When the war ended, the Heland returned to Norway and became fishing vessel again. In 1971, it was donated to Sunnmøre Museum. The Heland is now preserved as a typical representative fishing vessel of the "Shetland Bus" fleet. In the event of service disruption, updates can be obtained by calling the Public Bus Service Voicebank on 01595 745744. Updates will also be provided at www.shetnews.co.uk. Those boats are the ten "Shetland Bus" boats that were lost from the base in Scalloway. For different reasons, there were some boats that started out from a base in Peterhead, and some of them were also lost.

T he Shetland Bus operation may be considered successful in that it supplied Norwegian resistance movements with weapons and took many refugees from Norway to Shetland, and that it managed to bind just shy of 300,000 German troops in Norway. However, because of this operation, forty-four men lost their lives, and the Norwegian public may not have been too happy having a huge number of German men patrolling their country. It could have been due to this operation that D-Day was an Allied victory, and many other key areas throughout Western Europe could have been hugely affected by the influence of the Shetland Bus. This small operation, secret to almost everybody, could have played a major role in these battles, influencing the course of the entire war itself. This could be an exaggeration, but the implications of the operation may well have had an effect this big. From August 1941 until the end of the war in May 1945, the Shetland Bus conducted more than 150 missions, transporting to Norway 192 agents and 383 tons of weapons and supplies, and rescuing 373 Norwegians. Owned by Ansgar Sønderland and Johan O. Rørvik, Vigra. 52 feet long and with a 60hp (45kW) June-Munktell engine.Shetland's bus services are specified and financed by ZetTrans and are operated by a number of different bus companies. The Shetland Bus Memorial is located at Scalloway, and the local museum has a permanent exhibition relating to the activities of the Shetland Bus. [12] In 2018 Norwegian visitors were among those attending a service at the memorial to commemorate the 75th anniversary of an improvement in the safety of operations as a result of the introduction of new ships - the Hitria, Vigra and Hessa [13] In popular culture [ edit ] A really interesting book written by someone who was an RNVR officer immersed in the practicalities of evacuating people from occupied Norway in WWII but even more so in sending supplies to help set up the resistance. As a "Shetland Bus", the Heland made several tours to Norway, mostly skippered by August Nerø, but with other skippers too. There were many narrow escapes, but the vessel always returned safely to Shetland. In 1943, when the submarine chasers arrived, the Heland became a reserve vessel and made transport voyages to Scotland. In The Shetland Bus, David Howarth, who was second in command of the Shetland base, recounts the hundreds of trips made by fishing boats in the dark of Arctic winter to resist the Nazi onslaught.

Kompani Linge’s most praised contribution to World War II was certainly Operation Gunnerside , the destruction of the heavy water plant in Vemork. The Nazis had plans to develop a nuclear bomb, and Norwegian commandos were sent to destroy the plant. They parachuted from an RAF plane, skied snowy hills, crossed icy rivers, detonated explosives to erase the entire inventory, and journeyed 400 kilometers to Sweden — completely undetected. The toll on boats and crew – 44 men had been lost by early 1943 – led to the fishing boats being replaced by ‘sub-chasers’, fast armed patrol boats borrowed from the US navy. They carried out hundreds more missions with no loss of life, right to the end of the war. The first official journey was carried out by the Norwegian fishing vessel the Aksel, which left Luna Ness on 30 August 1941 on route to Bremen in Norway. This book examines that first journey, as well later ones, and discusses the agents and operations which members of the Shetland Bus were involved in throughout the war. It also looks at the donation of 3 submarine chasers to the operation, made in October 1943, by the United States Navy.A number of years ago a charity was formed in Scalloway to help the keep memory of the Shetland Bus alive. This group has members all over the world. Our first act was to commission a memorial to the 44 men who gave their lives in the service of the Shetland Bus. Films portraying the Shetland Bus include Shetlandsgjengen (1954; released as Suicide Mission in the United States) [14] in which Leif Larsen played himself. Sørvaag, Trygve (2002). Shetland Bus: Faces and Places 60 Years On (Shetland Times Ltd) ISBN 9781898852889 Lunna House was the first headquarter for the Shetland Bus operations during World War II. Photo courtesy of Aldebaran/Wikimedia Commons. In 1943, Larsen and some of his crew escaped after German aircraft bombed his boat by rowing for several to reach the Norwegian coastline.

Suicide Mission is a 1954 British-Norwegian war film directed by Michael Forlong. It was also known as Shetlandsgjengen. [1] The German occupation of Norway had other numerous pronounced effects on the country. Prior to the occupation, Norway had a strong economy with numerous trading partners throughout Europe. Almost immediately after German troops set foot on Norwegian soil, all of that stopped. She lost all of her major trading partners. Her only trading partner after April 1940 was Nazi Germany. But it was not a profitable partnership for Norway, as all Germany did was take by way of confiscation. We armed the ships as best we ocould against chance encounters, always bearing in mind that to appear as innocent fishing boats might often be their best chance of survival, so that the armament had to be invisible except as close quarters”– The Shetland Bus by David Howarth.A few years later, Howarth's book was used as the inspiration for the British-Norwegian film Shetlandsgjengen. Released in English as Suicide Mission, the film featured many real-life members of the Shetland gang playing themselves, including Leif Larsen. The Telavåg Tragedy highlights the risks took by anyone travelling the route or assisting the operation. In 1942, locals in the small Norwegian village hid two British agents. There were "Hardanger Cutters", with a straight bow and long stern from the Bergen area, and the more rounded "Møre Cutters" from the area around Ålesund. It appeared that the "Møre Cutter" was the strongest and best fitted for the heavy weather in the North Sea. Most of their crossings were done in the dark winter months with storms and heavy seas. At the onset of World War II, the Kingdom of Norway was not allied with the Axis or Allied Powers, leading both factions to consider invading the country due to its strategic position in the North Sea. While the British in particular drew plans to mine Norwegian waters and prevent Axis ships from transiting these waters, Nazi Germany actually invaded and occupied the country in 1940.