Part I:

M/T Storsten

The 1st mate had his wife with him; she was expecting a child, and one of the able seamen also had his wife with him.

As mentioned earlier Storsten did not see much of the others once she had reached open waters, keeping a northwesterly course at full speed. At 10:00 (Apr. 1) 2 large and a small vessel were seen on her starboard side, at first assumed to be Skytteren, Rigmor and Lind, but when the smaller ship came towards her while at the same time opening fire it became apparent none of them was Norwegian (these could have been Schiff 7 and Schiff 47). She was not hit, and was subsequently able to hide in the incoming fog, continuing in a southwesterly direction. Around 13:00 she was an estimated 32 miles southeast of Kristiansand. The fog had also been to her benefit in another way, in that the German aircraft had been prevented from taking off, but just after 14:00 a JU 88 appeared, then Storsten was suddenly shaken by a tremendous explosion, believed to be a mine (dropped by the aircraft according to "Kvarstadbåtene"; "The Blockade Busters" refers to it as a "drifting mine"). The foreship was ripped open on the starboard side, a water tank exploded so that the water was pushed upwards over the bridge, the starboard lifeboat was destroyed and the steering mechanism damaged. The helmsman was thrown down to the boatdeck and the carpenter was injured when the concrete reinforcement on the bridge collapsed. (According to statements given by Radio Operator Tor Jorfald in London on Aug. 22-1942 it was Able Seaman Anton Andersen who was injured, not the carpenter - also, the radio operator's report gives the time of explosion as 14:56).
While all this was taking place both captains were on the bridge, and the 1st mate also came to, while Captain Reeve fired at the attacker with a Colt pistol. The Norwegian captain ordered the radio operator to send an SOS immediately after the explosion, and he attempted to do so, but the aircraft came down low, and with a line and hook the antenna was rendered useless so no SOS could be sent. An attempt was made to rig up the emergency antenna, but this proved impossible because the aircraft was continuously firing at them ("Nortraships flåte" states that at 14:13 GMT on Apr. 1 a British radio station picked up an SOS signal from Storsten, and the word "torpedoed" - it appears those on Lind had also heard their SOS, this according to Lind's 1st mate), at the same time the aircraft dropped a bomb which did not detonate but rolled overboard between the boatswain's legs. Storsten defended herself continuously with her Lewis, but to no avail (though the aircraft did receive damages before it flew off). A larger bomb landed in the water about 20 meters from the side of the ship. When a German trawler approached, opening fire, Storsten's crew, realizing their luck had run out got the port boat, the motorboat and the gig out before the ship was scuttled. The last men to leave the ship were the British captain and the radio operator. One source says the British captain stayed behind to activate the scuttling charges, while the radio operator stated at the inquiry later that it was, in fact, he who activated the charges from the radio station, having been told by the British captain to remain on board to do so. After he had "pushed the button" he swam to the lifeboat. The motorboat, with the Norwegian captain and the 2nd mate plus 15 others took the other 2 boats in tow and got away unnoticed, with Storsten between themselves and the trawler. The 1st mate took command of the lifeboat which held most of the others, and only a few were in the gig. When the boats had gotten a few miles away they saw German planes above the ship.
NOTE: I've seen references in a couple of sources saying that the Germans later tried to tow Storsten to Norway, but she sank en route.
They agreed to try to reach the place where they were supposed to meet the British escorts. With increasing winds and seas the boats had to be bailed continuously, they were cold and wet and utterly miserable. Not long after 18:00 a British aircraft was seen. This was, in fact an RAF Beaufighter. 2 Blenheim crews from the Coastal Command at Dyce had originally been told that the first Kvarstad ship with departure time 20:00 on March 31 was expected to be out of Skagerrak at dawn on Apr. 1, and were ordered to be over the area at 05:30 that morning, but during the night the Admiralty had received information that the ships had been delayed, and therefore the aircraft did not take off when planned. Although the exact departure times were not known, 14 aircraft, operating in pairs from Dyce had been up all that afternoon without seeing anything, until 18:27 when 2 Beaufighter crews spotted Storsten, listing heavily to starboard and with a damaged raft alongside, but no sign of life. Shortly afterwards, one of the aircraft reported having seen 3 large boats, with an estimated 100 men on board (this number was, of course, not at all correct). To the great joy of the shipwrecked men the aircraft came down low, and they waved and held up Norwegian flags. The pilots had also noticed that 2 of the boats were being towed by a third, but did not seem to have taken note of which direction they were going.
Towards evening the motor stopped, and because of the weather a sea anchor had to be used, with the boats keeping together with the help of a line. Early on Apr. 2 they had to let go of the gig after the 3 who were in it had been transferred to the lifeboat which took the motorboat in tow. Sail was set, heading in a westerly direction. Mrs. Olsen (see crew list on next page) became hysterical, thinking that those in her boat were trying to kill her; her husband was also showing signs of the stress and attempted to jump overboard several times after he and his wife had both been moved to the lifeboat. They had to heave to for the night because of the strong winds, but sails were set again the following morning (Apr. 3 - Good Friday) and towing was resumed, this time with a more southwesterly course, because the wind had changed direction. However, as the wind got stronger and stronger they had to lower the sails. Most of those who were in the motorboat wanted to continue westwards (though they were 270 n. miles away from the nearest point on the Scottish coast), and at 11:00, after 2 people from each boat had changed places, the motorboat rowed away in a westerly direction (Trimmer Arne Borge, who was in the lifeboat, was 1 of the 2 who wanted to continue to the meeting point and swapped places with Gustaf Nordstrøm, and by this simple act their fate was sealed). The position was estimated to be about 30 n. miles soutwest of Flekkefjord, the weather was sunny and clear and land was in sight. The remaining 32 planned to land in groups at different places in Jøssingfjord after dark, then sink the lifeboat.
They were not able to get into the fjord, but reached land on the east side of the inlet to Rekefjord near Sogndal at dawn on Apr. 4. They met 2 small fishing vessels, which took off again without answering their questions. Just before they landed 3 men were seen up on the hill, heading towards a German battery, which resulted in 23 of the 32 in the boat being taken prisoners within a short time. 9 got away, 8 of whom managed to get to Sweden (there's some disagreement over this number in the various sources, with some saying 8, some 7, others 6). Mary Bie, the wife of the 1st Mate, was admitted to a hospital where she had her baby - her husband Finn was 1 of the 9 who managed to escape capture, and was able to get to Sweden. He returned to his wife in Trondheim in 1945 (his granddaughter has told me Mary Bie went to the U.S. with her 2 children, and Finn Bie remarried in 1949 - see text under Storsten on Page 2. His 2nd wife, Nelly is still alive, as are her 3 children).
One of the escapees was the carpenter, who together with 2 others from the lifeboat sought refuge at a farm in Åna Sira, after having attempted to cross a bridge which was found to be guarded by Germans. The farmer gave them clothes and food and a place to sleep. Exhausted that they were they slept till the farmer came to wake them to inform them that the Germans were looking for them. At about the same time 3 others from the crew came to the farm, and quickly all 6 were hidden in a wardrobe on the second floor of the farmhouse, while the farmer went down to greet the Germans. He kept talking and gave them butter and meat to get them on their way, and fortunately they finally departed without having examined the second floor. Equipped with skis, money and food the refugees embarked on a trip across the mountain to get to Oslo, but bad weather conditions forced the carpenter and his two friends back to the coast, and in Lyngdal they hiked a ride with a truck to a place near Kristiansand. That night they got a lift towards town on a bus, but just a couple of hundred meters from town the bus was stopped by a German control post. As the door was opened the carpenter simply walked right past the Germans and up to a house near the road, from where he was able to see that the passengers were being checked. As the bus departed, his 2 pals were left standing on the side of the road with the Germans (presumably because they didn't have the necessary papers). He then went down to the road again, walked passed the Germans and their prisoners and kept walking. Before long they caught up with him and passed him, whereupon he followed them all the way into town where he saw them disappear into a building.
The carpenter then boarded a bus again, this time for Arendal, and having no place to go he was just wandering the streets there when he was stopped by a German guard who shone a light in his face, asking what he was doing out at that time of night. The carpenter replied that he had just paid off a ship, and was unable to get a hotel room. The guard was kind enough to take him to the Seamen's Hotel and saw to it that he got a room. Since he had no papers on him, the hotel keeper sent him to the police station the next day, where the carpenter explained that he had paid off a ship, spent the night with a friend in Kristiansand and had forgotten his papers there (a story he had also told the hotel keeper). He asked for a temporary pass to Oslo, and permission was issued in his name, then he was told to report to the police in Oslo. Once there he served the same old story, and could he please have a border pass to travel to Rendal, his home place. When the police officer seemed hesitant, the carpenter suggested he call the police in Rendal (whom the carpenter knew), which he did, whereupon the pass was issued and before long the carpenter was back in Sweden.
There's no mention of what happened further to his 2 friends whom he had seen going into a building with the Germans, but this event might explain why there's such disagreement on the number of escapees to Sweden. I've also been unable to find out what happened to Mrs Bie and her new baby immediately after it was born. Those who escaped to Sweden were later flown to the U.K. where they joined the Norwegian forces. (See Page 2).

 An unsolved mystery: 

The motor boat with the 17 on board had set a course for England, but never got there. It had been observed in the morning of Apr. 4 by a Lockheed Hudson, Captain Stork, who reported over his radio that he had seen a motor lifeboat with 9 or 10 people, giving the position as 57 45N 04 26E., about 90 n. miles off Lindesnes, adding that the course was 330°. It circled them for about 20 minutes, then disappeared. At 09:40 that same morning Group No. 18 at Pitreavis Castle (near Edinburgh, Scotland) gave the Hudson crew orders to return to the boat and escort it until they could be replaced by another escort. It took them 45 minutes to fly back to the given position, but could not find the boat, and Captain Stork returned to base at 11:10. The group's headquarters reacted quickly upon hearing about the boat and a Sunderland airboat from Invergordon was ordered to the given position to rescue the shipwrecked people, if at all possible to go down. The Sunderland was to go by Dyce (this is in Aberdeen) to pick up a Beaufighter escort consisting of 4 aircraft. The escort was met at 12:36, and they headed out in increasingly bad weather, which eventually resulted in them losing sight of the Beaufighters and the search was abandoned. The weather conditions on the Scottish coast the following day were also unsuitable, and the assumption is that the boat got lost during the storm on Apr. 4. According to the radio operator's later statements in London, the motor boat did not have a mast and sail, and none of the lifeboats had a radio transmitter.
Later that same year, on Aug. 3 a lifeboat containing some personal belongings of one of Storsten's missing engineers (Erling Bakke) was found near Agger, on the west coast of Denmark. But the lifeboat itself was not from Storsten, it had at one time belonged to Olsen & Ugelstad's Tindefjell which had been seized by the Kriegsmarine in Apr.-1941. However, according to German authorities this lifeboat had been lost BEFORE Tindefjell was taken into use by the Kriegsmarine. A letter dated July 3-1943, signed by Haukefjell's 1st Mate J. G. Ugstad, Captain A. Stenersen and 2nd Engineer E. Jarle Johannesen, all previously of Tindefjell, states that when Tindefjell was taken in "Anspruch" in Hamburg in Apr.-1941 the boat was located on top of No. 4 Hold, and this is where it was when the crew left to go home to Norway. The markings on the boat, coupled with a description of the motor left no doubt that it was indeed the lifeboat from Tindefjell. It has been suggested that E. Bakke may have come across Tindefjell's boat after Storsten's boat was lost, or that the men from Storsten's boat had been picked up by the German ship that had Tindefjell's boat, with Bakke saving himself in the mystery lifeboat when that ship was sunk - all speculations. (Tindefjell/Sperrbrecher 174 struck a mine on May 28-1942 and sank west of Buoy 11W, west of Dunkirk).

Part II:

M/T Storsten

Attacked by German aircraft and a German trawler 32 miles south of Kristiansand, Norway and scuttled Apr. 1-1942. A lifeboat with 17 on board later disappeared. Another boat reached Jøssingfjord on Apr. 4, and its inhabitants were assisted by a local farmer. 9? (among them 1st Mate Bie, Deckboy Krohn, and Seaman Andresen) managed to escape to Sweden from there, while the remaining 23 (incl. the British captain) ended up in a concentration camp in Germany, after German authorities had been notified of their landing. At first they were kept in solitary confinement at Akershus, Oslo, before being sent on to Wilhelmshaven via Kiel in the middle of May that year. (There were a total of 7 women on the various Kvarstad ships + a girl born in 1934 - see list for Skytteren further down on this page - all of them, except 1st Mate Finn Bie's wife, Mary Bie, ended up in Germany). The misc. sources disagree on the number of men who escaped to Sweden, 6 is given, as is 8 and 9. It appears Mary Bie gave birth to a child after having landed at Jøssingfjord; and this could be part of the reason for the confusion. Her husband managed to get away to Sweden. The radio operator (and others too) must have managed to get to London, because he appeared at an inquiry there on Aug. 22-1942. (See my text under Storsten on Page 1). This is further confirmed by an E-mail I've received from Ben Johnston, the great great grandson of Captain James Reeve, stating the following:
The wife of James Reeve, Annie Gertrude Reeve (nee Craddock) received a letter from Finn Bie, Tor Jordfald, Johannes Løken, B. Andersen, Gjertsen, Joar Krohn, B. Nymoen and F. Borchgrevink. It states that "8 of the crew of the M/T Storsten on which your husband was captain, have arrived here via Norway and Sweden and we thought you might be interested in some information... Captain Reeve came aboard the Storsten before Christmas last year and from the first moment had the respect and esteem from the crew as only a man of his casting and mental structure deserved... His spirit was a constant encouragement to us and a great help for all of us... Captain Reeve had not the strength left when we came ashore to join us in our escape in the mountains". This then, must mean that the 8 named in this letter were the ones who managed to escape, and later came to England.
Ben adds: You may be aware that the nazis had mistaken him for Binney and threatend to be shot by the Nazis nine times, this is the heading out of the newspaper ' NINE TIMES NAZIS SAID "WE SHOOT YOU TOMORROW!"'
James Reeve was awarded the OBE on 16th October 1945 by King George sixth - by this time he already had a DSC for rescuing a Fighter Pilot out of the sea while under heavy enemy attack.
I've also received some interesting E-mails from Finn Bie's granddaughter who says that Mary Bie gave birth to a daughter named Kari. Shortly after the war she had a son named Finn. Mary Bie later went to the U.S.A., taking both children with her. Finn Bie remarried in 1949 and had 3 more children. He never spoke about his ex wife and children, and the subject of his war experiences remained tabu in the family until the day he died in 1995. On the occasion of his 80'th birthday in 1991 his son Finn came from the U.S. to see him, but Finn Bie refused to speak with him, so it's obvious he wanted to forget everything that could remind him of his war experiences. One of his daughters has since tried to find her half sister Kari, but without luck. His granddaughter also tells me that Finn Bie was awarded The King’s Gold Medal of Honour in the 1990's but refused to travel to the King's palace in Oslo to accept it, nor would he have it delivered to him, saying it was much too late; what good was such a medal to him 50 years after the fact, when he was almost dead anyway? He had no use for it anymore. (He sounds about as stubborn and bitter as my own father!). She says the traumas of the war stayed with him all through the rest of his life, to the point where they had to take care not to approach him too abrubtly; if they did, his reactions could be very harsh. So, the war experiences of the seamen affected not only the seamen themselves, but the next generation(s) as well.

British captain was, as mentioned, James Reeve,
Nortraship's representative was Ragnar Bull-Nilsen.
Storsten had a total of 49 people on board at the time of breakout, including the 2 female passengers, the 1st mate's wife Mary Bie as mentioned, and Bertha Olsen, wife of Able Seaman Sten Olsen, as well as the following (in addition to the captains already mentioned above):
1st Mate Finn Bie,
2nd Mate Einar Tønnessen (My Guestbook has a message from the nephew of Storsten's 2nd mate)
3rd Mate John H. Gjertsen,
Radio Operator Tor Jorfald,
1st Engineer Alfred Gjertsen,
2nd Engineer Erling Bakke,
3rd Engineer Asbjørn Edgar Tømmerek,
4th Engineer Aksel E. Johnsen,
Steward Arthur Kristiansen,
Cook Odd Lund Eliassen,
Boatswain Hans Fjelly (died at Sonnenburg on Jan. 29-1944),
Carpenter Alfred Nymoen,
Able Seamen Anton Andersen, Trygve W. Fredriksen (died at Sonnenburg in Sept.-1944), and Jan J. Haarstad,
Seamen Lother Helland, Rolf Høiberget (died at Bergen-Belsen in March-1945), Johannes Løken, Arne R. Jenssen, Andreas Andresen and Sten Olsen,
Trimmer Arne Borge,
Mechanics Karl Arne Eriksson, Jens Olav Olsen and Erling Westlund,
Oilers Karl Anker Nygaard (died at Sonnenburg in Aug.-1944), Ragnar Scott Helgesen and Finn Haneberg,
Deckboy Joar Fred Krohn,
Galleyboy Arnfinn Frammarvik,
Messboy Trygve Hugo Berg, (my Guestbook has a message from a relative)
Saloonboy Gunnar Marius Haugen and
extra crew:
Erling Andersen, Wilfred Jensenius, Lorentz Larsen, Ingulf Gjerde, Renée Steen-Olsen, Gunnar Egil Gundersen, Finn Borchgrevink, Asbjørn Amundal* (died at Sonnenburg on Febr. 9.-1944), Jens Erling Johnsen, Arne S. Herwander, Ole Herwander, Gustaf Fredrik Nordstrøm, and Harald Konrad Nilsen.
*Asbjørn Amundal is mentioned in a story I've included on my page Krigsseilerhistorier (Warsailor Stories). If you read Norwegian, you'll find it under "Knut Wold's historie", which says that Asbjørn had helped remove an important part of a German warship, then sunk it in the channel afterwards, before escaping to Sweden.
These were in the lifeboat that disappeared:
R. B. Nilsen, E. Tønnessen, J. J. Haarstad, A. R. Jensen, O. Eliassen, A. Frammarvik, T. H. Berg, E. Bakke, A. E. Tømmerek, A. E. Johnsen, A. M. Borge, E. J. Johnsen, O. Herwander, I. Gjerde, R. Steen-Olsen, L. Larsen, E. Andersen.
The webmaster of the Milag website has told me that Karl Anker Nygård and Rolf Høiberget were both executed.
Related external link:
Stavern Commemorations - This website adds that the missing lifeboat drifted ashore empty near the Tyborøn channel on the west coast of Jutland. It also says that 6 escaped to Sweden.

M/T Storsten info:

M/T Storsten NS * - Rafen & Loennechen, Tønsberg - 5343 gt - Built in Glasgow 1926.
Built by Barclay Curle & Co., Glasgow (613), launched May 12-1926. 5343 gt, 7850 tdwt, 3114 net, 388' 2" x 52' 8" x 29', 4 Cyl. 2 SCDA Maclagan oil engine (North British Diesel Engine Works Ltd, 2700 bhp, 11 knots. New engine installed in 1928, 3 cyl. Doxford by shipbuilder, 2100 bhp.
WW II: One of the well known "Kvarstad"-ships that attempted to break out of Sweden on March 31/April 1-1942 following a long court case there. Only 2 out of a total of 10 ships involved managed to reach their destination (Operation Performance, Sir George Binney). Kvarstad Ships & Men has background facts and details on the breakout and all ships involved, with a crew list for each ship as well as info on their fate. There's also a picture of Storsten.

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