The Shetland Bus, by David Howarth

This book, which was written by the late English historian who was also profoundly involved in espionage efforts in occupied Norway during World War II, is obviously the work of someone of great skill who is writing a war memoir that manages to give a great deal of honor and praise to the brave volunteer Norwegian refugees in the Shetlands who helped popularize a new expression in Norwegian and show their loyalty to the Allied cause during that nation’s dark hour under German misrule. The expression “taking the Shetland bus” became a way to refer to escaping from an intolerable situation, and the awareness that there was a link between Norway and the outside world free from Nazi oppression likely made dealing with such experiences at least a little bit easier to those who were trapped in Norway during those years, although many people seem to have been motivated by that experience to leave Norway after the war, because home had become filled with too many bad memories, I suppose [1]. That is something that I can understand better than most, and though the author was apologetic for writing so much about himself in these pages, his prose is so achingly beautiful and clearly written with obvious suffering from the war that I am inclined not to complain that so much about himself ended up in these pages. If we make history and write history, we cannot help but be in the history, after all [2].

In its contents, this war memoir is slightly over 200 pages and contains 15 chapters of very uneven length, mostly focusing on the time between 1940 and 1943. The author discusses the early and massive escape of refugees from occupied Norway, their establishment of several bases in the remote Shetland Islands, which are lovingly discussed, and the rivalries that existed between the decidedly informal operation that Howarth was involved in as the second-in-command and the Norwegian fleet-in-exile, which did not have the sort of tradition or longevity to be able to handle the decidedly irregular attitude of the people Howarth helped lead. The author discusses logistical matters of how to set up a base and take care of a fleet of small fishing boats that were sent towards the coast of Norway in an attempt to blend in with the local fishing boat population until fuel scarcity made it impossible to continue to send slow fishing boats and the fleet was outfitted with sleek American boats, discussed in the epilogue. The author discusses a variety of efforts at putting agents into occupied Norway for various acts of sabotage as well as extracting agents and refugees and the fiances of various volunteer seamen. One of the chapters discusses the story of Jan Baalsrud, which is given at length in another one of the author’s books and in one of the greatest Norwegian movies of all time [3], and the book as a whole is filled with the tension between a historian seeking to write as accurately as possible and the melancholy and haunted man faced with the ghosts of many dead men on his conscience who worked mostly in a logistical position on base while people risked their lives for the freedom of their nation.

This is a book that serves many worthwhile purposes. It shows careful research, colorful first-hand experience, and is clearly written by someone who suffered greatly in his efforts to help the war effort. The stories in this book give honor and credit to the courageous men and women of Norway both among those who stayed at home and risked their lives and freedom to oppose Nazi tyranny however they could and to those who fled into exile and attempted to help their country from abroad. The book speaks knowledgeably about problems of espionage, the risks of falling into German hands, the cat and mouse games played by the British navy and the Germans, and the logistical capacities of the various nations during the war. As this book is a chronicle of obscure action in an often-forgotten front of the war, it is a book that is worthy of being read by those who are interested in such matters as World War II history, espionage, logistics, and naval history, as well as those who are generally fond of reading about British and Norwegian history. As this is a large potential audience, this is a book that will likely be appreciated by audiences for a long time to come.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/it-could-happen-to-you/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/its-all-coming-back-to-me-now/

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/the-military-historian-and-the-fog-of-war-a-case-study/

Some examples of the author’s achingly beautiful prose include the following samples:

“The last of the crew of Vita was Jens Haldorssen. He was a quiet, gentle, and studious man. His quietness made him conspicuous in our gang, most of whose members were extrovert and noisy, and his appearance also was not what one would expect in a seaman of proven toughness. With a thin ascetic face, and large calm and innocent brown eyes, he looked more like a priest or a poet. He spoke fluent English with an idiom all his own, and I always enjoyed hearing him telling a story in a slow, rather mournful voice, in which the most powerful swear words passed almost unnoticed (30).”

“When our friends in the base disappeared in this way we could not forbear to speculate on the possible causes of their deaths, though we knew such speculation was useless. From the loss of Blia the image of a dreadful scene of suffering and fear, of revolt against an inescapable fate, or of resignation as the end could be seen to be approaching, will always remain with us and haunt us, and remind us that though wars can still bring adventures which can stir the heart, their true nature is of innumerable personal tragedies, of grief, waste and sacrifice, wholly evil and not redeemed by glory (77).”

[3] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/book-review-we-die-alone/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/23/movie-review-ni-liv-nine-lives-1957/