Norwegians who fled the Nazis are remembered
Aug 30 2010 by Brian Daniel, The Journal
A WARTIME escape mission which brought five young Norwegians to Northumberland is to be commemorated by a group of their compatriots.
Five young Norwegians fled the Nazi invasion of their country in 1941 on a tiny boat, powered by a single engine. They ended up on Holy Island and joined the war effort there.
Last year, the niece of one of the five, Sven Moe, visited Holy Island to see where the five had landed and been made so welcome.
The Journal’s report of Ingrid Juell Moe’s visit saw David Gray, of Amble, come forward to say he believed he had bought the boat used by the escapees a few years after the war.
He picked it up at Holy Island having been told it had been used in a Norwegian escape, and used it when going out fishing.
It was eventually sold to a man at Newbiggin, following which it was burnt out by vandals, but Mr Gray had kept the engine and given it to friend and mechanic Tom Crozier.
Aware of its past, Mr Crozier, of West Avenue, Amble, kept the engine in his garden – and planned to get it working again, in the hope that a museum in Norway may be interested.
The Journal put the two men at Amble in touch with Ms Juell Moe and the shipping of the engine to a museum on the small island of Flekkeroy, near where the five men sailed from, was arranged.
The engine, and the boat’s wheel and engine spares which Mr Gray had kept for 51 years, was shipped over in December, and now occupies pride of place in the museum.
Now a group of 30 friends of the museum are flying in to Newcastle and heading straight to Amble, to see where the engine lay for so many years and to thank Mr Gray, 70, and Mr Crozier, 72, and others who sent it across.
The Amble men are hosting a reception for their visitors, and will be shown photos of the engine in situ at the museum.
Mr Gray said: “It is a nice that it has had a happy ending for them as well.”
The Norwegian party will head to Holy Island where they will show islanders their photos and meet a 90-year-old woman who remembers the five young men landing there. On Wednesday, they will present the island with a bench from friends and family of the five men bearing an inscribed plaque thanking locals for the warm welcome they gave all those years ago, which will be placed near the water.
Ms Juell Moe, who came up with the idea of the bench, said: “When I was there I saw benches with inscriptions, and I thought it would be fine to remember this link between south Norway and Lindisfarne in this fine way.”
