Warsailors Project in the Norwegian Press

My mother, Siri, made a trip to Norway recently to meet various WWII veterans from the Norwegian merchant marine and to attend some of their events as an honorary member. She has many friends and dedicated fans among their surviving members, thanks to her years of hard work creating the the best and most extensive online resource out there about them at her website Warsailors.com (Direct link to ship list here).

While Siri was back in the country a few Norwegian journalists picked up on her story and interviewed her about her online project which is inspired by her father (my grandfather) and his own exploits in the merchant marines during the war both at sea and as a prisoner in German POW camps in North Africa.

Last week a four page article about her and her project in the most well known of the publications to pick up the story came out. The article can be found in the December 17 Christmas issue of the popular women’s magazine Allers (p50-53). and thus on the shelves of supermarkets around Norway. While my mother was more impressed with the quality of the research and writing in some of the other articles published in smaller magazines elsewhere, it is nice to get this historical issue, the often forgotten story of the thousands of sailors who were the logistical lifeline in the oceans of WWII, onto the pages of a well-read popular magazine. The article focuses mostly on my grandfather’s story and the “war sailors” (krigsseilere) but some mention of my mother’s online project and a link to her online archive is found in the first paragraph.

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