Exciting cold war story
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,429MI6 Agent
It has been known for decades that Norway sendt Finns behind the iron curtain in the 40's and 50's. These missions were highly dangerous and without the knowledge and approval of Finland. The agents were ex-LRRP soldiers with experience from simmular missions in the winter war and WWII and nearly all returned. I know Sweden (using agents from the Baltics) and the US (using Germans) tried to do the same, but not a single agent returned.
Finish LRRP troops
Last night a documentary revealed that such missions not only continued into the 1960's, they also used Norwegian agents. Arne Lund revealed on his death-bed that he had been a secret agent, with seven missions into the USSR. Lund was a teacher and reserve NCO in a mountain artillery unit who was recruited by the CIA in the late 1950's. It is also likely that Arne Lund was in the secretive Stay Behind network. He also ran a farm and fathered six daughters.
The missions were conducted like this: Lund recieved a letter. He contacted a substitute (he ran the school alone ...) and told him he would be on a military excersise or training course for "a few weeks". Then he went by a coastal passenger boat along the coast further north.
He went ashore Hammerfest, one of the towns furtherest to the north in the world. He entered a shop and recieved a package. Then he went by bus over the border to neutral Finland. The CIA had supplied him with a suppresed pistol, a wire cutter and a suicide pill. He started walking near the Finish/USSR border dressed like a hunter or sport fisher. "I was in bloody good shape", he said. Crossing the border was surprisingly easy, he just had to negotiate a barbed wire fence and avoid the KGB border guards.
Only a few hundred yards into Soviet territory he buried the box in a pre-planned location. Then he returned the way he had come. This went fine the first six times, but the seventh he ran into three KGB border guards repairing the fence when he was about leave Soviet territory.
He shot all three with his suppressed pistol and reported the incident to the CIA upon returning home. Arne Lund stopped doing the missions after this. The death of the border guards was never mentioned by US, Norwegian or Soviet autorities.
I thought this story might be of interest for some people here. Do you know of other agents secretly crossing the iron curtain succesfully?
Finish LRRP troops
Last night a documentary revealed that such missions not only continued into the 1960's, they also used Norwegian agents. Arne Lund revealed on his death-bed that he had been a secret agent, with seven missions into the USSR. Lund was a teacher and reserve NCO in a mountain artillery unit who was recruited by the CIA in the late 1950's. It is also likely that Arne Lund was in the secretive Stay Behind network. He also ran a farm and fathered six daughters.
The missions were conducted like this: Lund recieved a letter. He contacted a substitute (he ran the school alone ...) and told him he would be on a military excersise or training course for "a few weeks". Then he went by a coastal passenger boat along the coast further north.
He went ashore Hammerfest, one of the towns furtherest to the north in the world. He entered a shop and recieved a package. Then he went by bus over the border to neutral Finland. The CIA had supplied him with a suppresed pistol, a wire cutter and a suicide pill. He started walking near the Finish/USSR border dressed like a hunter or sport fisher. "I was in bloody good shape", he said. Crossing the border was surprisingly easy, he just had to negotiate a barbed wire fence and avoid the KGB border guards.
Only a few hundred yards into Soviet territory he buried the box in a pre-planned location. Then he returned the way he had come. This went fine the first six times, but the seventh he ran into three KGB border guards repairing the fence when he was about leave Soviet territory.
He shot all three with his suppressed pistol and reported the incident to the CIA upon returning home. Arne Lund stopped doing the missions after this. The death of the border guards was never mentioned by US, Norwegian or Soviet autorities.
I thought this story might be of interest for some people here. Do you know of other agents secretly crossing the iron curtain succesfully?
Comments
I guess most of you know about Stay Behind organisations in the cold war. When the CIA traveled around in Europe to start up Stay Behind ca. 1950 they were somwhat surprised when the Norwegian secret service replied : "Actually we've had that for years ..."
When Lund was sent to hospital before he died his daughters found a lot of explosives in his shed. The explosives were not bought legally for work on his farm and they were hidden. Stay Behind had hidden weapons, radios and exlosives in case of soviet occuptaion and Lund lived in Finmark, the region closest to the USSR. Since Finmark is largly flat and treeless it was the Norwegian armed forces plan to let invaders overrun it and stop them further south.