Wilhelm Mohr

PART IV – 9 April – From the Past to the Future
on fire. At least, this was the case for the pilots of my age; the English
will have to express their own reaction themselves. A Norwegian
military agreement with Great Britain was first established on 26 May
1941, when Trygve Lie took over as Foreign Minister. Much came out
of the so-called ’Camp Little Norway’, by the way. It became a beacon
of recruitment and in an admirable tempo we had our four Norwegian
Squadrons established and put into operational duty in Iceland, Scotland
and southern England. Yet what would have happened if the Royal
Air Force had not won the Battle of Britain
For my part, I ended up in one of the two Norwegian fighter squadrons.
These were put under the operational command of the RAF, and it was
a privileged group that was given the opportunity to retaliate against
the enemy. There was no uncertainty or doubt; we had top material
and we had ourselves. The tasks and usefulness gave deep satisfaction,
whereas the gratitude towards allied friends is trivial. The latter took
losses too, for their own sake and for ours.
Is it strange, then, that it is the contrast between this and the experiences
from Norway that is the most glaringly obvious The War
could have shown many positive sides at home, even impressive ones
during the least favourable conditions. Yet there were also some aspects
that were anything but good. For instance the work on Værnes airfield
already mentioned, and later the notions of ’the cooperative line’ 38 at
home in Norway, in its various forms and shapes, and also the presidency
that wanted to remove the King, and so forth – it was not easy.
As previously mentioned, even in England we experienced Norwegian
political hesitation, and the less contact with this environment the better.
The King, yes, but that was about it. And therefore the King’s loyalty
to the Government was both admired and respected. What would
the Norwegian foothold have been like without him
However, this did not preclude us from seeing positive sides as well.
The Merchant Fleet was followed with respect and admiration, and
38 In Norwegian: `samarbeidslinjen’.
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