{"id":1764,"date":"2019-11-01T21:57:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-02T01:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764"},"modified":"2019-12-06T22:08:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T03:08:03","slug":"raining-in-the-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764","title":{"rendered":"Raining in the mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the story of six Canadian men trapped in Nazi-occupied Norway<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Chris Jones\/Active Senior’s Digest<\/p>\n

War leads to many things \u2013 hate, despair, pain \u2013 but sometimes there are stories which give hope, and shine a light on the good of people.
\nOne such story took place 75 years ago during the Second World War in Norway.
\nSix Canadian soldiers were behind enemy lines after Cpt. Gordon Biddle crash-landed their plane outside of the small village of Os.
\nThey were on the run from Nazi soldiers, but with aide from Norwegian civilians, they all escaped with their lives.
\nIn a war which saw 70 to 85 million deaths, this was the only time a group of soldiers stranded in enemy territory all made it home safe.
\nWith celebrations of the incident\u2019s 75th anniversary now behind him, Devon Biddle reflects on the life of his father, and a time his parents rarely spoke of.<\/p>\n

The senior Biddle was born in Windsor in 1918, and he enlisted in 1940 to join the Royal Canadian Air Force.
\n\u201cDad was good at math and science, so he did achieve the promotion to pilot,\u201d says Biddle. \u201cHe was always very proud of being a pilot, but he didn\u2019t talk very much about the war.\u201d
\nHe explains his mother hated the war, as they married while Gordon was enlisted.
\n\u201cFrom 1941 almost to 1945, he was overseas, and they were apart,\u201d says Biddle. \u201cI think that one of the most difficult parts of that time was when she got this \u2018missing in action\u2019 telegram \u2013 missing, presumed dead \u2013 it was pretty stressful.\u201d
\nThe Second World War began in 1939 with Germany\u2019s refusal to leave Poland.
\nAlthough the Nazi-led nation had already invaded many countries, its refusal to end the invasion of Poland sparked the war.
\nThe war in Europe ended with Germany\u2019s surrender in May 1945, and the death of Fuhrer Adolf Hitler a month earlier.
\nSeveral countries surrendered to the over-powering force of the German army \u2013 including Norway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In 1966, members of the crew and their families returned to Norway to thank the helpers. From left: Maurice Neil, Kjell Harmens, Harvey Firestone (front), Helen Mowinckel Nilsen, and Magnus Askvik.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet, even though Norway\u2019s military surrendered, the people themselves didn\u2019t, as they resisted.
\nBiddle emphasizes the importance of the Norwegians who helped his father, saying they are the real heroes of the story.
\n\u201cMy dad crashed the plane without hurting anybody, but they were really secreted away for two weeks in the mountains and caves by the Norwegians,\u201d says Biddle.
\nHe explains they crash-landed outside of Os in the fall, so the weather was colder and \u201cmiserable.\u201d
\nHis mother got rid of notes and anything else which reminded her of the war, so it wasn’t discussed much growing up.
\nAfter the war, Gordon went to the University of Toronto for engineering.
\n\u201cThere were actually so many servicemen enlisting that they had the school in Ajax,\u201d says Biddle.
\nBiddle doesn\u2019t remember the war, as he was born in 1945, but it’s played a role in his life.
\nHe quips there may have been some correlation with the time he was born and when the war ended.
\n\u201cDad was dad \u2013 he was a good dad,\u201d says Biddle. \u201cHe never swore. Worst thing he would say would be \u2018jeepers\u2019 or \u2018cripes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The plaque in Norwegian, English and French, mounted on its heart-shaped stone. On Sept. 26, 1944 an R.C.A.F. 407 Sqn Vickers Wellington with a flight crew of six crash-landed here. They contacted MILORG who kept them safe then sent them back to England in October1944.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He never had a bad word to say about anyone, says Biddle, including the Germans.
\n\u201cThe Germans were the enemy in World War II, but he praised the Germans for being smart,\u201d says Biddle. \u201cYou had to be smarter than them. There was so many bad things which demonized them, but from his point of view they were smart, and they just had to be smarter.\u201d
\nThe senior Biddle died in 1993, and the younger believes it wasn\u2019t his time.
\n\u201cBut it happens,\u201d he says with a hint of sadness in his voice.
\nGordon died after suffering from complications that developed while fighting leukemia.
\nToday, Biddle lives in Oshawa, and followed in his father\u2019s footsteps in becoming an engineer.
\n\u201c[I have] two brothers, and a sister,\u201d explains Biddle. \u201cOne brother, Anthony, he lives in Oshawa, my sister, Tammy, lives in St. Thomas, and my youngest brother, Ken, is also a civil engineer and lives in Calgary.\u201d
\nBut before starting a family, for Gordon, there was war, and there was Norway.
\nOn Sept. 26, 1944, Cpt. Biddle was piloting his Wellington aircraft over the North Sea. He and his team were searching for German submarines off the coast of Norway when one engine caught fire.
\nAfter throwing out all unnecessary equipment, mines and fuel, Biddle and his team were forced to crash land after the second engine went out.
\nThe only living member of the crew is Harvey \u201cRed\u201d Firestone, who wrote about his time in Norway.
\nBiddle provided Firestone’s manuscript to The Oshawa Express.
\nHe describes the crash in a way some might believe impossible.
\n\u201cAs the crew braced themselves, Biddle swung the plane around into the wind,\u201d writes Firestone. \u201cWithout power, at over 100 knots, he attempted to make a wheels up landing on what appeared to be the only spot possible. We barely missed flying into a house that was in our path as we came down. We did hit a cluster of trees which were a few feet in front of the house with our port wing, shearing branches about six feet from the ground. Biddle brought the tail down first to slow us up and then jammed the nose in. We slewed around and came to a very sudden jarring stop, having landed in approximately 65 feet.\u201d
\nAfter attracting a small crowd of Norwegians, Firestone felt relief to find the crew had escaped the crash with only minor injuries.
\nAfter destroying the plane and attending to any wounds, Firestone says the group of Norwegians had grown to 30 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the gathered group attempted to help or impede us, obviously fearful of what their actions might bring from either the German authorities or the resistance movement,\u201d he writes.
\nThey were then made aware of a group of German soldiers on a nearby hilltop.
\nMagnus Askvik, a teacher in the village, directed the airmen towards the mountains in the east.
\nIn a document provided by Biddle, which was translated from Norwegian, it\u2019s explained Askvik was pointing them in the direction of Bjornen.
\nThey then rid themselves of their Irwin jackets and flying boots, as they would have identified them as enemy soldiers. They also turned their battledress jackets inside out to look more like locals.
\n\u201cI do believe that any German or
\nQuisling spotting us would readily have taken us for what we were: six airmen on the run,\u201d writes Firestone.
\nAfter reaching Bjornen, they met Marta Bruaroy and Inge Bjornen.
\nBruaroy brought them to a small cave in the forest, and returned with Bjornen to give them food and water.
\nEinar Evensen had heard about the plane crash and he was interested in finding out what happened to the six Canadians.
\nUpon further investigation he was asked by Bjornen\u2019s father, Hans, to help the Canadian airmen escape Nazi occupied Norway.
\nBjornen and another local, Johannes Ferstadvoll, took the six men to Trynevika in the dead of night.
\nEvensen and his helpers then took over.
\nAfter being ferried by rowing
\nboats across the fjord (a deep,
\nnarrow and elongated sea or lakedrain, with steep land on three sides), they were housed in a summerhouse in Strono with a German garrison facing them on the other side of a narrow strait.<\/p>\n

A German commander was using the house at the time, but he was in Germany on leave.
\nThey were there for four days, and spent their nights in the house, and their days hiding under a tarpaulin in the forest towards Husfjellet.
\nAfter being shipped around Norway some more, they hid in a hunting cabin in the mountains between Os and Samnanger.
\nEvensen then used his boat to move the Canadians from Sorstrono to Lonningdal.
\nThe boat was rigged to look as though it were a fishing boat looking for tuna.
\nThe trip first went across the fjord towards Vinnes.
\nThere were three men visible on the boat, including Cpt. Biddle.
\nA German patrol boat created some concern among the travelers before changing course.
\nThey made a brief stop for Evensen to tell one of his colleagues he had \u201csix sacks of potatoes\u201d with him.
\nThey used code because the Gestapo, the German secret police, was searching for them, and they did not know who to trust.
\nEventually they were moved to a cabin, where they spent a few days before moving on.
\nAfter a few misunderstandings, and caution in radio communications between Norway and England, the voice on the radio said, \u201ckeep the meatballs warm.\u201d
\nThis meant the airmen were to be ready to move at a moment\u2019s notice.
\nAt noon on Oct. 10, Lars Orrebakken took the Canadian airmen on his boat as well as one other man.
\nThey navigated through German watch boats and submarines before reaching Khjopmannsholmen, where there was an old boathouse.
\nThey were then told to wait there for a boat from Shetland.
\nAfter a three day delay due to bad weather, they received the message, \u201cWe walk on rubber shoes.\u201d
\nEscape was on the way.
\nThe next day, according to the Norwegian account of the event, everything stopped in Os, Samnanger, and Austevoll for a moment when they heard \u201cIt rains in the mountains\u201d over the radio.
\nThe Canadians had made it back to England and were safe.
\nLater on, it was learned there were roughly 4,000 German soldiers looking for the six airmen.
\nBiddle recently went to Norway for a commemoration of the rescue.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s 50 of us going back, which is a good representation of the families\u2026 just to thank the Norwegians,\u201d says Biddle.
\nThis was the only time in the Second World War where everybody in a crew this size made it home safely and unharmed from an emergency landing in occupied German territory.
\nBiddle wishes to emphasize the work the Norwegians did to save his father, noting no Norwegian citizen gave up the airmen\u2019s position despite enduring torture and extreme duress from the Germans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the story of six Canadian men trapped in Nazi-occupied Norway By Chris Jones\/Active Senior’s Digest War leads to many things \u2013 hate, despair, […] Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nRaining in the mountains - Active Senior's Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Raining in the mountains - Active Senior's Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is the story of six Canadian men trapped in Nazi-occupied Norway By Chris Jones\/Active Senior’s Digest War leads to many things \u2013 hate, despair, […] Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Active Senior's Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-02T01:57:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-12-07T03:08:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/biddle.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"650\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"active\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/\",\"name\":\"Active Senior's Digest\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/biddle.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/biddle.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":650,\"caption\":\"Devon Biddle holding a photo of his father and four of the other airmen.\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/activeseniorsdigest.ca\/wp_activeseniorsdigest\/?p=1764\",\"name\":\"Raining in the mountains - 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