The Greatest Commemoration, Part III
By Mitch Berg
Today is the 63rd anniversary of D-Day. And as we get ready for Saturday’s dedication of the Minnesota World War II Memorial, it’s an especially-important anniversary.
The Minnesota Historical Society has been collecting Minnesotans’ stories from the war. Their collected D-Day and Normandy Campaign stories are very well worth a read.
And for Minnesotans of Norwegian descent, it’s worth noting that 37 Norwegians died on D-Day – most of them aboard the HNoMS Svenner, a borrowed British destroyer that was sunk while providing fire support along a British invasion beach. While Norway contributed the term “Quisling” to the English vocabulary, the Norwegian resistance was larger (as a percentage of the population) than any other in Europe save Denmark’s; Norwegian commandos succeeded in shutting down the heavy water plant on which the German nuclear weapons program depended, and provided thousands of men for the Norwegian Navy and Air Forces in exile.
But how does this connect with Minnesota?
More on that tomorrow.
June 6th, 2007 at 7:45 am
As a Norwegian-American, I look forward hearing more on this. And I am not protesting Ken Burns for not singling out my people in his new project.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:54 am
The Norwegians also assisted in identifying and with the planning of the attacks on Tirpitz, eventually leading to her being sunk.
June 6th, 2007 at 9:45 am
64th? hmmm Don’t understand that 2007-1944= 63
June 6th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I think it was NBC News last night that had a story about the Nazis making lots of blonde haired, blue eyed babies in Norway, and how wretchedly those nasty Norwegians were to these children after the war.
The MSM can find a gray cloud in any silver lining.
June 6th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Stupid MSM. Angryclown can’t believe they’d be able to find something negative in a war that killed 60 million people.
June 6th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Believe it angryclown! 🙂
The MSM may be as stupid as angryclown thinks, but if something negative happened they will surely report it.
Well, maybe. If it suits them, I mean. If it doesn’t, they might not. If they think they have to (like when everyone knows it already), they may ‘surly’ report it.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:35 am
How long did it take the Krauts to take Norway anyhoo?
I mean, in hours.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Well, JB, I’m gonna have to inflict a little history on you. Hope this doesn’t hurt too bad.
Norway was saddled with a socialist government that officially believed that all belligerents were equally wrong, even in self-defense. They flirted with the idea of abolishing the military altogether – the average Norwegian Navy ship had been built before 1914, and there was almost no regular army at all. The government was JUST starting to wake up to reality, that neutrality needs to be defended, the way the Swiss and the Swedes did, a few years before the war started – they built a couple of new ships, bought some British fighter planes, started thinking about re-equipping and expanding the Army, which was almost entirely reservists – but it was far too late. So Norway was woefully ill-equipped to fight a war in April of 1940.
Still, they gave the Germans some very bloody noses. A forty-year-old torpedo fired from shore sank the German cruiser Blücher and the battalion of German infantry it was carrying, blocking a ship channel and giving the Royal Family (and a good chunk of the Army) time to escape. The Air Force, flying the few Gloster Gladiator biplanes that had escaped the initial air raid, shot down far more German planes than they lost, including intercepting and shredding a large group of German transport planes hauling troops that were supposed to reinforce the airborne attack on Oslo, killing hundreds.
The Germans took Oslo and the major ports quickly, but the remaining Norwegian troops made the attack to the north a slow, bloody slog. The Norwegian resistance tied down 17 German divisions for the whole war.
And Norway learned a few things the rest of Europe should have; they adopted a reserve system similar to the Swiss and Israelis (guys serve in the reserves, keep their rifles at home); their Navy was entirely designed to shred invasion fleets; their Army and Navy special forces are as good as any in the world, and were among the first NATO troops sent to Afghanistan. During the Cold War, the Norwegian military (when fully mobilized) was among the largest in NATO, per-capita.
While I doubt JB’s invincible preconcepetions have been scratched, hopefully this little excursion into fact has been education for someone.
I mean, at least Norway fought.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
You’re right that the ‘Wiegans fought: 5,000 of them joined the Nazis in fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front.
Wrong enemy, but at least they were fighting.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
jb said:
“fighting the Russians”
Perhaps they were just ahead of their time. 😉
June 7th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
JB,
Your numbers are cherry-picked as carefully as always. But JB, you should know by now – while you are never equipped to go head-to-head with me on any subject, you are even more woefully-overmatched than normal, since this is one of my big subjects:
5,000 of them joined the Nazis in fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front.
Context please! What? You don’t have any?
Nazi recruitment efforts in Norway were less fruitful, per capita, than in most other European nations.
Many, many more crossed the North Sea to fight in the forces in exile: the Army (by far the smallest arm) had 4,000 officers and men, plus several other units, for a total of over 6,000 men. There were 13,000 more who crossed into Sweden and joined another army in exile there – but the Swedes used them to help defend Sweden.
The Norwegian Navy in Exile had 58 ships and 7500 men, while the British RAF had two Norwegian fighter squadrons manned by hundreds more Norwegians (331 Squadron was the highest-scoring squadron in the southern UK after 1941). And 92% of the Norwegian Merchant Marine – the world’s fourth-largest at the time – docked at Allied-controlled ports; its 1,000 ships and 27,000 merchant sailors were a key part of supplying the war effort around the world.
Finally, 50,000 Norwegians were active in the underground; as a result, Norway was the most heavily-garrisoned nation in Europe, with one German for every eight Norwegians.
The Norwegian resistance’s efforts to smuggle its Jewish citizens to safety were outstripped only by those of the Danes; less than 1/4 of Norway’s Jews died during the war, and the vast majority were smuggled to safety in Sweden.
So you have 54,000 in service in exile (between Army, Navy, Air Force, Merchant Marine and the troops in Sweden), plus 50,000 more in the underground, in a nation of less than four million. Which, my my count, outnumbers your little pack of collaborators about 21 to 1. Which is my usual margin of victory when you and I disagree.
Let’s face it – Norway, fighting against both a Nazi attack and the scource of short-sighted pacifistic socialism, kicked ass.
So what did YOUR anscestral homeland do in the war?
Perhaps you should go back to sucking up to Vox Day.
June 8th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Wait, did MITCH just mention something about “sucking up”? You are the suck up non-pareil (little Eric Black reference there).
But anyway, the bottom line is that Norway was easily invaded by the Nazis and taken over. They did what they pleased for as long as they wanted. They didn’t leave because the resistance defeated them, they left because they had to fight a real army in their homeland.
The country was humiliated. The men were cuckholded while the women hooked up with the conquering Krauts. Can you imagine what it must have been like after the Germans skidattled and these Norweigan broads had to go back with their men?
“Uh, sorry about that whole German soldier thing, but you know, you guys did lose the fight.”
Why you think it so important to keep this myth of the Fierce Norweigan alive is beyond me.
June 8th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Oh, btw, I’m a Kraut-Mick and have never thought for one second about my “ancestral homeland”. I could care less.
I’m an American.
June 8th, 2007 at 8:05 am
I’m a Kraut-Mick and have never thought for one second about my “ancestral homeland”.
Since the subject is WWII, that’s probably a good thing.
I’m an American.
Yet another area where I surpass you.
June 8th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Why you think it so important to keep this myth of the Fierce Norweigan alive is beyond me.
Um, it’s neither “important” – just something I do for fun – nor a myth. Your clairvoyance is no better than it ever was, J.
Look – I provided the numbers that debunked your little slur. You respond with norwegian jokes and sputtering and “I know you are, but what am I” and what looks like a lot of anger – basically acting like a liberal socialist, which kinda makes me wonder what IS tucked back in that emotional closet.
And why it’s so important to you to try to stamp the “myth” out on my little blog is, well, kinda weird.
Just let it go, JB. I beat you at every turn without breaking a sweat, and it’s not gonna get any better.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Your numbers were bunk.
So about 50,000 Norweigans were in the military and fully TEN PERCENT of that number fought for the Germans?
Even taking your dubious estimate of another 50,000 cuckholds hiding in barns who would blow up a german half-track once a month, that’s still five percent of the militants who fought for the wrong side.
Again, the bottom line is that 5,000 Norweigo-Nazis is a pretty big number for such a small country.
It pokes a huge hole in your theory.
And, btw the reason I do this is that it’s fun and you usually offer up juicy targets.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Your numbers were bunk.
Ah. “Bunk”. Well, that settles it, then.
I cited actual sources. You recycle Norwegian jokes and run off at the mouth.
You argue like a liberal!
It pokes a huge hole in your theory.
Quoting made-up slurs pokes a hole in actual numbers from official sources?
And you got through college exactly how?
And, btw the reason I do this is that it’s fun
Dude. Whatever floats your boat.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:55 am
you usually offer up juicy targets.
I supposed when you’re just making up things as you go along, everything is a “juicy target”.
Hey, JB! Hockey was developed by the commies as a way of making Americans too toothless, drunk and concussion-addled to resist!
Damn, now you’re a “juicy target”
I can see the attraction!
June 8th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Let’s look at the Norway/German invasion thing with an analogy.
There is a guy. Let’s call him Sven. He lives in his house with his wife. He has plenty of food in the house and quite likes his life.
A house or two down a bigger, stronger dude named Gunter moves in. He’s got serious brawling skills and isn’t afraid to use them. He makes no bones about the fact that he might like to live in a few other people’s houses, since his isn’t big enough and he doesn’t mind a little “strange” every now and again.
Sven, owing to various and sundry personal shortcomings doesn’t prepare for the obvious that is about to happen to him. He doesn’t get any weapons, or start working out to get stronger. He just sits around.
One day Gunter knocks on the door and asks if he can live in Sven’s house for a while, because, he wants to. Sven approaches him, but Gunter throws him violently down to the ground. Sven quickly goes to hide in the basement.
Gunter moves in and eats all of Sven’s food. He sleeps with Sven’s wife whenever he feels like it and doesn’t even have the common courtesy to cuddle her.
About once a month, Sven gets up enough courage to sneak upstairs and give Gunter a hotfoot while he’s sleeping. It’s annoying, but doesn’t keep him from doing whatever the hell he wants in Sven’s house whenever the hell he wants. Sven plans and plans to take Gunter out for good, but the time never comes.
Then one day, Sven sneaks upstairs to find Gunter gone. It turns out that some dudes had been trying to break their way into his old house so he decided to go defend that, plus he was tired of Sven’s wife.
That pretty much sums up what happened to the ‘Weigans.
What you seem to be blind to Mitch is the national character that allowed such an invasion to take place. Your excuse was that they had a socialist government. Yes! THAT is part of why Norwiegans have a flawed national character.
They took a total hosing in the war and then later tried to re-write history so they didn’t look like such losers.
June 8th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Your numbers were bunk.
Seriously, JB, this is kinda ridiculous. As the man said, “you’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts”.
I cited real, official, historically-verified numbers.
You responded with…crap. The kind of stuff that’d get you laughed out of any serious debate, classroom, discussion, whatever.
To put it in leftyblogger terms (since you seem to be more like one of them than one of us), “Why do you hate facts?”
June 8th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Sven is actually a Swedish or Germany name.
Svein would be the Norwegian variant.
I am beginning to question jb’s authority on “all things Norwegian”.
June 9th, 2007 at 10:17 am
JB,
Before I destroy yet another of your “arguments”, I have to ask – did you “debate” like this in college? I mean, since you went to the “U”, I had the pleasure of supporting your education with my hard-earned tax money, so I’d like to know if this is the best the “U” can do. Yeep.
Your analogy is as good as the rest of your “argument” – not very.
If you can show me numbers
at all, for any claim you ever makeshowing me that Norwegians were more apt to, um, fraternize with Germans than any other conquered people, feel free toshow actual data, rather than chattering “bunk bunk bunk” like an overly-precious four-year oldpost ’em. Simple fact is that Norway is one of the few nations from the war that recognized the plight of the children of those, um, fraternizations, and did something about it.And since I’m the only one that’s referred to actual history, it’d seem you, rather than Norway, are the one “rewriting history” – and in so doing, acting, yet again, in absolute absence of the truth, which is pretty much wrong, if you believe in things like “ethics” and “right and wrong” and stuff like that. In other words, you’re “arguing” like one of those socialists you claim to detest so badly.
Hmmm.
June 9th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Angryclown doesn’t know a whole lot about Norway’s role in WWII (gotta memorize the Shaun Cassidy catalog, learn Urdu first) but he’s gotta give this match to the home team, by a knockout. Sven and Gunter? Weak. Nice job Mitch. Especially if it turns out some of your facts are accurate!