26 Jan Bernt Balchen

Balchen at SAS Scandinavian Airlines, 1930s

Bernt Balchen (1899 – 1973) led a remarkable life. I have just finished reading his eye-opening autobiography “Come North With Me.” I say eye-opening because of all the perilous missions he experienced and conquered.

Born in Norway, Bernt grew up idolizing the great Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. When he was twelve years ago, Captain Amundsen visited Bernt’s home. When the captain asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, young Bernt replied, “I want to be an explorer and go on an expedition with you …”

In 1926 that is exactly what he did. Balchen was part of Amundsen’s team that reached the North Pole by air, flying from Spitsbergen in Norway. (Richard Byrd’s team was also in Spitsbergen and actually claimed to reach the North Pole first.) Balchen was at the time a lieutenant in the Royal Norwegian Air Force and already an accomplished pilot.

Balchen learned about airplanes from the inside out. He could take one apart and put it back together again. He drew the blueprints for airplanes to be fit for polar flights. For a while he was the test pilot for Tony Fokker’s Dutch aircraft manufacturing company. Fokker was involved in the design and construction of many of the airplanes used in the 1920’s and 30’s.

In 1929, Balchen piloted Richard Byrd’s plane over the South Pole. This Antarctic expedition lasted for two years. During the winter months, the crew lived in an elaborate underground tunnel, complete with their eighty-six sled dogs.

I am only touching on his many accomplishments in those early years. In 1941 in anticipation of the US entering the war General Henry “Hap” Arnold, General of the Air Force, recruited Balchen, who by then had joint Norwegian-United States citizenship, to become a colonel in the US Army Air Corps. He needed Balchen to establish US airfields in Greenland so that fighter aircraft could fly over the Atlantic.

Balchen’s next assignment from General Arnold was to meet with William Donovan of the OSS. Donovan directed Balchen to neutral Sweden to set up an air transport service, code-named Operation Sonnie. He had five B-24 Liberators and personnel from a special services group already associated with the OSS known as Carpetbaggers. The crews dressed in civilian clothes, and the B-24’s were painted dark green, with their military insignia removed.

They flew out of the RAF airbase at Leuchars in Scotland, dashed over Nazi-occupied Norway, and then to the Bromma airport in Stockholm. The initial Sonnie flight was on March 31, 1944, and then operated as a courier service for the OSS and the American Legation. There were many other more clandestine operations. Balchen’s B-24’s flew over Norway and dropped supplies and armaments to the Norwegian resistance.

Thanks to the Yanks. (the Norwegian Resistance)

The US internees who were gradually returning to England were transported by Operation Sonnie.  And this is how Balchen got to know my Dad, Herman Allen.

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