KNM Hitra: The ''Shetlands Bus'' by Theodore R. Treadwell he door of the Quonset hut opened and the light from inside flooded the wooden ramp leading down to the dock . Three men emerged carrying heavy cases of radio gear down the ramp to the waiting ship . The low reverberations of the ship 's generators were the on ly sounds in the sil ence of the cold night air. Dark figures in pea jackets and watch caps helped them load the cases aboard and in a few minutes all was secured. One of the men stayed on the dock to cast off the lines while the subchaser backed off, wheeled around and di sappeared into the bl ack ni ght. By the time the man had returned to the warmth of the Quonset hut the ship was already pitching and rolling in the cold waters of the North Sea. The Hitra had just left her secret base in Scalloway, a remote fi shing village in the Shetland Isles, and was on her way eastward to occupied Norway. She carried two men and two tons of equipment and food supplies for operating a radio station on Stavenes, a remote island outermost in the Strong fjord. The men would spend the next few month s secretl y reporting German shipping activity to the Allied Comm and in Britain. Hitra was a " Shetlands Bus," one of three American-built subchasers that had become the only means of access to-and escape from-Norway and the claws of the German Gestapo. The subchasers were vital to Norway and to the Allied Supreme Command. War had come to Norway on 9 April 1940 when the Germans surprised the littl e country with a swift, powerful invasion. Norway's King Haakon VII and his retinue barely escaped to England aboard the Royal Navy crui ser HMS Devonshire. Remnants of the Norwegian Army vanished into the hills or fled to the Shetlands using boats of all sizes , even rowboats! It took only two months for the Germans to gain complete control of Norway, which gave Germany greatly widened access to the North Sea and the Atlantic beyond . Once in London King Haakon wasted no time setting up a government-inex ile, a body that existed for the remainder of the war. The secret coll aborati on between British and Norweg ian forces began almost immedi ately. Less than two weeks after the takeover, radio transmitters were sending information about German naval movements to Briti sh Intelligence.
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At its narrowest point, on ly 190 miles of North Sea separate Norway from Britain ' s Shetland Isles. Sma ll fishing vesse ls ca ll ed smacks were quickly pressed into service to cross this natural corridor, whi ch was an in vitation for escape, counter-resistance and sabotage. By September 1940 the first secret agents had been ferried over to estab li sh contact between the government-in-ex ile and res istance groups forming in Norway . Soon more than 30 smacks were making cross ings, and by Christmas over 200 refugees and more than I 00 British soldi ers had been transported. The frequency of the cross ings gave rise to the name the "S hetlands Bus." The crews working the Shetlands Bus were civili an irregulars-young Norwegians , many of them fishermen-
When they saw the subchasers the Norwegians could hardly contain themselves. They cheered and punched and slapped each other, excited as schoolboys. To them the SCs looked like small destroyers.
with a strong sense of patriotism and a zest for adven ture. "The Shetlands Gang," as they called themselves, was dedicated to the task of transporting military pe rsonnel, saboteurs, rad io equipmen t and arm s to Norway , returning with condemned refugees or Norwegian s wishing to join the Allied fo rces fighting the Germans. One of the leaders was Leif Andreas Larsen, a man of great courage, initi ative and imagination , who had been go ing to sea since before he was 16. For Larsen, no mission was too risky or impossible and word of hi s deeds spread until he was known to everyone as "S hetlands Larsen." The British Admiralty called him simply "The Larsen." Hi s wartime exploits were so notable th at he became orway's most decorated hero, and a statue in his honor stands today on the waterfront in Bergen, Norway. The Shetlands Gang was clever and resourceful at avoiding detection, and for many months the little smacks carried on the ir clandestine tasks without incident. With thousands of fishing boats
mov ing dail y through the many leads and fjords, the Germans found it difficult to adequately patro l the coastline. But after two years of successful smugg ling the Norwegians began fee ling the effects of increased German vigi lance. During the harsh winter months of 1942-43 enemy patrol s combined with the savage weather to sink 10 Norwegian fi shing boats, res ulting in the loss of 44 crew members and 60 passengers. The slow-moving smacks, with the characteri stic "tonkety-tonk" of their single-cycle engines, could be heard for miles across the water. No match against enemy planes and patrol ships, they had to be replaced with vessels th at were quieter and faster. A reluctant decision was made to cease operation of the smacks until faster vessels with better armament and longer crui sing capabilities were available. By August 1943 the right buttons had been pushed at Allied Headquarters in London and Admi ra l Harold R. "Betty" Stark, commander of US Nava l Forces in Europe, had come to the rescue by ordering three American-built SC-class subchasers to be tran sferred to Britain. In the early days of the warthe major purpose of the 11 0' SCs was to deter and hamper the German U-boat offensive. The wooden subchasers and their larger sister ships, the 173 ' steel-hulled PCs, served more as stopgaps than as offensive weapons, to give the US time to build destroyers, destroyer-escorts and antisubmar ine aircraft to wage an all-out offensive aga inst the U-boats. Armed with depth charges, the SCs and PCs screened merchant convoys with the ir underwater sound gear, keeping the U- boats submerged and on the defe nsive, unable to launch their torpedoes. When larger vessels became availab le as the war progressed, subchasers were deployed in a variety of other ways, from am phi bious landing control to minesweeping and from gunboats to picket patrol. SCs were the smallest commissioned warships in the US Navy and were made of wood because steel was a ll ocated for larger vesse ls and other military uses. SCs could be built qui ckl y in small boatyards by ex perienced craftsmen. From keel-laying to launching took an average of six months. Each had a normal complement of three officers and 24 enli sted men. The SCs had a cruising radius of 1500 mil es and speeds up to 20 SEA HISTORY 84, SPRING 1998