas shouted over the pounding hooves.

  The Germans, some distance behind them, kept firing as they sped across the snow. “They’re lousy skiers!” Per Thomas shouted. He had observed the guards skiing on previous trips.

  He set course for the frozen Lake Kilpisjårvi and whooshed onto and over a narrow protruding headland. Another short distance on the lake and they would be in Sweden.

  “Freedom! Freedom Jan! You are right, they could not catch us!”

  Overwrought with emotion, Jan covered his face in the fur raiment. His body trembled.

  PER THOMAS took Jan to the home of his Sami friends, the brothers Per and Aslak Juhso in Kommavopio, Sweden. From here the brothers took him to Sweden’s northernmost farm in Keinovopio, where the August Jensen family warmly received him. These hospitable people had helped many a fugitive in the past.

  Jan was tended and fed before he was placed in a sleeping bag, lifted into a riverboat, and carefully tied down. The boat rode low in the water and they wanted him secure. Two men sat in the bow and two in the stern; each rowed with one oar. They followed the river along the Finnish border-river Konkama down to Saarikoski. The rowers had a difficult time maneuvering the strong current between the ice floe and rocks. Jan did not like this trip; he felt uneasy tied down and unable to move. After all he had experienced, he feared that this river trip would not have a happy ending.

  The boat made its way through many obstacles until it reached Saarikoski, where the Konkama River widened and turned into a narrow lake. A seaplane had been called in and was on its way. The frozen-over river had to be cleared of ice to enable the plane to land.

  Dr. Englund from Vittange, Sweden had been brought in earlier to watch over Jan and he stayed with him while several men worked to keep the ice from closing in.

  The plane came in low, landed without mishap and Jan was put aboard. The men had to work quickly - the river was icing up fast and all involved were nervous. A disaster seemed imminent. But the pilot, Norberg, was well seasoned and he pulled the plane up at the last second. He and his navigator, Arne Sundquist, flew to Boden in northwest Sweden, where an ambulance was waiting.

  Boden Gardisjon Hospital was under blackout during the night because of the war in neighboring Norway. Nurse Barbro Morin was on duty. A message had preceded Jan, that a fugitive in critical condition would be brought in from Norway sometime during the night.

  Jan was lifted from the ambulance onto a stretcher and hurriedly wheeled through the hospital doors down the long, dim corridor. A kerosene lamp burned at the end of the corridor. Barbro Morin watched as Jan was rolled through the doors. He was lying on his back with his arms under his head. Weary and thin with an ashen face, his long coal-black beard nearly covered all his face but his eyes. He lay there smiling. His chalk-white teeth nearly lit up the corridor.

  Nurse Barbro Morin

  A robust young soldier when he landed in northern Norway two months earlier, Jan now weighed only 80 pounds.

  The attendants unraveled the rags that Jan’s feet were wrapped in. Next was a layer of newspapers, a layer of reindeer hair and another layer of newspaper. The stench from his feet nauseated those in attendance. Nurse Barbro and the other hospital personnel were concerned about inflicting pain on Jan as they removed the bandages, but Jan never complained. He only smiled and showed gratitude.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t hurt me.”

  The condition of his feet was horrid. The putrid smell nearly overwhelmed the nurses. A surgeon with special knowledge in gangrene and transplantation was called in. All were under the watchful eye of Dr. Torben, the hospital’s Medical Director. Jan’s feet and legs were darkish-blue up to his knees, and his hands were in danger of needing amputation as well, as their color matched his legs and feet.

  The doctors told Jan they did not know if they could manage to save his hands and feet, but they would do all they could. They removed as little as possible, then they had to wait and see. The wounds left on the toes Jan himself had amputated were cleaned and trimmed, making them ready for new skin transplantation. Skin from the inside of his thighs was removed to cover the protruding bones on his toes. They healed well and Jan was able to keep the remainder of his feet without further amputation.

  “Jan, we had to burn your clothes. They were so filthy they would be impossible to clean. I apologize,” the surgeon said when he returned the following day.

  “By the way, Baalsrud, while I am here, who amputated your toes? That is one of the finest surgeries I have ever seen.”

  “Thanks, doctor. I was the surgeon,” Jan smiled broadly while the doctor looked at him in stunned silence.

  The Swedish police came to question Jan, but the medical director refused because the patient was too weak. Jan was given two weeks, and during this period he prepared his story. The last time he was in Sweden he
had been asked to leave and he now decided to tell his story as it was. In the meantime he called the Norwegian consulate in Stockholm and let them know one man from M/K Brattholm had survived.

  During the several weeks Jan recuperated in the Swedish hospital, he faced many emotional struggles. He yearned for his family, yet he could not call them in occupied Norway. Jan also missed his deceased buddies, and often he thought of the many people in Troms who’d helped save his life.

  The appreciation he felt for what the Manndalen men and women had done for him held no bounds. Often, in the solitude of the quiet evenings in his hospital bed, he remembered their many kind deeds and words, and their faces came to him one by one – Peder, Nigo, Nils, Olaf. He thought of the many women who had prepared his meals; he might never know who they all were.

  Afterward his mind wandered to his dear friends in Furuflaten, Marius, Alvin, Agnete, Ingeborg, Gudrun and all the others who had risked their lives for him.

  And then he remembered his fallen comrades again and the horrors that had taken place in Toftefjord - and he anguished.

  Even in Toftefjord helping hands had been outstretched toward him, the Idrupsens and the Pedersens. Jan retraced his steps through the mountains and remembered the Heikas and the stalwart Sørensen men, the Løvlis, and dear Peder Nielsen who carried him on his back. And the Samis Aslak and Per Thomas Baal who had snatched him right out of the Germans’ grip and gotten him to Sweden.

  The list was overwhelming. His heart swelled with gratitude and he cried soundlessly for the love and selflessness that these people had shown him, a total stranger. These stalwart people had risked their own lives and families and their villages and had shared all they had. How could he ever repay them?

  The people of Troms had proven to him that evil could never conquer goodness. Hitler’s might and the power of his armies, and the horrors of their brutality, were no match against such people. Evil did not have the muscle to crush the goodness and the decency of the people of northern Norway. Jan had seen freedom in their eyes.

  In the end, as all through the world’s history, he now knew of a surety, that the light of freedom would burst forth to dispel the darkness covering Norway. The land and its people, and all the other lands under the Nazi heel would rise again to the sounds of freedom.

  Jan had learned firsthand from these simple, courageous people that evil can never be gruesome enough to chill the love of freedom, nor to stifle the inborn love for our fellow man.

  Yes, We Love this Land

  As It Rises

  Furrowed, Weathered,

  O’er The Sea with

  The Thousand Homes…

  Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

  Norway’s National Anthem

  EPILOGUE

  JAN BAALSRUD’S story did not end when he reached freedom in Sweden.

  The war’s scars stayed with many of those involved throughout the rest of their lives, especially Jan. He had bouts of depression and nightmares, but Jan, determined and courageous, fought back.

  When he returned to the Shetland Islands following his convalescence in Sweden, Jan taught marksmanship to the men of the Linge Company. At war’s end, he returned to Norway in the Bergen area, and was involved in taking over the Russian prison camps from the Germans. In September of 1945 he left the Navy.

  When Jan’s fallen comrades were taken home to their final resting places, Jan traveled to be with each one of them as they were laid to rest.

  Jan in the Shetland Islands teaching marksmanship

  In 1947 Jan and others originated The Linge Club, and became its first president, a position he held for many years. He was the first honorary member of Den Norske Krigs Invalid Forbund, the Norwegian War Invalid Confederation, and president of the same for eight years. Jan also served as vice-president of the World Federation of War Veterans for six years.

  Jan was actively involved in the establishment of the Bæreia Veteran Recreation Institution for War Invalids at Kongsvinger. He was awarded Norway’s St. Olav’s Medal and the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBO.

  Jan suffered constant pain in his legs and feet after his ordeal in the Arctic. Because of this, he returned to the hospital each winter for treatment. It became apparent that Norway’s cold winters were too difficult for him to tolerate, and he searched for a home in a warmer climate.

  In 1951, Jan married Evie Miller, a Scottish lady from New York. They had one daughter, Liv. When Liv was five years old, Evie died.

  In 1959 Jan married Terese Balmesita, a Spanish woman, and in 1962 they bought a farm on Tenerife, an island off the north African Coast.

  Jan and Terese grew oranges on their farm. When Jan turned 50, his brother Nils Ivar and some friends in Norway sent him three sows and a boar and he became a successful hog farmer.

  Jan died of cancer at Bæreia on December 30, 1987. Because of his many hours of service to the Institution, he stayed bedridden at Bæreia without cost for four months prior to his death.

  Jan’s wish was to be buried among his friends in northern Norway. His ashes were taken to Manndalen and buried with Aslak Fossvoll in his grave.

  Tor Knudsen and Kaare Moursund, the Tromsø resistance leaders, were sent to a concentration camp in Germany where they both died.

  Jernberg Kristiansen and Sedolf Andreassen, the half brothers from Grøtøy Island who offered to store Brattholm’s cargo of explosives and other provisions, were tortured and sent to a concentration camp in Germany where they perished.

  Edwin Wikan, the policeman who tried to forestall the telephone call about the Brattholm men to the Gestapo, today lives on the outskirts of Tromsø. During the war, he was among the many Norwegian policemen who refused to bow to Hitler’s regime. In August of 1943, he was sent to a German concentration camp near Stutthof, Poland.

  Edwin was freed on May 3, 1945, and returned to his work as a policeman in Tromsø. During the late summer of 1945, he was placed in charge of excavating the Brattholm men slain at Grønnåsen Rifle Range.

  Peder Nilsen, who in Tyttebærvika waded from the rowboat to the shore with Jan on his back, lives at Herakleum Retirement Home in Tromsø. He is 87 years old.

  Following the war, Peder continued his work as a fisherman and a small farmer. He also worked at a fish processing plant until his retirement. After the death of their first son Norman, Peder and his wife had three more children.

  On the day of Norway’s Liberation, Peder fixed breakfast and brought it to his wife, who was still in bed. That was the first time she learned of Peder’s involvement with Jan Baalsrud.

  Einar Sørensen, from Bjørnskar, preceded both his wife and father in death. He died on March 24, 1953. Bernhard lived another seven years until February 2, 1960, and Einar’s wife Elna lived until June 12, 1990.

  Marius Grønvoll and Agnete Lanes married. They had five children and built another house on the Grønvoll farm at Furuflaten. Marius continued to be a leader in his village and went into business with Alvin Larsen. He worked with their company until his death. Agnete still lives at Grønvoll Farm in Furuflaten.

  Eliva Hansen and Peder Isaksen were married in October 1943. They had four children. When the Germans scorched the earth in 1944, Peder and Eliva escaped to a mountain cave not far from their home. The Germans did not burn all the homes at the same time. When the Isaksens returned three days later, they found Germans in their home.

  One young soldier found the bed that Peder had built very attractive and wanted it. Peder was furious. “That is my bed!” said Peder, as he yanked the linens off and started dismantlingthe bed. He and Eliva wrapped it carefully and took it, with a few other belongings, aboard the ferry which evacuated the Manndalen people.

  When Peder and Eliva returned to Manndalen after the war, they rebuilt their home and Peder continued as a fisherman and small farmer. Because he was a skilled carpenter, he spent many years helping to rebuild Manndalen. Today Eliva and Peder, both 80 years old, live in Manndalen.

  Alvin Larsen
married his sweetheart Erna Lanes in October 1943. They had eight children. He continued fishing until 1952. Circumstances changed dramatically after the war and fishing became less profitable. With his two brothers and Marius Grønvoll, Alvin started his own construction company, working on projects all over northern Norway. According to Alvin, they “wanted to help rebuild Norway and be able to feed their families.” At 82 years old, Alvin is the same jovial fellow and lives in Furuflaten with his wife.

  Haakon Sørensen, the merchant from Bromnes, was given twelve years at hard labor for his betrayal. His citizenship was revoked for ten years and he was ordered to pay back the 5000 kroner the Gestapo awarded him. Haakon was released after four years in prison. Until his death in 1990, he lived in Bromnes with his wife. They had no children.

  For his betrayal, Sheriff Hoel of Karlsøy was sentenced to fourteen years at hard labor. His citizenship was revoked for ten years and he was ordered to return the 500 kroner the Gestapo had given him. Both the merchant and the sheriff were ordered to pay the court costs. Aldor Ingebrigstsen, a member of the parliament, helped to get Sheriff Hoel’s sentence appraised and he was freed in 1950, having served less than half his sentence. He was 88 years old when he died in 1975.

  JAN BAALSRUD always said, “I am not the hero. The people in Troms are.” It was his lifelong wish that all the people who had helped him would be honored. That has been the goal of the co-authors of this book, to honor the unsung heroes of the Troms district. As we do, we are fully aware that there are so many others throughout Norway and the world who willingly sacrifice to help others, and that Jan and his benefactors are only a symbol of those many others.

  Jan Baalsrud Foundation

  “Many risked their lives and helped one to freedom”

  On June 19, 1989 the Jan Baalsrud Foundation was organized. Established as a private foundation, it received public acknowledgement on October 11, 1990 from the Troms District Governor. The foundation is jointly administered between four municipalities, Kåfjord, Storfjord, Karlsøy and Lyngen. Each community is equally represented in the foundation’s leadership and the general assembly.