Wilhelm Mohr

PART III – Friends and Allies: A Wartime Memoir
On this latter point of language and acceptance, I may add that we
soon learned the value of a small ’Sir’ at the end of crucial sentences.
Whilst the RAF Station was our true home, we also got a feeling for
the strengths and character of individuals in the local population. We
benefited from the consideration and appreciative spirit carried forward
from the time when Churchill would offer ’nothing but blood, tears
and sweat’. As part of the Royal Air Force we were readily accepted and
treated as equals. I am confident that my fellow compatriots in the navy
and the Army had similar experiences.
This feeling of integration was brought home to me directly one evening
at our local pub in Epping, when a stranger just came up to me,
undid his lucky ’grout’ from his wristband and gave it to me saying that
I needed it more than he did. Then he just made off, probably to avoid
the embarrassment of my protesting or of the offer of thanks.
We had an unflinching faith in the RAF’s leadership. We had the
best of equipment and training and we shared real comradeship. We
were indeed a privileged group. Despite all the losses we suffered, the
opportunity of being useful gave us deep inner satisfaction.
By the time of the Allied invasion, the RAF was keen for us to participate.
As a result, a Norwegian Tactical Wing was formed, fully mobile
and counting about 750 personnel of all branches and ranks. We felt
trusted. We also felt, modestly, as is the Norwegian way (!), that we had
accounted for ourselves.
From ’D’ Day through the fighting and moving forward to the
Dutch-German border when the War came to an end on 8 June 1945,
the relationship between the RAF and the ’Norses’ had only deepened.
The equality, consideration and recognition of the merits shown at all
times to us by the RAF was appreciated by our aircrews and ground
crews alike.
Our eventual return to Norway was an endless joy. HMS Devonshire
returned to Oslo with the King exactly five years to the day after leaving.
Norway was a reunited nation, though conditions and circumstances
had kept us apart for those five years. Now followed the task of
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