#JAN BAALSRUD SURVIVAL STORY HOW TO#

After he recovered he was slipped out the country by the RAF and flown back to Britain were he spent his time in Scotland training members of the Norwegian resistance for missions in Europe.

#JAN BAALSRUD SURVIVAL STORY HOW TO#

He was picked up in a seaplane which took him to a hospital in Boden, northern Sweden were he spent 7 months recovering from his wounds and learning how to walk again. They took care of his frostbite and dragged him on a reindeer pulled sled to Sweden. His ordeal finally came to an end when some friendly locals carried him to the border of Finland were he was put into the care of the Sami, a native people of northern Scandinavia.

He stayed on a stretcher covered with blankets to keep himself warm, and also had to amputate 9 of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene he’d developed from frostbite. He had to hide in the mountains for 27 days because of high German activity in the area, and built a snow wall around a boulder for protection from the wind. He was eventually forced to leave his hut due to German patrols and headed further into the mountains, were he relied entirely on friendly Norwegian patrols for food. He thought that he had blood poisoning and that letting out some of the blood would help, but whether it did or not, or even if there was anything wrong in the first place is unclear. He found a small abandoned wooden hut that he nicknamed Hotel Savoy were he spent most of this time, and while he was there he operated on both of his legs with a pocket knife. He managed to survive with the help of some local Norwegians who gave him food and some clothing. He spent the next 2 months trying to evade German patrols and dealing with his frostbite and near starvation. He lost one of his boots in the initial swim to shore and by now was soaking wet in a freezing environment with little equipment and no way of completing his mission. The others were quickly captured but Jan managed to run up a small snow covered gully were he even managed to kill a Gestapo officer with his pistol. The boat didn’t last for long and was quickly shot out the water, forcing Jan and the others to swim for shore in the freezing Arctic sea. The next day on the morning of March 29, their boat was attacked by a German patrol ship, and to avoid leaving anything behind for capture they set a time delayed fuse which successfully detonated, before escaping in a small row boat. They had such a contact who lived in the area, but upon trying to find him they accidentally located a shopkeeper with the same name who reported them to the Germans. The boat was carrying 8 tons of explosives and would require the help of local contacts to get it into place. He boarded a small fishing boat named Brattholm, along with his 2 companions and 5 crew members and head towards Troms county in Norway. The goal was to destroy a German air control tower and recruit locals towards for the Norwegian resistance movement. Jan joined a group of 2 other commandos and was sent on a mission codenamed Operation Martin. In 1943 he joined “Company Linge”, which was a British created group of commando’s made up of resistance members from across Europe. After travelling through the Soviet Union, the United States and Africa he finally arrived in Britain were he was trained as a commando.

When the war broke out everything changed for the population of Europe, and Norway along with every other country wasn’t spared the horrors of the war.Īfter Norway was invaded in 1940, Jan Baalsrud decided to join a resistance movement against the Nazi’s, but soon after the country fell to the German war machine, he decided his best option would be to escape to the neutral country of Sweden.Īfter being arrested on charges of espionage, he was tried and kicked out of the country. Bandes dessinées autres que de fiction.Before World War II, Jan Baalsrud was a pretty normal guy living in Norway and training as an instrument maker during the late 1930’s.

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Jan baalsrud survival story