The plan was simple. In the afternoon of 12th February 1945, two taxis arrived at the Halvøy Hotel carrying the suitcases of two German officers who were booked in. The bookings were false and had been made by resistance members purporting to be from the SS headquarters in the city. The taxi drivers were to tell the hotel’s porter that their passengers had asked to be dropped at Victoria Terrasse and had instructed that their luggage be taken to the hotel, so it could be put in their room ready for when they came back to change for dinner. The only possibility of the ruse failing was if the Germans realised that the hotel bookings were fake, which was considered unlikely. As a precaution, however, while one taxi was delivering its suitcase, the other agent would be in his taxi outside the hotel, ready to render assistance if needs be, or if the plan was fatally flawed to maximise the number of casualties among those at the hotel by remotely detonating the device instantly, even if it meant the loss of an agent’s life.
Luckily, on that Monday afternoon in February, everything went according to plan, and the two agents deposited their suitcases with the porter at the hotel, who promised to ensure they would be placed in the respective rooms forthwith. The two rooms were on either side of the suite booked by Sturmbannführer Otto Höneß. It was noted that when in Norway, Höneß was known by his SS rank of major, which he was not when in Sweden.
If it survived the attack, the hotel register would show that Standartenführer46 Hans Fischer of the Waffen SS checked into the hotel at 1720hrs, and Sturmbannführer Martin Schmidt a mere ten minutes later. Nobody would remember their arrival, as the entries were made by a hotel clerk who sympathised with the resistance movement. To add credence to these fictitious entities, Sturmbannführer Schmidt even rang down to room service and ordered a bottle of schnapps to be brought to his room shortly after his supposed arrival. The waiter who had brought it was instructed by a voice in the room to leave it outside, which he did, but the voice from the room was that of the patriotic clerk. The hotel clerk’s shift ended at 2200hrs, and although he was asked to cover for an additional hour, he knew that he would not be returning to his job the following day.
The Germans partied until the small hours of the morning, but they were all tucked up in bed by two o’clock, some by themselves and others in the company of a prostitute of either sex. Otto Höneß was alone, as his plans for late-night entertainment were thwarted by a Gruppenführer47 taking a shine to Höneß’s young female companion, and pulling rank.
At 0330hrs on the morning of Tuesday 13th February 1945, Ole Sigurdsson and Jan Pedersen were on the trawler Ragnhild as it made its way out of Oslofjord to go about its lawful business of fishing. The vessel passed the security boom across the fjord, giving the correct signal for the day. The guards all knew Ole’s father, Olaf Sigurdsson, and his boat, and they waved cheerily at him as the vessel passed through the boom. All three onboard waved back and exchanged friendly greetings. Then, as the barrier was closing, Jan and Ole uncovered two metal boxes that had wires clipped to the steel rope lanyards of the fishing boat, and together they turned the large red metal switches on the boxes to the right, activating the signal that should detonate the explosive charges in the suitcases at the hotel. Initially, nothing happened, and the men were concerned that they had been given two dud fuses; a sense of pessimism settled on them as they realised they had failed in their mission.
As Olaf Sigurdsson slightly adjusted the vessel’s course, two almost simultaneous flashes followed by the rumble of explosions rolled across the water from Oslo’s direction. The two men looked at each other with huge grins across their faces, before they unclipped the two metal boxes from the lanyards and dropped them over the side of the fishing boat into the deep and murky waters of the fjord. If they were challenged by a patrol, there would be nothing on the Ragnhild to implicate any person on board.
As the boat was leaving Oslofjord, a German E-boat did challenge them, but after a brief exchange between the German commander and Olaf Sigurdsson, they were waved on their way; after all, the fishing smack could not have been involved, as it must have passed through the boom before it was secured following the explosion to prevent the perpetrators from escaping. The German commander was curt in his order for the fishing boat to ‘be on its way’, a directive that Olaf Sigurdsson was only too happy to obey.
The Ragnhild spent the day fishing, and at seven o’clock that evening, was at the prearranged spot in the North Sea where the rendezvous with the British submarine was scheduled. Precisely at five past the hour, a periscope appeared no closer than 200 metres from the fishing boat to which the fishing boat headed, and shortly after that, a conning tower appeared, allowing Ragnhild’s captain to lay his vessel alongside the submarine. The submarine did not fully surface, and the two agents scrambled aboard as the two original fishermen replaced them on the Ragnhild, fresh from being wined and dined as guests of the British navy at the Scapa Flow naval base.
*
Alex’s arrival at the legation on that Tuesday morning was unspectacular, and he went straight to his office where he asked Ulrika, his secretary, for a cup of abnormally strong coffee. Alex was feeling delicate, as he had spent the previous evening with Brad Proudfoot in the bar of the American legation, along with many of Brad’s colleagues, ensuring that his presence in Stockholm was witnessed by many. With the coffee, Ulrika brought a sealed envelope. When Alex opened it, he found a sheet of paper with the single typewritten word ‘Beerenburg’ – Norway’s highest volcano and the code word for the successful completion of Operation Vidar.
*
The aftermath of the bomb attack in Oslo was swift and unusually measured. The death toll had comprised the major-general who had usurped Höneß’s companion, two colonels and seven other German officers. Several civilians and hotel workers had also perished in the blast that completely destroyed the hotel and the shops underneath. Eight Germans and five Norwegians had been wounded, including Sturmbannführer Otto Höneß, who had been taken to hospital with several broken bones and a severe concussion. He had been lucky. The enormous wardrobe in his bedroom had fallen across his bed, protecting him from the worst of the blast, although shattering the bones in his left leg. His unconscious body had been recovered from the hotel’s ruins four and a half hours after the explosion, and he was taken to the hospital.
Although much of Oslo was powered by electricity, the use of gas was still preferred by specific industries, and the Halvøy Hotel used it in the kitchens. A report of a noxious smell of gas had been filed with the gas company earlier that evening, but the investigation was not scheduled until later that week, as the report had not been flagged as urgent. The supervisors and managers on duty that day at the gas company were summarily arrested and transferred to Victoria Terrasse for questioning. As were both the duty and general managers of the hotel and several other staff members. The helpful hotel clerk arrived for work at six o’clock as usual and was briefly questioned by STAPO48 before being satisfied that he was an innocent hotel staff member. Several prominent resistance members and their families were also arrested and transferred to labour camps, but as the resistance movement in Oslo was so ineffective, they were not greatly missed.
Unusually, there was no mass round-up of the civilian population as there had been in Czechoslovakia following Heydrich’s assassination, and the German authorities seemed willing to accept that the blast had been caused by poor maintenance of faulty gas equipment. Some later said that the mayor of Oslo, Fritz Jenssen, although an active Quisling and member of the Nasjonal Samling49 party, interceded with the Germans to prevent retributions against the capital’s citizens. Undoubtedly, when the forensic scientists established the true nature of the explosion, things would likely change, but for the moment, there were to be no reprisals.
When Sir Victor Mallet arrived at the legation that morning, he congratulated Alex and Colonel Buckeridge on a ‘job well done’; even though the prime target for the mission had escaped with his life, it seems that with many senior figures dead, London was still hailing the attack a success.
Captain Brad Proudfoot telephoned the legation on another matter, and he also congratulated Alex on the mission’s success.
‘I am sure that I do not know what on earth you mean,’ Alex responded coyly.
‘Listen, fella,’ Brad said with a massive grin on his face, ‘there ain’t much goes on around here that the US delegation does not know about. I’m talking about the Oslo affair.’
‘The troublesome thing is, Brad,’ Alex confided, ‘if you lot know who was behind it, who else does? The Russians? The Germans even? This was supposed to have been kept under wraps so as not to be seen breaching the Stockholm Protocol in the city that it was named after.’
‘Yeah, but it was only a diplomatic secret,’ said Brad Proudfoot, smiling, ‘and they ain’t worth shit! But listen, even if the Swedes knew who was behind it, they ain’t likely to complain. Otto Höneß has been a pain in their ass ever since he got here. Against popular belief, the Swedes ain’t stupid; they knew that Höneß had been conspicuously present in countries before the Nazis invaded, and they surmised that he was in Stockholm for the same reason. Besides, the bastard has some pretty unsavoury tastes, don’t you know. My guess is that even with their notoriously liberal attitude, they ain’t gonna lose much sleep over the fact that he’s gone. It’s my guess that they would probably like to pin a medal on your chest for having rid the world of a despicable pest if they thought they could get away with it.’
‘Maybe they won’t be so keen when they learn that Höneß survived,’ Alex said glumly.
‘Yeah, but my guess is that he won’t be coming back here,’ Brad suggested. ‘He’ll be on the first MedEvac out of Norway to Berlin, and from what I’ve heard, he’s gonna be out of commission for the next six months at least, assuming, that is, that the guy survives.’
‘It just feels like a loose end that needs tidying,’ Alex said.
‘My advice is to let nature take its course,’ Brad counselled, ‘and be grateful for small mercies. This war ain’t gonna last much longer and when we win, we ain’t gonna take too kindly to criminals like Höneß who have survived – my guess is that he’s a dead man walking, or not, as it happens. Right now, the Krauts still reckon it was a faulty gas main. Otherwise, they would have ripped through Oslo with a vengeance that would have overshadowed anything they had previously accomplished. Höneß ain’t ever gonna be the man that he was, and some darned important guys perished in that explosion. So rest easy, the Germans ain’t gotta clue, and we sure as hell ain’t gonna tell ’em!’
‘I’m grateful for that,’ Alex confessed. ‘Thank you.’
‘Now,’ Captain Proudfoot continued, ‘is your damned secretary ever gonna call mine, so we can get to know each other better? I have a hunch you’re gonna be a fascinating guy to know!’
Alex smiled. ‘I’ll get her onto it right away.’
*
February continued into March, and Alex understood the reason behind Colonel Toivonen’s rapid departure from Sweden. Finally, on 3rd March, President Mannerheim formally declared war on Germany. In the geopolitical climate of the European continent, there was not a seismic change, but in the corridors of Whitehall, a massive sigh of relief was heard, and rumour has it that in 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, opened a magnum of Pol Roger champagne rather than another bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label50. The Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, smiled at the report on his desk. In a rare moment of self-congratulation, he acknowledged his department’s role in Finland’s decision. Quite how much influence the United Kingdom had on the declaration has never been fully documented, but politicians have never been shy in taking plaudits whether they were justified or not.
Alex, however, concluded that the declaration of war was more likely to have been a condition of the armistice between Finland and Russia that Josef Stalin had required before the agreement was ratified. Evidence supports this theory, as the declaration was backdated to 15th September 1944, four days before the armistice had been signed.
As the month progressed, it was clear that the German forces were being routed on every front, and when on the 22nd and 23rd, the British and American troops crossed the River Rhine at the town of Oppenheim in the Rhineland, it was clear that the days of the Third Reich were numbered. When the Allies seized Frankfurt, German forces went into a general retreat. General Eisenhower broadcast to the German nation on 31st March, demanding that the country surrender.
During this time, the British legation in Sweden was preparing for the inevitable eventuality that Nazi Germany would be conquered by the summer, and plans were being drawn up by the Swedish government on how the Baltic would be supported after the war.
Following the armistice with Russia and Mannerheim’s appointment as President, Winston Churchill appointed the highly skilled and very experienced diplomat Francis M. Shepherd to the role of Political Representative to the Republic of Finland. So it came as little surprise to anybody at the legation in Stockholm that Alex was recalled to London.
Alex collected all of his personal belongings from both his apartment and the legation, including Easter presents he had bought for the family, and he was on the evening BOAC flight from Bromma aerodrome to Leuchars on Wednesday 28th March 1945. Colonel Buckeridge expressed his sadness at Alex’s departure; Sir Victor Mallet shook hands with Alex as he was about to depart the legation and suggested that Alex had been highly successful in his posting to the Stockholm legation and promised to reiterate that in his personnel record.
‘Diplomacy,’ Sir Victor began paternally, ‘is a fact of life. Even during conflict, diplomacy remains, and it can be argued that during conflict is when diplomacy is at its best, but only when that diplomacy remains unnoticed. I will counsel you, dear boy, that there have been occasions when you were just a little too noticeable. If, as I suspect, your career in the diplomatique is just beginning, you would be as well to remember that piece of advice; we ought to exist in the background.’
As Alex climbed the steps of the Lockheed Super Electra plane that he was to share with only one other passenger, he remembered that he had completely forgotten to have his secretary arrange a meeting with Captain Bradley Proudfoot.
46 SS equivalent rank to colonel.
47 SS equivalent rank to major-general.
48 The much hated Norwegian Statspolitiet, which was an armed police force independent of the civilian police, that had been founded by the Germans following the invasion of the country.
49 Nasjonal Samling, meaning ‘National Gathering’, was the only legal political party during the occupation. Founded by the former minister of defence Vidkun Quisling, it was a far right-wing party.
50 Pol Roger was Winston Churchill’s favourite champage and he is reputed to have drunk in excess of 40,000 bottles in his lifetime. Johnnie Walker Red Label, a blended whisky, was the basis for his usual daily tipple.