War veteran Jakob Strandheim was the last survivor of the resistance group Shetland gang from World War II. Now he is dead, 101 years old.
The 101-year-old died on Friday, writes Fiskeribladet.
Strandheim participated according to a NRK interview in 2018 with the Shetland gang on 56 trips across the North Sea during World War II. Most of these were with the submarine fighter KNM Hitra.
The Shetland gang was a resistance group during World War II that operated in the waters between Shetland, Scotland and German-occupied Norway.
Honored earlier this year
On September 1 this year, a few weeks before his death, Strandheim honored with a memorial plaque and the awarding of a military coin at his home in Øygarden outside Bergen. He himself was present at the ceremony with family.
– It was incredibly nice to see KNM “Hitra” once again. I was deputy commander on the vessel and had 44 of my trips only on that boat. That the Navy was present, and the cadets gave me a coin, made the ceremony special, the war veteran said according to the Armed Forces in connection with the ceremony.
– The Armed Forces is very grateful that the people here in Øygarden have taken the initiative to erect this beautiful monument. We hope that this for a long time to come will inspire young people and others to stand up and fight if it should be demanded again, commented war captain Lasse Hiis Bergh.
The war veteran leaves behind three children, seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
Many assignments
According to the War Sailors Register, Strandheim was incorporated into the Shetland gang in February 1942. One of the first assignments he took part in while waiting to get on board a boat was to help load an oil barrel in “Sjø”.
He was the skipper of the escape boat “Skjærgård”. 11 men had come over with it at the beginning of October 1941.
He and several of his comrades got jobs in the merchant navy after they came to London.
While several of the others came across the traffic across the Atlantic, Strandheim spent three months on a smaller cargo boat as between England and Scotland. The boats unloaded larger convoy boats, and carried the supplies on. They were to ensure that “if one was lowered, at least a couple of others could emerge”.
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