The Flight of the Albatross: Voyages with my father, the unsung hero

My father never talked about his life as the captain of an oil tanker during World War 2. I was born after the War and his life at sea continued throughout my childhood and into my teens. The places he visited, the letters that arrived with colourful stamps from countries nobody had heard of and the objects he brought back from distant lands fired my imagination and made me want to emulate his life.

I knew very little about my father’s life in the convoys. It was only after I started researching this period that I got some idea of what it must have been like. And, importantly how the Norwegian sailors received little or no recognition for their bravery and contribution without which the Allied

could not have won the War.