With the help of many locals, he managed to reach Sweden, but not entirely intact, as he was forced to amputate most of his toes because of frostbite he developed while in a snow cave. Advertisement When he arrived in a hospital in Sweden, Baalsrud weighed 80 pounds. Jan married Jovelyn Evy, Miller Baalsrud in 1951, at age 33. Over the course of a few months, Jan Baalsrud (Thomas Gullestad) survives the harshest weather of the Arctic Circle as he flees a cruel and relentless German soldier, Kurt Stage (Jonathan Rhys. Five days later when the storm had abated, the villagers crossed the fjord again and carried Baalsrud further into the mountains. The gun jammed. In 1943, he was 25 years old, a cartography instrument maker from Oslo. The Norwegians scuttled their boat by detonating the explosive using a time-delay fuse and fled in small boats, but they were promptly sunk by the Germans. In late March 1943 25-year-old Norwegian commando Jan Baalsrud, three other Special Operations Executive officers and a crew of eight sailed northeast from the Shetland Islands aboard the fishing boat Brattholm.The four-man team was to recruit resistance members in far northern Norway with an eye toward sabotaging enemy installations. "I don't know," Baalsrud said. Norwegian Independent Company 1 was one such unit, and is better known as Kompani Linge after its leader, Captain Martin Linge. Another warded off a German soldier while keeping him hidden, and a midwife offered to disguise him as a woman in labor. The country would remain under their control until 1945. A 5.5-kilometre trail leads to this fissure, the same trail that the people of Manndalen used when they sneaked up to Jan Baalsrud to bring him food. So, in April 1940, the Blitzkrieg came to Norway. "They needed to keep him alive in order to keep the dream of freedom alive. Based on a true story that's well known in Norway but not so much elsewhere, THE 12th MAN tells the story of Jan Baalsrud, a member of the Norwegian Resistance who spent months on the run from the Nazis after his mission was compromised. In the now abandoned Haugland farm on the island of Hersya, Jan Baalsrud was given shelter and food for the first time. male. Baalsrud barely survived. While driving their reindeer on spring passage, they pulled him on a sled across Finland and into neutral Sweden. The Jan Baalsrud March. A desperate Baalsrud banged on the door of a house, uncertain whether friend or foe lay behind it. The new film about the drama, The 12th Man, is generating considerable interest in the story, so we sought out the locations where it all happened. In 1941, Baalsrud reached Great Britain after having travelled through the Soviet Union, Africa and the US. Their daughter, Liv, told Haug that her father never wanted to talk about what had happened in the fjords. Baalsruds final wish before he died in 1988 was to be buried in the churchyard in Manndalen. The young soldier was frightened and freezing. Today, there is no evidence to indicate what happened here, but many people have written in the notebook which is used as a visitors book. During preparations for this dangerous mission, one of the commandos attempted to make contact with a local member of the resistance. He lived there until the 1950s. Eventually, through the support of local villagers who put their own lives in danger to help him, he found freedom and went on to live a relatively normal life until his death in 1988 at the age of 71. She was 10 when Baalsrud tore through Toftefjord. Han var fenriki Kompani Linge. But he was all right, more or less, until the avalanche. Eventually, traveling by reindeer sleigh, with his pursuers now hot on his tail, he made it through Nazi-occupied Finland to Sweden. He was sure he would be next. He lived there until the 1950s. But not until after being shot and injured, going snowblind, and even having to amputate some of his toes by himself to avoid gangrene from spreading. This was where Baalsrud was left for nine more days, lying buried in a cave of snow most of the time, waiting for help to return. first read this incredible tale of one man's refusal to die alone forty years ago--have been recommending to people ever since. The story of Jan Baalsruds escape through occupied Northern Norway in the spring of 1943 has something of the improbable about it. In 2001, he and a co-author, Astrid Karlsen Scott, published Defiant Courage, a day-by-day reconstruction of Baalsrud's story that exhaustively praises the people of the fjords who smuggled him past German patrols, ministered to his frostbitten feet and hid him in lofts, barns and sheds. He was very poorly clothed and had a gunshot wound on his foot. SOLUND (NRK): 1. juledag er det premiere p den nye filmen om krigshelten Jan Baalsrud. Picture a man swimming several hundred metres through ice water, bullets whizzing about him. Worse, he didnt have a plan. He returned to Norway during his final years. He was in luck: The house belonged to a family who bravely took it upon themselves to help the stranger. Film om Anden Verdenskrig fnger stadig og trkker i disse r . Baalsrud swam to shore and saw that all his comrades were either in German custody, facing certain death, or were killed on the spot. Jaeggevarre, a 3,000-foot peak. EVELYN WATSON, JAN BAALSRUD MARRY Dec. 28, 1951 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from December 28, 1951, Page 14 Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine. The Gronvoll family's barn, where Baalsrud, snow-blind and lame, recovered after the avalanche, is still standing just up the road. The movie centers around Baalsrud's relationship with his Norwegian countrymen, who helped him survive in the wilderness and reach neutral Sweden while being tracked down by the Gestapo. He lay tied to a stretcher as they stealthily took him through fiords and dragged him up and down snowy mountains. Kjellaug still lives in Furuflaten, working as a nurse in a neighbouring town. Two years later, a movie based on the book, Ni Liv (Nine Lives), was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film. At the place where eight of the 11 onboard the MS Brattholm were executed stands a memorial today. He was entombed alive in snow for another four days and abandoned under open skies for five more. Baalsrud knew the fate of Norway didn't hinge on whether he made it out of the country alive. Not satisfied with these versions of the story, Haug worked on a book of his own. However, film buffs and military history enthusiasts will be interested in seeing the places where the real drama unfolded. jan baalsrud wife. Add a meaning Wiki content for Jan baalsrud Jan Baalsrud Add Jan baalsrud details Phonetic spelling of Jan baalsrud Add phonetic spelling Synonyms for Jan baalsrud Add synonyms Antonyms for Jan baalsrud Add antonyms They eventually left him again in a rock crevice where he would remain for nine more days. Related External link: The Shetland Bus - This page lists those who died in this service, . It houses some of his possessions, including the skis he lost in an avalanche. They mark a path that begins more than 560 kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, in the cove called Toftefjord. Their mission that March was to establish a presence near the northern port city, Tromso, where they would sabotage anything the Germans were using to fortify the Axis troops on the Russian front. Glad for air, I walk with Haug below the high ridge where Marius and his friends, once they did come back, painstakingly pulled Baalsrud, still strapped to a sled, up to another hiding spot, 800 metres higher than the Hotel Savoy. jan baalsrud wife. Etter den annen verdenskrig var Baalsrud virksom for krigsinvalidenes sak. Jan Baalsruds longest stay anywhere during his escape was in a mountain fissure at the top of the Manndalen valley. Baalsrud spent seven months in a Swedish hospital in Boden before he was flown back to Britain in an RAF de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. Cannes: Harald Zwart on Fulfilling a Childhood Dream With 'The 12th Man' Jonathan Rhys Meyers co-stars in Zwart's WWII drama about Norwegian resistance hero Jan Baalsrud. Unknown Binding. $0.00 $ 0. Named after an old name for the Inca god Viracocha, Kon-Tiki is the name given to the raft on which author and explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his crew traveled from Peru to the French Polynesian Tuamoto Islands in 1947. Mini Bio (1) Jan Baalsrud was born on December 13, 1917 in Oslo, Norway. From behind the rock, he saw the soldiers getting closer, within range. The captain cuts the motor. Ill-equipped as always, he braved the elements under open skies. Due to weather and German patrols in the town of Manndalen, Kfjord, he was there for 27 days and was close to death for lack of food. The house belonged to the sister of Marius Gronvoll, an active member of the resistance. By the time a group of Sami, Norway's indigenous people, came to take him across the border, Baalsrud weighed just 36 kilograms. The northern Norwegian fjord where a crippled Jan Baalsrud was taken across on a stretcher to a shed he called the "Hotel Savoy".Credit:Jon Tonks. Stunned Silence: The woman who was supposed to wrote down Baalsrud`s story for the record, is seen with her sheet completely blank at the end of the movie. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud was born on December 13, 1917, in Kristiana (now Oslo) in Norway. Find the editorial stock photo of Jan Baalsrud 37yo Norwegian Former Secret, and more photos in the Shutterstock collection of editorial photography. Trivia (4) Specifically: His ashes are buried in Manndalen in a grave shared with Aslak Aslaksen Fossvoll (1900-1943), one of the local men who helped him escape to Sweden. Han ble fdt i Oslo 13.desember 1917. When he left, Agnete was bereft. Baalsrud operated on his feet with a pocket knife, as he suspected he had gangrene in two toes, resulting from the frostbite. He was deposited into the care of the British Red Cross, weighing barely 35kg. These skis enabled him to move more quickly, but a sudden blizzard caused him to veer off course. ON THE DRIVE TO REVDAL, Haug tells me that he wants me to experience the "Hotel Savoy" alone to leave me there for several minutes in silence so I can imagine what it must have been like to stay in there, day after day, expecting Marius and his friends to come, but them never coming, to be experiencing incredible pain from gangrene, to start to think that this would be the place where he would die. What happened over those nine weeks remains one of the wildest, most unfathomable survival stories of World War II. [3] He was awarded the St. Olav's medal with Oak Branch by Norway. The 12th Man - the film about Jan Baalsrud. In peacetime, Baalsrud was made an MBE, and raised a family with his American wife, Evie, while working in his father's import business. After getting lost in a snowstorm in the Lyngen Alps, Jan Baalsrud sought shelter in a hay barn above the village of Furuflaten. Baalsrud's feet froze solid. World War II [ edit] During the German invasion of Norway in 1940, Baalsrud fought in Vestfold. The story is recounted in David Howarths book We Die Alone, first published in 1955. Linge and his men were supported by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and received training in Scotland before returning to their home country to conduct raids and sabotage missions against the Nazis. He joined Linge Company, a group of young Norwegians who trained with the Allies in special ops and then sailed back on stealth missions, across the North Sea from Shetland, Scotland, and into occupied Norway, using the maze of fjords as cover. This turned out to be Baalsrud's great stroke of luck. richard matvichuk wife. But the Germans opened fire on the dinghy, killing one of the men and sinking the vessel. A small museum in Furuflaten commemorates Baalsrud. His little dog, a brown mutt, runs to the bow, his nose poking over the edge, aiming down. Village residents hid him in a barn in hopes that he would recover, but the frostbite on his feet had progressed to the point that he could no longer walk. These leapfrog journeys continued five days in one location, seventeen in another. English Wikipedia. 7 Jan Baalsrud - Survival in the Norwegian Tundra. This action saved the rest of his feet. During two months in which he attempted to escape into neutral Sweden, he was buried in an avalanche, amputated his own frostbitten toes with a penknife, battled starvation, went snowblind and groped around until he accidentally bumped into an empty cabin where he took refuge, and was under constant threat of capture and execution. A minute or two later, I am more than ready to leave. He also amputated one of his big toes. There was the father, still mourning the loss of his young son, who rowed Baalsrud in a dinghy through rocky waters in the middle of the night, avoiding German sentries, to deposit him on another shore. He proceeded through northern Norway as a fugitive, moving cautiously from village to village and asking for help from people who could have easily turned him in. The 12th Resistance fighter, Jan Baalsrud, manages to escape by hiding and swimming across the fjord, in sub freezing temperatures, to the nearest island. After the war, Marius married a young woman named Agnete Lanes, who had helped him tend to Baalsrud. He had only one boot, his soaked clothes were beginning to freeze, and he didnt have any provisions. "She wanted to have Jan alone in here, just with her.". He had just one boot, having lost the other in the water. The story of his escape is absolutely incredible. He spotted a gully, a long, lightning-shaped sliver in the snowy hillside, and climbed into it, taking cover behind a large rock. At the end of the war, he returned to Norway to witness his country's liberation first-hand. He died on December 30, 1988 in Breia, Norway. 10 . Dette dokumentarprogrammet forteller hva som virkelig skjedde i 1943 da Jan Baalsrud mtte flykte fra Toftefjorden i Troms til Sverige. The little hut that is there now is a replica; the original one was burned down by some kids several years ago. . After Norway was invaded in 1940, Jan Baalsrud decided . He eventually found himself at the foot of Jaeggevarre, a 900m mountain near the Lyngen River. They share a gravestone that has the following inscription: "Thank you all, who helped me to freedom in 1943.". Over the next weeks, local villagers coordinated to assist him safely from place to place. Contact: Jan Lindrupsen on +47 906 13 455. A father grieving the loss of his own innocent child rowed him in a dinghy through the night. By now, Baalsrud was on the verge of suicide. Consider the following code: grades = [ "A", "A", "B" ] print (grades [0]) The value at the index position 0 is A. According to his wishes, his ashes were buried with Aslak Fossvoll, one of the Norwegian resistance members who aided him on his journey. He was shielded from German soldiers and shunted between villages, desperately trying to cross into Sweden. He grew to be bigger than himself.". You've probably heard about the Norwegian minority who welcomed the Nazis Vidkun Quisling's name became a well-known synonym for traitor after his outspoken support for Hitler landed him a position as head of state. enterprise vienna airport; kuding tea and kidney disease. And there is a replica of the sled that transported Baalsrud, with a mannequin of Baalsrud himself lying on top. Historien er kjent gj. The Scandinavian country had been neutral during the entirety of the First World War, and maintained this position as Hitler's grip began to tighten on continental Europe. Official Sites. Fearing it would spread, he cut off his big toe and the infected bit of the index toe. Jan Baalsruds fantastiske flukt fra tyskerne i Troms vren 1943 ble internasjonalt kjent gjennom filmen Ni liv, basert p Baalsruds egen beretning i David Howarths bok We die alone. Inside the hut is a wooden platform, like the one Baalsrud was lying on when, half-mad with agony, he took a knife to his own feet. A few feet away is a stuffed fox, with a paper sign hanging around its neck. As if all this wasn't enough, an avalanche threw him down the mountainside, leaving him concussed and partially buried in snow. Norwegian Jan Baalsrud: A Incredible Survivor In WWII War History Online, Following in the Tracks of Jan Baalsrud Nord Norge, RECOILweb: Behavioral Cues for Avoiding a Fight , Video: Knife Expert Analyzes Movie Knife Fights, Letter from the Editor: All Restraints Are Temporary, Outlast on Netflix: New TV Show Blends Alone with Lord of the Flies. Den hvite genseren til Jan Baalsrud i filmen Den 12. mann skulle minne om en militrgenser, som var vanlig bruke under marineuniformen. He soon went to Scotland to help train other Norwegian patriots, who were going to enter Norway to continue the fight against the Germans. His eyes frozen shut, gasping for air, he became so disoriented he couldn't tell if he was ascending or descending. Inside on her kitchen table is an array of food that she has spent the morning preparing for her visitors: hard-boiled eggs and dark goat's cheese, jam and bread and cured sausages. The museum tells the story not of a man lucky enough to escape death, but instead that of kindness and humanity. To help know which direction in which to walk without falling off a cliff, he made snowballs, listening to the sound they made as they hit the ground. Slivers of light beam through the cracks. Without realising it, he was climbing an almost 900-metre mountain. Politicians believed a pacifistic stance would help Norway avoid most of the impact of this new war as it had during WWI. He was now stranded in enemy territory, aware that anyone who might help him would be killed if Germans found out. The lone survivor of an ambush, he survived an avalanche, severe frostbite and snow blindness, having to amputate his own toes, and being relentlessly pursued by Germans for nine weeks before being whisked to safety in Sweden by locals. 1 talking about this. A British army infantryman during the WWII who sported one of the most luxurious mustaches in military history. However, many Norwegians bravely fought back against the Germans as part of underground resistance groups. During the German invasion of Norway in 1940, Baalsrud fought in Vestfold. An avalanche buried him up to his neck. The teacher made it in pieces, and it was assembled on the other side of the fjord. Det gjekk to r fr dei . While he awaited their delayed return with provisions, his toes severely deteriorated. . Connect to 5,000+ Miller profiles on Geni, Jan 1 1924 - New York City, New York, United States, May 15 1963 - Tacoronte, Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Charles Duncan Miller, Evelyn Spencer Miller (born Witherbee). It took six months for Baalsrud to regain strength and learn to walk without toes. A few framed black-and-white photos of Baalsrud's earlier visit in the 1950s, during production of Ni Liv, hang on the wall of the parlour. The books are but one reflection of how Baalsrud's story has aged into an inspiring parable about the character of Norwegians: their resilience, their selflessness, their devotion to community. A 30 minutes audio programme by Jim Mayer retracing Jan's route, including interviews with some of those who helped him escape. From here, the path is well-marked with signs and orange tape. Marius came to visit and meant to come back again, but a storm delayed him for another five days. There was the midwife who offered to hide him upstairs, disguising him as a woman in labour. Su increble historia la narra un clsico ya de la historia militar de la Segunda Guerra Mundial que ahora llega a las libreras espaolas publicado por Capitn. That man promptly reported the conversation to the Gestapo. June 12, 2022 . BAALSRUD HIMSELF REJECTED that myth, time and again. Every year at the end of July, the Jan Baalsrud March takes place. "Jan was also depressed after the war; I heard from his brother," Haug says. Free with Audible trial. 1. But the family promised to help him. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots. "I had forgotten the whole story, or rather I had tried to forget it all," Baalsrud said in a radio interview years later, "and it was completely forgotten when David Howarth came." He completed military service at 19, and when World War II broke out, he went to serve his country. By Dagney McKinney. Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault is, by its very Quick: What time is it? Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Brave visitors can attempt the grueling route that Baalsrud took, now marked on certain maps with a small red B. Over the next nine weeks, Baalsrud was the subject of a nationwide manhunt by the Germans. by David Howarth, Stuart Langton, et al. Helping him was extremely perilous. Fleeing up the hill, the family heard an explosion Baalsrud, scuttling the Brattholm that sent flaming debris flying up in their direction, seemingly following their path. Instead, in a remarkably co-ordinated effort, many in the village came together to help harbour the fugitive and get him on his way, all without the Germans noticing. Before he died on December 30, 1988, he was moved to a rehabilitation centre near Oslo that his own donations and support had helped to create. In 2017, The 12th Man, a completely new version of the story, will be released. When the terrain on the other side proved too steep to negotiate with a stretcher, Marius hid Baalsrud in a small shed and returned to Furuflaten, where he convinced a local schoolteacher with carpentry skills to make a sled no small feat, considering the school was where all the soldiers congregated. Source: Geocaching.com. Baalsrud looked the 10-year-old girl squarely in the eye and declared that if she ever told a soul that shed seen him, everyone she loved would almost certainly be killed. image. Other Works After escaping the Nazi occupation of Norway in 1940, he had just returned, alongside 11 compatriots, as part of a sabotage. page after page, the twists and . Po skonen vlky Jan Baalsrud byl lenem Unie norskch vlench invalid a v letech 1957 a 1964 byl jejm pedsedou. His assignments: swim underwater, fastening explosive devices (limpets, or magnetic bombs) to German seaplanes, and to recruit Norwegian resistance fighters. Of the four Norwegian commandos who launched a sabotage mission against the Nazis, Jan Baalsrud was the only one left standing. Dagmar saw the man's gun the snub-nosed Colt and a shiver of fear ran through her. For decades, his escape made him a national folk hero, even as the man himself remained frustratingly opaque, almost unknowable. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud; Statements. In 1962, he moved to Tenerife, Canary Islands, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life. Someone in the next village alerted the Germans within a day of the team's arrival. Vidkun Quisling (center) at a Nazi party event in Norway, 1941. The Gronvoll children, now all grown up, invite me for lunch in their home in Furuflaten, where Baalsrud made his final visit. An avalanche buried him up to his neck. He turned up toward the hill, planted one bootless foot in the snow and ran. Tollbugata 13, Bod Although the restored cabin looks quite idyllic when the weather is good, one can only imagine how freezing it must have been on ice-cold April nights. Despite this, she described his sensitivity, courtesy, and grateful attitude towards her family as they helped him. Years later, in 2017, a film called The 12th Man explored a new version of the events. The hay barn is private and not normally open to the public. TODAY, FURUFLATEN IS STILL very small, with about 250 people. He lived there until the 1950s. He ran. He had been running from the same gunfire. It is not currently marked, but the GPS coordinates are as follows:69.467396, 20.325756 There is a reasonable parking area next to the fjord, and you then follow a short path down to the cabin. After his mission of helping the resistance in Nazi-occupied Norway fell, Jan Baalsrud found himself on the run from Nazi troops, nearly naked and with a serious bullet wound, trying to make his way through the Norwegian tundra. File:Jan Sigurd Baalsrud (1917- 1988) (47953919208).jpg From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository Jump to navigationJump to search File File history File usage on Commons File usage on other wikis Metadata Size of this preview: 486 599 pixels. Director Tom Edvindsen Writer Tom Edvindsen Stars Jan Baalsrud (voice) Ronny Bratli Rune Gjeldnes In addition, he was chairman of the Norwegian Disabled Veterans Union from 1957 to 1964. Alone for two more weeks in a cave, he used a knife to amputate several of his own frostbitten toes to stop the spread of gangrene. After this journey, the villagers left Baalsrud in a 6-foot by 9-foot shed with some supplies, intending to return in a few days. The march takes eight days and you can do either walk the entire route or just part of it. Faced with freezing temperatures and brutal conditions his story is an incredible one. His feet frozen, he spent three days wandering aimlessly in the blizzard. There was the fisherman who outfitted Baalsrud with new boots and a pair of skis. Dagmar Idrupsen is one of the last people still living who saw Baalsrud during his escape.