Tank-Destroyer at the Norwegian Legion
As recounted by Bernt Odmar Larsen
General Jeckel, the commander of the battle group that for a time included the Norwegian Legion, once remarked: "Had there been three army corps of Norwegians on the Eastern Front, the German High Command need have issued no other order than: 'Stop when you reach Vladivostok!'"
Bernt departed on the 2nd of August, 1941, with the second contingent, to Fallingbostel, under the command of Captain Finsen. At Fallingbostel he was initially posted to 3rd Company, which was to form the nucleus of the later tank-destroyer company. This company first stood under the command of Carsten Sveen, who was subsequently appointed commander of 2nd Company. Captain Finsen then took 3rd Company and transformed it into the Legion's tank-destroyer company.
The company had four platoons. It was initially horse-drawn but was motorised on arrival at the front. The armament was the 3.7 cm PAK anti-tank gun. At the front, each platoon had initially four guns, later five. Each gun had a gun commander, four other ranks, and one permanent driver. Each man was armed with a carbine; gun commanders had pistols; platoon commanders and the company commander had sub-machine guns and pistols. At full strength the company mustered 209 men.
At Fallingbostel, exercises were conducted in all military disciplines. The Legion arrived in July–August 1941 and went directly into training, which continued until New Year 1942. The Legion was then sent by train to Stettin, where it was billeted in a former lunatic asylum — a detail that amused the men — for four weeks of finishing exercises, before departing in early February 1942 for the front at Leningrad.
We came into action in the last days of February and the first days of March near a small locality called Finskoe — some 11 km from Leningrad, which we could see ahead of our front. My platoon was placed in the sector of 1st Company, commanded by Olav Lindvig. The platoon commander was Rolf Gilstad, who later became company commander in the Ski Battalion. I served as observation NCO, responsible for determining ranges in the forward area and in general gathering any intelligence useful for fire control against an attacker in our sector. There was, however, little work for the tank-destroyers in this sector; we accordingly acquired the sobriquet 'The Aristocrats of the Front' — a name that was subsequently revised when the fighting started and our uniforms became so battered that we resembled anything but.
At Easter 1942 we were moved to a sector further forward, towards the city of Leningrad itself, covering the small towns of Staropanovo–Uritsk–Peterhof. The tank-destroyers were now spread across the Legion's entire front; but my platoon was placed behind a German police battalion and reinforced with an extra gun. Our platoon commander, Arnfinn Vik — who later became company commander in the Ski Battalion — took over a number of Russian guns in this sector, from 5 cm calibre upward.
In late March 1942 I attended a pioneer course held at Palkolovo near Leningrad, opposite Konstantinovka. It was a crash course, with one NCO and four men from each company. Instruction covered the most commonly used mines, demolition charges, and related matters, as well as the rifle grenade — effective to 250 metres. The Germans used two men to handle the rifle during firing, the weapon's angle of elevation being measured with a spirit level. But NCO Håkon Jøntvedt of the Legion's 4th Company discovered that one man could manage perfectly well, taking the direction with the left eye whilst simultaneously looking across the spirit level with the right. Jøntvedt's method was subsequently used across the entire Eastern Front.
Jøntvedt was one of those who fell out there. He was a first-rate man — a first-class soldier and comrade.
We had in the Legion an NCO named Svenningsen from Oslo, a man full of ideas. I found him one day sitting in the trench philosophising and singing songs; we talked about this and that. "Here I have a curious weapon," he said, and showed me a small catapult. "What on earth is that?" said I. "Watch," said he.
We drove two posts into the ground and attached a car inner tube between them — precisely like the slingshots one made as boys with a rubber band in a forked stick. He pulled the tube back to a mark he had made in the trench wall and placed a stone in the pouch of the sling.
I looked through my observation binoculars as he drew back the sling and released it, and I saw the stone drop square onto the roof of a Russian bunker, raising a cloud of dust.
"You must try it with a grenade," said I.
"I have none left — I have sent them all away already!"
"You may have some of mine," said I, and gave him a couple of cases.
And he fired! It thundered and smoked out in front as he moved along the trench and fired — now from one place, now from another. We were all delighted with the invention and christened it 'Svenningsen's Secret Weapon.'
We were therefore tremendously indignant when he came one day and told us he had been subjected to pressure to desist. "Yesterday, just as I finished and was sitting having a smoke, an officer came up and said: 'Stop doing that. The others might discover it and start doing the same.' But do you know what I replied? I leapt up, came to attention, and said: 'I was under the impression that we were at war!'"
On the 15th of May, 1942, Bernt was wounded by a shell that burst on the bunker roof, and on the 18th of May was transported to hospital at Krasnoye Selo. He was lying in his bunk when the shell arrived and remembers nothing but a flash. He came to his senses in complete chaos in the bunker, but was helped as best could be by a comrade, Rygh from Trøndelag. Both eardrums were burst. He was sent to a specialist in Poland, then to Graz, thence to Holmestrand; he was then treated at Aker War Hospital and on the 31st of October, 1942, was discharged, no longer considered fit for active service.
Bernt is quiet for a moment. Then he says: "I have so many good memories that I do not know what expression to use. I think of those who fell out there, of all my good comrades whose last words were: 'Give my regards to Norway!', 'Give my regards to Quisling!', 'Give my regards to my family!', 'I have done my duty for Norway!' — So many splendid things were said in those last moments that it beggars belief. And these fine young men lying out there in an unknown grave are called traitors back here at home. What a disgrace."
"But I shall never — not as long as I live — forget those men who stood with me out there in the east."