Herbert Helgesen

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Herbert Helgesen was a Norwegian resistance fighter during World War II. A member of the resistance movement Milorg, he recruited and trained other members, worked various supply missions, participated in espionage operations, helped release Norwegian prisoners, and assisted citizens in crossing the border into neutral Sweden. In “CIA i Norge,” author Geir Jan Johansen writes that Helgesen made his way to Sweden in 1942. He became an accredited journalist under the name Ivar Hesselberg, though little else is known about his time there. He made his way to the U.K. in 1944, after which he participated in American and British sabotage operations on Norwegian soil (Operation Woodlark and Operation Rype).