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It is Monday 4 June 1945. The ship “Its” of Ærø sail into Langesundsfjord. Pastor Gunnar Jensen stands on deck, but there is nothing similar to the beautiful summer evening he had imagined when he left Denmark eight hours earlier.
– vejr was dark and regnfuldt. Rigtig cold and sad, he writes later in Ærø Folkeblad.
Ten days previously Jensen possibly received a call from his daughter. She is married, a resident of Porsgrunn and tells about the lack of food. They are happy liberation, but still have not butter on slice of bread. On the lush island Ærø extreme south of Denmark suffering population, however no distress. The pastor launches a fundraising campaign, and kind, of any kind flows into.
The donated also money, and ship owner Erik Kromann Marstal sets “Its’ freely available, a particularly grand gesture when we know that many ships were lost because of mine blasting on that time. Otto Thesmer has been at the helm since the three-masted schooner was bought from France in 1939, and the captain and the vessel has been on many trips to Norway during the war years. Porsgrunn have been stopping at most of these journeys, and Thesmer has gained solid friendship during the visits.
Perhaps this also factors leading to the ship leaves the berth in Ærøskøbing 2 June to celebratory shouts to greet Norway and just Porsgrunn. They stop over in Aarhus to load aboard the last goods and engineer Fritz Sundby signs on. He is porsgrunn boy, but married in Denmark. Altogether the nine men on board, and has 305 tons of food, clothes and shoes, when they head north towards the Skagerrak.
The pastor seems ship rolls well, but the crew call off any reason dizziness or nausea. Land crabs have heard that the trip further up the fjord to Porsgrunn should be properly looked handsome, but fog robs him the first meeting with the Norwegian archipelago. The arrival at the eastern pier in Porsgrunn Nor are further encouraging.
– “Its’ added at a mennesketom brew. There was no band or excited crowd to accept us and greet welcome. No, it was quite discouraging, writes Jensen.
But the ratchet greeting has a natural cause. The telegram that would notify the arrival is delayed. Thesmer moored boat and seek shipbroker Rolf Sorensen. Then it speed up the events that the joy is soon ceilings among Porsgrunns population. In the evening the party continues, and the cargo is handed over to the city.
The next day is the Danish National Day, and the entire city is decked out in red and white. In the window of a bookstore is Denmark map hung up and Ærø marked with a Danish flag. Pupils and teachers from Porsgrunn higher school going quay and shelves crew with Norwegian and Danish songs, a profusion of flowers and teacher Martihnus Wiggen announces a three by three cheers for Denmark and a free Norden.
The Danish delegation goes now from reception to reception. City Council invites priest and crew for dinner Seamen Association premises, along with a number of city authorities and police chief Jacob Aall Mills at the helm, and Jensen describes it as an almost “southern tribute” when the party is interrupted by marching bands and multitude of people who demand that Danes coming out on the streets to be photographed and receive cheer in infinity.
– Yes, there were cheers and party! he exclaims enthusiastically in his travelogue.
Jensen and Thesmer also sits at table under Home Front Tens farewell dinner in Park restaurant on June 7 along with 120 of the most prominent “undergroundway people” from Porsgrunn and region. Some partygoers are recently returned from concentration camps, others from involuntary stay in Sweden and England. Present are also representatives of the Russian and British army. During the evening there will be in the many speeches time and again expressed the importance Denmark claimed for Norway in «trængselsaarene.”
The priest becomes taken out on a three-day road trip in Telemark and while he considers Gaustatoppen and throwing snowballs at Hardangervidda, hands over town remembrance gifts from Porsgrunds Porselænsfabrik with the inscription “Porsgrunn appreciate your assistance in 1945 »to the crew of” Its “and work with the huge load begins.
Mayor Johan Peter Johansen requester supply Tribunal to undertake distribution. The first obtains proper storage space for all goods. Textile and footwear are brought to Bratsberg Bruks factories. Bacon and sausages to cold storage at the butchers. Egg in a cold cellar, butter, fats and cheese to the dairy, and potatoes to Chr. S. Hanssens warehouse where unloading of the boat also took place.
This comes from the accurate records Tribunal business manager, Olav Øvald, did. His son, Jørn Erik Øvald, has preserved documents after his father died in 1997.
– My father was head of supply Tribunal in 1939 and sat on the City Hall during the war, without being a member of NS. It made it possible to ensure supplies to bonds could kid camps on Skifjell and Kilebygda, and those who lay in hiding at the Park restaurant in anticipation of getting to Sweden, explains Øvald junior.
– The recycled rationing brands so they got ripped away food to hundreds of people who have not had the opportunity to help themselves. Of course it was risky, and NS suspicion of breach of contract, but never did find out what was really going on.
A week after “Its” arrived Porsgrunn, convenes also supply Tribunal Danes to a gathering, and business manager Øvald take this opportunity to tell you about the actual conditions of the local people have lived under the war years.
– Summer 1941 upholstered milk to all adults, but it was only at Christmas time, or the first few months of 1942 that the difficulties began seriously writing Øvald senior in the note to the speech.
There were no more potatoes, fish and meat. Workers throughout the winter had a slice of turnip as only provisions, stormed fields and dug potatoes the size of nuts. There were long queues time. Queue queue everywhere in all cities. People lived 1400 gram flour or bread, 200 grams of sugar and 25 grams of butter and a little salt fish per week. Nothing more.
– late autumn were better, the potato crop was relatively good. We therefore came through the year 1942 to 1943 even if the butter was away in some months, but in autumn 1943 brought us a new crisis, both salt fish and herring disappeared, and Afternoon Tea did not exist. What people really lived in this time, I do not understand yet.
It went so far that appeal board was authorized to carry out checks on farms in Telemark in search of surplus stock of potatoes. They would trawl county crisscrossing and managed so as to deliver about 90 kilogram of potatoes to every resident in the district, against previously expected 50.
– Like so many others, told my dad little from war years, but leaving these documents and a diary for posterity, says Jørn Erik.
– There, he has written several episodes of people showed up to apply for additional grants for various reasons. It was partly a woman from Stranda who came to the office because she had so many animals and needed more fodder. You can count your animals so I know what you have cows, horses and chickens, said my father. Yes, it’s all right there, she replied, but you should know how many birds I have, you come to my home and count them himself!
There are is no wonder that the business manager in his speech describing the “Its” brought with them as an adventure. The gift was overwhelming, but also acquired supply Tribunal considerable extra work. The requirement was that the distribution would be fair, and consequently everything was unpacked and measured. Even the smallest packages of flour that was sent directly from families on Ærø, was emptied and weighed again. Man was also afraid that some of the large staff of assistants should have counted wrong during the count, thus becoming the first distribution calculated so that was sure to have enough goods.
– They spent four weeks at unloading, driving, sorting, packing and distribution. Each person in Porsgrunn could bring out a box which together contained 15.75 kg of foods, says Jørn Erik Øvald.
It consisted of 1.25 kg fat, cheese and meat from the Main Dairy, 0.5 kg meat from butchers, 6 kg potatoes from Hanssens stock and 8 kg diverse as could be picked up at the Odd Fellow. People were therefore urged not to come alone, whether to bring a whole family and bring empty paper bags and suitable transport equipment. Adjoining districts of Eidanger, Gjerpen and Solum were also favored with a generous ration flour products, meat and potatoes.
– also were all children biscuits and chocolate, and it was given extra goods to Lillegårdens- and Munk and Klems orphanages, nursing homes and Heather Bakken sanatorium, tells Øvald.
The enthusiasm is great in Porsgrunn and you ask yourself, of course, questions about what can be done in return. The answer from Captain Thesmer is modest:
– Give us tændstikker.
It turns out that there is a lack of matches in Denmark, and although it is barely even in Porsgrunn, the situation is so much better that people can strike a blow to show his appreciation. It is therefore initiating a lyninnsamling.
– Now it’s the private as well as wholesalers and retailers spitting in the gun and come forward with what they can dispense of matches, writes a journalist in Porsgrunn Dagblad.
Collect Central is created in cinema cellar with entrance from the People’s restaurant.
– But remember urgency highly! is the clear call.
Before “Their” traveling from Porsgrunn with 8000 packets matches, add schooner docked at Porsgrunn and get loaded on board 50 tonnes of saltpetre from Norwegian Hydro. Shipowner Kromann deserves obviously also a symbol of the city’s appreciation, but only on Christmas Eve in 1945, a vase from the porcelain factory sent with “D / S Sophie” to Denmark.
In the letter accompanying the gift, writes Councilman Martin Hansen and Mayor Johan Peter Johansen that they thought to find an object that could be a memory of the event.
– Besides that vase is performed here, and thus is a product of Porsgrunn, it also displays Gaustatoppen summer as they saw it.
– The vase I have seen in Marstal on Ærø, and up in the lay lots of letters of thanks from people in Porsgrunn, smiles Bjørg Johannessen.
She has had a close relationship with the small island south of Funen since “Its” came to Porsgrunn. Then Bjørg, with maiden name Kittilsen, 9 years and had lived most of his life with war. At home in Holbergsgate on Sund Grounded cultivated potatoes and cabbage in the garden, and occasionally his father, Karl, placed tobacco plants.
At night it happened that the family was awakened by alert and had to hurry to the basement. When the bombs fell on Herøya in 43, they had rented a small cottage on Sandøya and saw the planes fly into the city followed by thundering and fear for what might have happened to the family and friends.
The nearest survived, but when the family came home had bombs razed neighborhood, and all the windows of the house were blown out and nailed again with table.
– Liberation Day, I remember well, says Johannessen.
– I happened on Osebakken because an aunt and uncle of mine rented a small house in the main street 235. I was outside playing with a school friend when it suddenly came children marching down the street with Norwegian flag. My mum and aunt had a brother who went to sea in 39, so I goes into the kitchen window, throw me over the windowsill and cry: war is over! Now Uncle Henry home!
In the afternoon cycled through the city and they had a grand and full roll all the way. Hans Olsen, the father of Bo, in Storgata 27 had wondered away from a radio during the war. Now he placed it in the window, turned at full volume and outside on the street stood the people and waved and shouted.
Finally could Valentina and her classmates return to a normal school day. During the war they had had to move because the Germans took Porsgrunn higher public schools and “Asbjørn Kloster” in possession.
– I do not remember that “Its” came to Porsgrunn, but I remember well the experience of the classroom that day we received packages from Denmark, says Johannessen.
It contained at least oatmeal and maybe soap. But more important than all the good stuff was a note with a name and address: Kirsten Margrethe Hansen, Vraa, Ærøskøbing, Ærø, Denmark.
It was the start of a warm and cordial correspondence. The two steady old girls wrote down confidences and secrets in elaborately cursive. The first Hepatica and Lily of the Valley were pressed and sent south, and gifts wrapped in brown paper came north. Before Christmas 45 sent the mother of Kirsten a piece of Danish pork and mother Bjørg fried in thick slices and asked the family to visit New Year’s Eve.
It took around ten years before young girls final met face to face. Thereupon Bjørg on road trip south, and the two had become young women and ringforlova.
– It was like we had always known each other, smiling Johannessen.
They were staying at the farm with his parents to Kirsten. There was a door from the kitchen straight into the squad, and when they had gone to bed at night, they could hear the horses kicking the wall. Three years later, the connection between the two families is further enhanced.
– Kirsten had moved to Copenhagen with her husband to work. My father, who had been a widower, was traveling in Denmark and thrust stop by. There was Kirsten’s mother-in visits, and there has probably been some glances across the table, for they were married in 1959, laughing Johannessen.
– She was a widow and had five children. The oldest was already married in Denmark, but suddenly I had gotten Inger as little sister, plus my brother Arne. Thus, the contact between our two families very special, and it has led to many visits in both countries.
It was not only Bjørg who sent letters to Ærø. Many sat down with pen and paper to express their gratitude to the brotherly people of the south. Not only in letter form, also Porsgrunns Dagblad filled up with letters to the editor this June month. Storm W. Thoresen dishes including a hearty thank you to supply the Tribunal from people in Hovenga.
– This is actually the first time since the war broke out we just beyond the city limits will be remembered. We have during the war been considered as if we were in possession of the farm all together. But fortunately there are some people who understand and show that is not the case, but we are just hungry for food that people in town. This should never be forgotten, he writes.
node leads of course that other people wonder who gets the packets, and asks what criteria should be based. Students at vocational school writes in a post that they have never come into consideration in the distribution of packages of Sweden and Denmark during the war.
– When this time came more tons, we went out in that we would get our party. Unfortunately we were disappointed. Because if we do not stand enrolled in the supply Tribunal here, we now have two years had our card stamped in city business and consequently we have not got anything else to live off than Porsgrunns business had to offer (which is not much) .
Olav Øvald responded that technicians, and others that are not listed in the supply Tribunal registry will receive their gifts on the spot where they get ration cards. But which of these cities or places that receive Danish gifts and what not, is impossible to determine. He asks them to submit a written statement.
– It is however clear that the distribution can not take place before the city’s permanent population has received their packages, says the manager.
– The securities and work that he did show that Olav Øvald must have been a very thorough and patient man, says textile artist Dorthe HERUP.
In 1999, she went from Holmestrand to Gallery Osebro to discuss its upcoming exhibition featuring the then owner, Jørn Erik Øvald. Language revealed quickly that she was Danish.
– From a small island called Ærø, explains HERUP.
– You know, it’s not so long ago I read about Ærø in Dad’s papers, answer Øvald and disappear.
He comes back with documents and newspaper clippings about “Its.” HERUP have one year before the exhibition should be clear. She decides to delve into the story and get his mother on Ærø to be detective in the archives of Marstal.
– We see that there has been a connection between Porsgrunn and Ærø which has led to a desire to help after the war, says HERUP.
It lived about 10,000 people in the 30-kilometer long island in 1945. Ærøboere Marstal was called for “Groll” or sparrows, since it is the most common bird species in the world, and sailors from Ærø likewise was spread throughout the world’s oceans. That was also when Dorthe grew up in the 50s and 60s.
– Most were children of sailors, and we were often out sailing with his family. At school it was not unusual for someone in the class was missing. They could be in Greenland or in Singapore with his father. It was perfectly normal. Many sailors were married on the road, and put ashore wife, for example Thailand, and small children on Ærø before they traveled back out. We were a colorful community before the word was invented, the artist says.
Source material mother obtained was woven into a carpet with “Its” primary subject, accompanied by Porsgrunns coat of arms and a silhouette of the island seen from a bird’s perspective. It’s got a special place in the exhibition at Gallery Osebro in February 2000, and shared their memories of the June days in 1945 in front of the artwork.
– The carpet was hanging on the library in Porsgrunn for one year after the exhibition. I thought that someone might decide to buy it, but it did not happen, so I brought it back. Since carpet participated in an exhibition in Vinje in Telemark, and now it hangs on Fulehuk Lighthouse south of Bolærne, in connection with the summer exhibition which opens on 12 June and looks over the same waters as “Its” sailed for almost exactly 70 years ago.
immediately after that ship leaves the Norwegian «cliff coast» 13th June 1945, they come out of a severe storm northwest. In travelogue writes Jensen that he had never dreamed that ships could behave as feisty as the “Its” made the 16 hours it took to cross the Skagerrak on returning, but he retracts the all rumors that the French minister should have been seasick on their trip to Norway.
– It has sanhed, from first to last, the weather an extraordinary and unprecedented experience that follow the sending of gifts from donors to modtagerne, writes Jensen.
– And I will forever be grateful to those who so graciously and hospitably gave me lejlighed the FAA part in æventyret.
The journey was over for the pastor, but the adventure of “Its” that lives on.
