blackswaneuroparedux:Jeg er, til tross for redselen, klar til å…

blackswaneuroparedux:

Jeg er, til tross for redselen, klar til å kjempe.**

– Eva Charlotte Kristiane Bjerknes

**I am, despite the fear, ready to battle.

Many young Norwegian women did join the resistance when the Nazis invaded the Norwegian homeland. Many of these women served the resistance movement in various capacities from sheltering fugitives, running guns, survelliance duties, intelligence gathering, patrols, and even armed combat.

More unusually some women did serve as direct armed combatants. In February 1945 the Norwegian resistance under the command of Captain John Godø were ordered to set up a military base of operations in Sørøya in Finnmark.

Their main task was to support the enormous undertaking of supporting the the evacuation of wanted Norwegian civilians and refugees to Murmansk and then onto Scotland by boat. Many of those who had helped in this operations were civlian volunteers hiding out in the caves in and around Sørøya.

Godø‘s resistance also undertook the secondary duty of training Norwegian civliians in armed military service of their native soil. Although many women volunteered for resistance duties only a few took actual part in face to face battle. These included about a dozen or so women soldiers who happily volunteered to take up actual arms against the Nazis.

While a few of these women took on the role of defending the supply lines and other duties, a few actually took part in active battles that took place on the outskirts of Sørøya in the Nordfjord and the Børfjord area. These were bitter and brutal battles in the harshest of winter conditions.

Female soldiers like Mary Hustad (later Mary Leimann) and Eva Charlotte Kristiane Bjerknes (pictured above) fought with distinction. Eva Charlotte Kristiane Bjerknes herself became a valued weapons instructor to new civilians joining up for military service and full armed resistance against the occupation of their country.

**Eva Charlotte Kristiane Bjerknes with a machine gun at Sørøya (Norway, February 1945). Photographer – Ola Friele Backer.