by Odd Bjerke.
Hardback (6.3×9.3 inches). 221 pages. 2026.
Subtitle: The World War II Story of Odd Bjerke, 5 Troop, No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando
Oddeman Bjerke was a Norwegian who fled Norway into Sweden and then traveled to Britain to fight the Germans during WWII. His mother was German, so he spoke Norwegian, German, and presumably English. His father owned a small machine shop that was eventually taken over for war production by the Germans. As the mother was formerly German, she proved quite useful in gathering intel for the Allies. The biggest danger was not the Gestapo but the Norwegian Resistance, which had a habit of killing off collaborators. The British discovered this and requested the Resistance cease and desist because they lost intel assets.
Anyway, Bjerke joined the British Army and was sent to a weather station on some tiny island off the coast of Iceland. Two years later, he was transferred to Commando school and subsequently was sent to Norway for sabotage and Resistance training missions.
Once, while escaping back into Sweden, he came upon the Swedish border post that didn’t look quite right. He and his fellow commando skirted the post and sure enough, two miles later, found the real Swedish border post. The Germans had set up a fake one to capture those who thought they had escaped into Sweden. Just because the Gestapo was evil didn’t mean they couldn’t be clever.
His escapades in Norway meant he came close to dying and being captured, but he always escaped. He even paired with a Russian commando team on the Finnish-Norwegian border. The refuse to die seems more aligned with his mission in the Netherlands, not Norway.
Bjerke died before he could complete his memoir. To quote the cover: “Transcribed, edited, and recovered by Bruce Cassell, Carsten Bjerke, and Annette Schilt.”
They did a good job integrating all the info and making it readable. About the only nits to pick are some factoids that seem out of place, or at least need better explaining. For example, he’s a Sergeant (p37), then a Corporal (p41), then a Sergeant (p103), and then a Lieutenant (p158). Or that a radio broadcast mentioned Iwo Jima and Wake Island battles in the same broadcast (p75) — even though the battles were years apart. Of note from other books, the German Luftwaffe did bomb Icelandic weather stations and the Resistance did occasionally get a ship to Britain. Remember, this was an incomplete memoir, so memories may often be imperfect, but need to be reworked. The Norwegian missions certainly ring true.
The book contains 11 black and white photos.
A few skirmishes between German troops, Bjerke, and Norwegian Resistance fighters would make for interesting tabletop scenarios. Sticking a Gestapo fake border post would be a neat twist at the end of a game — well, maybe for the German players. A neat read.
Enjoyed it.
— Reviewed by Russ Lockwood
