In the gardens along Marine Parade there are a number of memorials, one of which commemorates the service of the Norwegian forces who served in Dover during World War II. Initiated by Cllr. Bill Newman and four members of the Norwegian War Veterans Association it was unveiled on Saturday 23 May 1998. The four veterans were Commodore Oivind Schou, Commander Hakon Lunde, Lt-Commander Per Danielsen and Lt-Commander Finn-Christian Stumoen.
The story goes back to when the German forces invaded Norway on 9 April 1940. Initially the German navy proved inadequate against the combined forces of the Norwegian and British navies but the German troops gained a foothold in Southern Norway and pushed rapidly north. On 11 April R.A.F. bombers began operations to help the beleaguered country but the Germans soon had the advantage of occupying all of Norway’s aerodromes. This prevented the Allies from using fighter planes.
Allied troops were despatched but came under heavy artillery fire when trying to land. The Germans also bombed coastal Norwegian towns and totally devastated the base of the Allied High Command – Namsos, at the head of the Namsen Fjord, north of Trondheim. Nonetheless, the Norwegian and Allied forces were able to launch an offensive that became the Battle of Narvik but by the end of May and the evacuation of Dunkirk they situation was proving hopeless. On 10 June 1940, Norway surrendered.
King Haakon and the Norwegian government managed to escape and many Norwegians joined the Allied forces, including 500 men from the Royal Norwegian Navy. Lt-Commander Finn-Christian Stumoen escaped by travelling, often on foot, through Northern Norway into Sweden/Finland and then south, eventually arriving in Greece. From there he travelled in a British destroyer to England that also carried Prince Philip.
In 1941, Lt-Commander Finn-Christian Stumoen along with men, mainly from the Norwegian Merchant Service – two had escaped from Norway by rowing across the North Sea to Scotland in an open boat – took command of eight motor launches as part of the British Navy No52 ML flotilla.
The Norwegians arrived in Dover in July 1942, with four converted minelayers that had been fitted with a Dumbflow silencer to enable them to operate close to the enemy-held coast. They became part of the Light Coast Defence, headquarters of which was HMS WASP – now Lord Warden House.
Together with the Royal Navy’s 50-ML flotilla, they operated on moonless nights, laying mines in German convoy routes and blocking enemy port entrances between Zeebrugge and Boulogne. Laying 4,000 to 5,000 mines in 170 operations and their tally was 53 ships sunk, 34 ships damaged, 2 minesweepers destroyed. At the cost of 2 Norwegian and 2 British MLs. The Norwegians also took an active part in many wartime operations including landing commandos on the French coast.
The plot that surrounds the memorial on the seafront is planted to represent the Norwegian flag and there is also a small memorial garden at the junction of Maison Dieu Road and Pencester Road. This contains a Christmas tree, the gift of Lt-Commander Finn-Christian Stumoen from his own forest at Skarnes about 80 miles north of Oslo. Finn-Christian for many years donated the Christmas tree for the Market Square until he became too old for the travel. The Norwegian flag is flown on the flagstaff in the garden on the country’s national day – 17 May and the citation reads: Presented to the people of Dover by the 52nd (Norwegian) Mine laying flotilla to commemorate their service out of the port from 1942 to 1945 and their lost comrades.