I'm listening to a podcast about assassinations in Norway during WWII. There are some intersting cases. a Norwegian working in a police unit that worked closely with the Gestapo lived in a block of flats reserved for high-ranking nazis where security was tight. The target was known as a sadistic torturer. The resistance tried to solve this by breaking into an apartment across the street. A civilian family lived there, but the assassins gagged them and tied them to their beds. This was done both for the safety of the hit men, but also to give the family an alibi when they later would get questioned by the Gestapo. The hit men had bought a machine gun, most likely a British Bren Gun they placed on a table facing the target's apartment.
The next morning the curtains opened in the apartment across the street and a burst was fired. Unfortunately it was the target's brother who opened the curtains. He also worked for the Germans, but he wasn't on the resistance's hit list. Later in the war the intended target got killed. The father in the family who lived in the apartment the hit men used was severely tortured by the Gestapo in spite of the precautions of the hit men.
This reminds me of a scene in Antony Horowitz' novel "Trigger Mortis" where the villains tries to kill 007 in the same way. I also think of one of Bond's two first two kills mentioned in the novel "Casino Royale". James Bond uses a sniper rifle to shoot a man across the street. He uses a second sniper to break the window in the target's apartment so the glass won't change the trajectory of his bullet. With the machine gun used by the Norwegian resistance this doesn't matter because of the high volume of fire.
In a later assassination a black marketeer, playboy and torturer. An SOE agent is equipped with a submachine gun inside a violin case with a mechanism to fire the gun without opening the case. I've never hear of anything like it used in WWII, but the SOE had many strange gadgets made for them. Unfortunately the target realized what was going on and managed to knock the violin case to the side in time. Then both the SOE agent and the informer ran out into the street. Both drew their pistols and a running gun battle took place on Karl Johan street, the main street of Oslo. the SOE agent managed to would the target seriously, but now they were on the street just outside Deutsches Haus (the German House), a pub dedicated to German officers! Many nazi officers watched with shock the dramatic scene just outside the window. The assassin was in great dager, but the getaway car pulled up just in time next to him, he jumped in and the car drove away at great speed. The target died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital
German officers drinking in Deutsches Haus in Oslo:
There is a lot of talk (and activity) of 'Russian capabilities for damaging infrastructure on the bottom of the sea such as internet cables and pipelines. A lot of this is happening in the Baltic Sea lately. This video is a bout Russia's capabilities for this type of warfare.
Soviet midget submarine discovered in Norway in 1990.
The summer of 1989 a fisherman was diving for crabs in Jarfjord in the far north-east of Norway when he discovers something extraordinary on the bottom of the fjord. Let me show you were Jarfjord is. The county of Finnmark is marked near the middle of this map. We see Denmark and the coast of Britain in the bottom left corner:
In this map we see Finnmark county with Swedish and Finnish Lappland to the south and Russia in the right half of the map. Jarfjord is marked in the center.
This image gives you a better ide of how close this is to the Russian border. The is place is about half an hour's drive from the Norwegian-Russian border. Jarfjord is very remote and sparsely populated part of the country. The red line shows the Norwegian-Russian border.
The man diving for crabs sees two parallell tracks on the ocean floor. This is clearly human made! A navy diver vessel is sent to investigate.
He alerts the military. The military suspects the tracks are from some sort of covert activity from the Soviet Union. Norway's navy special forces unit is the MJK, and they have a base in the far north. Few if any soldiers in the world are be better qualified for such a mission in the Arctic. Here is a part of their obstacle coarse where they train every morning before taking a refreshing swim:
Under the pretense of a training exercise two four-man patrols are ordered to covertly monitor the fjord. The mission starts on the 20th of October 1990. They make a carefully camouflaged hide in Jarfjord. To stay hidden the special forces soldiers never use a heat source. Here we see MJK soldiers during an exercise revealing their reconnaissance hide to the photographer:
Exactly month later a MJK soldier sees something in the fjord. A dark shadow just below the surface moves along the shore. Moments later the vessel surfaces. It's a midget submarine, about eight meters long. it is visible for about 3-4 minutes before it dives again. Blinking lights from the mouth of the fjord. Since a midget submarine can't go very far by its own, this was most likely a support ship. Based on the drawings the commando made it was probably this type of Soviet midget sub he saw.
The soldiers inside were most likely Spetsnaz from the Soviet Northern Fleet. They have abase not too far across the border in Zverosovkhoz. The photo shows Northern Fleet spetsnaz armed with rifles that can be used both on land and under the sea.
The MJK surveillance post is moved soon after closer to the place the midget submarine was seen, and only meters from the shore. Only four days later the vessel is observed by the same MJK soldier. It's snowing, the wind is strong and the temperature is -37 degrees Celsius. He hears a sound and with his binoculars he discovers bubbles rising to the surface. Because of the weather conditions his photos were useless. This photo is taken in the same area with the same type of weather:
But fresh marks on the bottom of the sea are discovered. The MJK gets new orders: The vessel must be seized, and weapons can be used. The relationship between the Soviet Union and the West is very delicate at this point. Most of the Soviet satellite states have broken free of the USSR, the Soviet Union itself is moving closer to democracy. Michael Grobachev, the leader of the USSR. has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and will receive it in Oslo only a couple of weeks later in Oslo. In spite of this the orders were if the vessel is seen again the MJK would fire warning shots. If this is ignored the MJK would use hand grenades and demolition charges against the midget sub. The goal was to destroy the rudder of the sub and force the spetsnaz soldiers inside to surrender. The MJK stayed hidden in Jarfjord until Easter the next year, for about six months. They hadn't lit any fires to avoid detection in spite of temperatures down to -40 Celsius.
They never saw the vessel again. This was perhaps for the best. The Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of the year. The MJK soldier who observed the vessel was Trond Andre Bolle. He later became a squadron commander in the MJK. and he was also a central member of the highly secretive intelligence organisation E-14 where he commanded missions in high-risk operations abroad. Here is a photo of him during the Jarfjord mission when he broke cover to catch seal:
He was killed by an IED in Afghanistan in 2010. The bomb was triggered by remote control after several cars had past over it, and it's likely the Taliban targeted him directly because of his great skill and knowledge of the enemy and the area. Bolle was awarded the second highest military medal in Norway posthumously. The only person who has been given the highest ranking medal is Gunnar ("Nr. 24") Sønsteby, and he campaigned sucessfully for Bolle.
I'm watching the Norwegian version of "Have I got news for you!". One of the panelists is a Russia-expert. The moderator said to him: "I see on your CV you did the Armed Forces Russian-class?". The guest nods. "Then you were assistant caretaker at the Norwegian embassy in Moscow?" Another nod. "Why didn't you just write 'spy' on that part of your CV?". The guest panelist just laughed. 😂
"There's nothing about you that says 'caretaker!'"
The entrance to the spy school. The two ravens represent Hugin and Munin (Mind and Memory) who according to Norse mythology reported to Odin of what happened in the world of man.
Flying the U-2 Spy Plane 70,000 Feet to the Edge of Space
(an excellent documentary on the U2. However the video gives the impression the SR-71 Blackbird pre-dates the U2. The SR-71 first flew in 1966, while the U2 Dragon Lady flew ten years earlier)
The Abwehr had it's Norwegian headquarters in Oslo, but I can't find the address. It seems there was a shipping company named Andersen & Andersen. I can't even find a Jacobs Gate in Oslo, but of course it's possible the street has been removed or re-named since the 1940's.
i have found an article in the Bergens Tidene newspaper that mentions Andersen & Andersen, but it's behind a paywall. it seems like the company was started to hide some sort of covert activity. The title of the article is "The spy who fooled the British".
"I apologize, Mister President. It's an inspired deal! Russia get what they want, economic chaos in the West. And the value of your shares increases many times.'
'I conservatively estimate, 10 times.' - From Russia With Trump.
Well one wonders what sort of ex-KGB officer would spill the beans, given what we understand from AVTAK - 'Nobody leaves the KGB...' This rumour has been doing the rounds on Twitter though Putin's jibe is as much to get the UK or US fearing the extent of Russian power rather than his actual power, so he'd like to have us believe that Trump is a terrific Russian coup. Even then, a codename assigned to someone may not depict an actual agent but rather some minor contact of possible use, it's not all Tinker Tailor stuff. It's based on the idea that Russia helped bail out Trump's failing businesses in the late 80s but others pop up to throw doubt on this theory tbf.
As much Trump sucking up to Russia is due to his not being able to fight on two fronts - China now appearing to be the new enemy.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
It would appear that Putin & Russia definitely have ‘something’ on Trump - hence him being soft on them…if the Russians (through Fancy Bear) hacked Hilary Clinton’s emails, then they definitely hacked Trump’s too…🤨
Fascinating podcast about a Polish SOE agent who was the only woman to parachute into her nazi-occupied homeland. She lived to be almost hundred years old, and she never stopped fighting for freedom.
MI6 gets its first female leader as Blaise Metreweli was appointed to the post. As many of us know, the MI6 leader is known as C and not M. Her former job was MI6's head of technology, a position now formally called Q.
That's a fun detail about their names! Metreweli joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1999, and has spent most of her career in operational roles in the Middle East and Europe says the news.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,885Chief of Staff
Comments
I'm listening to a podcast about assassinations in Norway during WWII. There are some intersting cases. a Norwegian working in a police unit that worked closely with the Gestapo lived in a block of flats reserved for high-ranking nazis where security was tight. The target was known as a sadistic torturer. The resistance tried to solve this by breaking into an apartment across the street. A civilian family lived there, but the assassins gagged them and tied them to their beds. This was done both for the safety of the hit men, but also to give the family an alibi when they later would get questioned by the Gestapo. The hit men had bought a machine gun, most likely a British Bren Gun they placed on a table facing the target's apartment.
The next morning the curtains opened in the apartment across the street and a burst was fired. Unfortunately it was the target's brother who opened the curtains. He also worked for the Germans, but he wasn't on the resistance's hit list. Later in the war the intended target got killed. The father in the family who lived in the apartment the hit men used was severely tortured by the Gestapo in spite of the precautions of the hit men.
This reminds me of a scene in Antony Horowitz' novel "Trigger Mortis" where the villains tries to kill 007 in the same way. I also think of one of Bond's two first two kills mentioned in the novel "Casino Royale". James Bond uses a sniper rifle to shoot a man across the street. He uses a second sniper to break the window in the target's apartment so the glass won't change the trajectory of his bullet. With the machine gun used by the Norwegian resistance this doesn't matter because of the high volume of fire.
In a later assassination a black marketeer, playboy and torturer. An SOE agent is equipped with a submachine gun inside a violin case with a mechanism to fire the gun without opening the case. I've never hear of anything like it used in WWII, but the SOE had many strange gadgets made for them. Unfortunately the target realized what was going on and managed to knock the violin case to the side in time. Then both the SOE agent and the informer ran out into the street. Both drew their pistols and a running gun battle took place on Karl Johan street, the main street of Oslo. the SOE agent managed to would the target seriously, but now they were on the street just outside Deutsches Haus (the German House), a pub dedicated to German officers! Many nazi officers watched with shock the dramatic scene just outside the window. The assassin was in great dager, but the getaway car pulled up just in time next to him, he jumped in and the car drove away at great speed. The target died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital
German officers drinking in Deutsches Haus in Oslo:
Outside Deutsches Haus
There is a lot of talk (and activity) of 'Russian capabilities for damaging infrastructure on the bottom of the sea such as internet cables and pipelines. A lot of this is happening in the Baltic Sea lately. This video is a bout Russia's capabilities for this type of warfare.
There is of course a clear link to a FYEO:
Soviet midget submarine discovered in Norway in 1990.
The summer of 1989 a fisherman was diving for crabs in Jarfjord in the far north-east of Norway when he discovers something extraordinary on the bottom of the fjord. Let me show you were Jarfjord is. The county of Finnmark is marked near the middle of this map. We see Denmark and the coast of Britain in the bottom left corner:
In this map we see Finnmark county with Swedish and Finnish Lappland to the south and Russia in the right half of the map. Jarfjord is marked in the center.
This image gives you a better ide of how close this is to the Russian border. The is place is about half an hour's drive from the Norwegian-Russian border. Jarfjord is very remote and sparsely populated part of the country. The red line shows the Norwegian-Russian border.
The man diving for crabs sees two parallell tracks on the ocean floor. This is clearly human made! A navy diver vessel is sent to investigate.
He alerts the military. The military suspects the tracks are from some sort of covert activity from the Soviet Union. Norway's navy special forces unit is the MJK, and they have a base in the far north. Few if any soldiers in the world are be better qualified for such a mission in the Arctic. Here is a part of their obstacle coarse where they train every morning before taking a refreshing swim:
Under the pretense of a training exercise two four-man patrols are ordered to covertly monitor the fjord. The mission starts on the 20th of October 1990. They make a carefully camouflaged hide in Jarfjord. To stay hidden the special forces soldiers never use a heat source. Here we see MJK soldiers during an exercise revealing their reconnaissance hide to the photographer:
Exactly month later a MJK soldier sees something in the fjord. A dark shadow just below the surface moves along the shore. Moments later the vessel surfaces. It's a midget submarine, about eight meters long. it is visible for about 3-4 minutes before it dives again. Blinking lights from the mouth of the fjord. Since a midget submarine can't go very far by its own, this was most likely a support ship. Based on the drawings the commando made it was probably this type of Soviet midget sub he saw.
The soldiers inside were most likely Spetsnaz from the Soviet Northern Fleet. They have abase not too far across the border in Zverosovkhoz. The photo shows Northern Fleet spetsnaz armed with rifles that can be used both on land and under the sea.
The MJK surveillance post is moved soon after closer to the place the midget submarine was seen, and only meters from the shore. Only four days later the vessel is observed by the same MJK soldier. It's snowing, the wind is strong and the temperature is -37 degrees Celsius. He hears a sound and with his binoculars he discovers bubbles rising to the surface. Because of the weather conditions his photos were useless. This photo is taken in the same area with the same type of weather:
But fresh marks on the bottom of the sea are discovered. The MJK gets new orders: The vessel must be seized, and weapons can be used. The relationship between the Soviet Union and the West is very delicate at this point. Most of the Soviet satellite states have broken free of the USSR, the Soviet Union itself is moving closer to democracy. Michael Grobachev, the leader of the USSR. has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and will receive it in Oslo only a couple of weeks later in Oslo. In spite of this the orders were if the vessel is seen again the MJK would fire warning shots. If this is ignored the MJK would use hand grenades and demolition charges against the midget sub. The goal was to destroy the rudder of the sub and force the spetsnaz soldiers inside to surrender. The MJK stayed hidden in Jarfjord until Easter the next year, for about six months. They hadn't lit any fires to avoid detection in spite of temperatures down to -40 Celsius.
They never saw the vessel again. This was perhaps for the best. The Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of the year. The MJK soldier who observed the vessel was Trond Andre Bolle. He later became a squadron commander in the MJK. and he was also a central member of the highly secretive intelligence organisation E-14 where he commanded missions in high-risk operations abroad. Here is a photo of him during the Jarfjord mission when he broke cover to catch seal:
He was killed by an IED in Afghanistan in 2010. The bomb was triggered by remote control after several cars had past over it, and it's likely the Taliban targeted him directly because of his great skill and knowledge of the enemy and the area. Bolle was awarded the second highest military medal in Norway posthumously. The only person who has been given the highest ranking medal is Gunnar ("Nr. 24") Sønsteby, and he campaigned sucessfully for Bolle.
Here's a YouTube video on Camp Century and Project Iceworm. This should be gold to James Bond continuation novel authors:
I'm watching the Norwegian version of "Have I got news for you!". One of the panelists is a Russia-expert. The moderator said to him: "I see on your CV you did the Armed Forces Russian-class?". The guest nods. "Then you were assistant caretaker at the Norwegian embassy in Moscow?" Another nod. "Why didn't you just write 'spy' on that part of your CV?". The guest panelist just laughed. 😂
"There's nothing about you that says 'caretaker!'"
An Armed Forces documentary about the SAS from the 1984 - secret at the time. There is much to admire here, especially the mustaches and sideburns!
I just realised the video has been posted before ..... 😂
A spy school in Oslo? Where was it?
I have a source which mentions the Abwehr HQ at Andersen and Andersen's offices on Jacob's Gate, Oslo.
Eddie Chapman was sent to Oslo to train saboteurs. WHERE?
Anyone any info on location, photo, staff, students, syllabus, missions?
THANKS
I don't know where it was in the 70's, but now you can see the filming of this scene from the spy school:
The entrance to the spy school. The two ravens represent Hugin and Munin (Mind and Memory) who according to Norse mythology reported to Odin of what happened in the world of man.
Flying the U-2 Spy Plane 70,000 Feet to the Edge of Space
(an excellent documentary on the U2. However the video gives the impression the SR-71 Blackbird pre-dates the U2. The SR-71 first flew in 1966, while the U2 Dragon Lady flew ten years earlier)
The Abwehr had it's Norwegian headquarters in Oslo, but I can't find the address. It seems there was a shipping company named Andersen & Andersen. I can't even find a Jacobs Gate in Oslo, but of course it's possible the street has been removed or re-named since the 1940's.
i have found an article in the Bergens Tidene newspaper that mentions Andersen & Andersen, but it's behind a paywall. it seems like the company was started to hide some sort of covert activity. The title of the article is "The spy who fooled the British".
My impression was that Chapman was sent to Oslo to learn to be a saboteur, not to teach others.
The president's kill list: assassinations f and US foreign policy since 1945:
I'm sure there have been many spies who fooled the British, not just one!
"I apologize, Mister President. It's an inspired deal! Russia get what they want, economic chaos in the West. And the value of your shares increases many times.'
'I conservatively estimate, 10 times.' - From Russia With Trump.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Didn't some crazy Ex-KGB officer claim that the Donald was an actual recruited Russian stooge?
Brilliant.
Well one wonders what sort of ex-KGB officer would spill the beans, given what we understand from AVTAK - 'Nobody leaves the KGB...' This rumour has been doing the rounds on Twitter though Putin's jibe is as much to get the UK or US fearing the extent of Russian power rather than his actual power, so he'd like to have us believe that Trump is a terrific Russian coup. Even then, a codename assigned to someone may not depict an actual agent but rather some minor contact of possible use, it's not all Tinker Tailor stuff. It's based on the idea that Russia helped bail out Trump's failing businesses in the late 80s but others pop up to throw doubt on this theory tbf.
As much Trump sucking up to Russia is due to his not being able to fight on two fronts - China now appearing to be the new enemy.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
It would appear that Putin & Russia definitely have ‘something’ on Trump - hence him being soft on them…if the Russians (through Fancy Bear) hacked Hilary Clinton’s emails, then they definitely hacked Trump’s too…🤨
Fascinating podcast about a Polish SOE agent who was the only woman to parachute into her nazi-occupied homeland. She lived to be almost hundred years old, and she never stopped fighting for freedom.
CIA Gadget-Maker Rates 11 Spy Gadgets In Movies And TV
There has been some development in dag robots since 1985:
A robot dog currently being tested by US special forces:
Can I swap my puppy for one?
You could ask, but I'm not sure robodog would be as cozy to sit with you in the sofa watching movies. 😂
Here is some footage of Israeli Mossad agents inside Iran on sabotage missions before or during the attack a couple of days ago.
Q becomes C!
MI6 gets its first female leader as Blaise Metreweli was appointed to the post. As many of us know, the MI6 leader is known as C and not M. Her former job was MI6's head of technology, a position now formally called Q.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-appoints-first-female-head-mi6-spy-agency-2025-06-15/
Best of luck to her. Hope she does well. Certainly a very tough time to take on the job.
Although the role is 'C' Interesting that both she and her predecessor have surnames with beginning with 'M'.
That's a fun detail about their names! Metreweli joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1999, and has spent most of her career in operational roles in the Middle East and Europe says the news.
Yes…but she wasn’t Q as you said…she was Director General Q…😁