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Leif Lundsten
Fighter pilot from Toten
Days of youth
Leif was born in the municipality of Vestre (western)Toten on the 24th of May, 1918. His parents were Otto and Paula Lundsten. Otto was the stationmaster of Bilitt train station at Østre (eastern) Toten, and the family lived in the station main building. A couple of years later, Paula gave birth to Leifs brother, Bjarne. Interestingly, Ottos brother was stationmaster at the neighbouring station of Kraby.
During his youth, Leif kept himself busy with the normal activites for Norwegian children during the 20's and 30's. Football during the summer, and skiing in the winter.
According to his brother, Leif won a medal in a ski-jumping competition in the mountains of Toten. These competitions were held every easter. At a little lake called Skjeppsjøen, there was also a ski jumping hill that was widely used during the cold winters. Sadly, the competitions and the ski jumping hill came to a halt when the lake was decided to be used as a source of drinking water. Leif also jumped at a ski jumping hill called Bratlandsbakken at the nearby village of Kapp.
However, it was neither ski jumping or football that Leif mostly kept himself busy with. He is still renowned in the area for his amazing model cars. Roald Lundsten, Leifs cousin, got a wonderful model of a truck from Leif as a gift in 1937. Leif had buildt it all from scratch. The model truck was not the only one Leif constructed. He also buildt them for himself, and raced them down the hills around Bilitt. There's no doubt Leif had a talent for constructions.
At school Leif performed well, and after elementary school, he continued on to a high school in the town of Gjøvik in preperations for further university studies. Somewhere between school, model cars and sports, Leif developed a burning desire for flying. Olav Gundersen, a class mate of Leif from Gjøvik told the author that the two had a different opinion about what they wanted to do with their lives. Leif wanted to be a pilot in the army, and Olav wanted to join the ground forces. With Leifs exceptional grades from school to back him up, he was accepted for the Armys flying school at Kjeller.
In 1938, the entire family moved from Billitt to a place called Rånåsfossen in Akershus were Otto became stationmaster for another train line. The were all suddenly also very much closer to Kjeller.
Picture 1: View of Østre Toten, 1950's
Picture 2: Locomotive at Bilitt station, 1920's
Kjeller
During 1937-1938, a man called Leif Feiring was the commander of Hærens Flyskole (Army flying school), with Captain Ottar Engvik as his second in command and «first-teacher». 20 pupils started the course in the summer of 37, and this group of young men would turn out to contain some exceptional pilots. Famous names such as; Rolf Arne Berg, Tarald Weisteen, Stein Sem, Werner Christie, Kristian Fredrik Schye and Peder Mollestad. Parallell to their pilot training they also took part in long marches/walks lead by Ltn. Jean-Hansen. According to Tarald Weisteen, these marches were very unpopular until Jens S. Hertzberg took charge of them. Hertzberg took his fair share of load on his back, just as the men, and he also took that of others if they got tired. The marches actually became popular after the change of leadership.
On the 20th of February 1938, Lundsten and his friends left Kjeller for a winter-exercise at Tisleia between villages of Gol and Fagernes. Tisleia was used as their airfield, while Tislefjorden (lake) was used for target practise drills. The pupils lived at Oset Hotel. Navigational flights as far as Gardermoen (now OSL) was also of the tasks they undertook. The men kept going a month or so before they returned to Kjeller in their Fokkers and Tiger Moths.
The class of 1938 would also become the cheapest of them all, as no pupils wrecked a single aeroplane. Kristian Fredrik Schye was on his way to become the best of the group, if it hadn't been for a very unsuccesfull shooting-exercise at Tisleia. Which of the men who actually did become the best of the pupils is a bit uncertain, but many have told the author that it was Leif Lundsten who got away with it. Schye, on the other hand, got into a dogfight with Me 110's over Oslo on the 9th of April.
Picture 1: Pupils at Kjeller. Leif is seen holding a painting with some interesting things in it.
Picture 2: Tiger Moths lined up at Kjeller.
Picture 3: Kjeller pupils lined up.
Picture 4: Tisleia exersices, winter 1938.
Bardufoss and war
After graduation, Leif left Kjeller for Gothenburg, Sweden to study at a technical school of excellence. It didn't take many months before he was called back to Norway for neutrality service with the military. The studies had to wait. Several of Leifs fellow students from Kjeller were called in to serve at Fornebu, but Leif was ordered north together with Rolf Arne Berg. According to Leifs brother, Bjarne, he was still up north when the Germans invaded Norway. At Bardufoss were also men such as Henning Leifseth (see article about Finn Thorsager) and Morten Ree.
For the entire winter of 39-40, Leif was in Northern-Norway. The «Hålogaland flight» had six Fokkers at their disposal, and these were split out on three seperate airfields, Bardufoss, Banak and Seida. On the 8th of April the order was given to move all the Fokkers to Bardufoss. Rolf Arne Berg had up to this point been at Seida, while Morten Ree and Leifseth had been at Banak. It's to believe that Leif had been at Bardufoss. They soon feared that Bardufoss would be bombed by the Germans, and so they gathered all the Fokkers at Moelv in Målselv (village). From Moen Lundsten flew recce missions, without actually knowing where the front lines were. Soon, they were given orders to move the flight to Rundaug by lake Tanaelven. Rundhaug was no airfield, just a farmers field, which they used as best as they could. Most of their gear and equipment were still at Bardufoss, and Ree tells about how they flew there when they needed fuel or ammunition. At Rundhaug they kept flying recce missions – photographing the German lines. The men also invented something they called «the Halling throw». This included manouvering the Fokker so you could drop bombs in a very special and succesfull way.
On the 14th of April, the flight started on a bombing attack lasting a whole three days. According to Ree, it was the most successfull mission they did up north. Leif Lundsten did not participate, but the other pilots did their absolute best in attacking Junkers 52's on a frozen lake.
The men got plenty of action at Rundaug, and one of the most famous of incidents happened when Svein Eggen and his tail gunner Håkon Kyllingmark attacked a Heinkel 111. The situation with Eggen and Kyllingmark and how the latter one left the wrecked Fokker with a badly injured Eggen stuck in the wreckage to seach for help was not the only crash at Rundhaug. Leif Lundsten got involved in the other.
Morten Ree tells; Leif Lundsten had a terrible crash at Rundhaug. This was in reality just a small field, and absolutely no airfield. He (Lundsten) put the Fokker down too far in, and overshoot the field. He ended up in a quite steep hill towards the river. The Fokker went right up on it's nose, and became a pile of rubble in the subsequent crash. Both Lundsten and his scout, Mensen, was stuck in their cockpits, and the aircraft caught fire. Mensen eventually got out on his own, but we had to break Lundsten free using a saw. He was badly injured, and the Fokker was a write-off.
In the beginning of May, some aeroplanes arrived from the south, but these were in such a poor shape most of them were written off on the spot. Lundstens «popular» chief for the long marches at Kjeller, Jean-Hansen, arrived at Rundhaug with a Fokker that had cut timber as replacement for one of the landing wheels. The conditions at Rundhaug started to get seriously shabby when the snow started to melt. Ole Reistad moved operations to Takvann, most likely with a still injured Leif in the middle of it all.
On the 18th of May 1940, Morten Ree and 14 other pilots escaped Norway with the Polish ship «Batory». According to Bjarne Lundsten, Leif escaped with King Haakon and the government onboard «Devonshire» on the 7th of June, together with fellow pilot Kristian Nyerrød. Cato Guhnfelt (of Spitfire Saga fame), however, does not list Leif as part of the group travelling with «Devonshire». It's more than likely that Leif travelled with Ree on «Batory» instead. A third option, but less likely, is that he left Norway as early as 6th of May.
Kristian Nyerrød tells of his experiences onboard «Devonshire»; I was on deck until my country disappeared in the horizon, then I went down to the mess. The dinner was already being served, and a plate of soup was put in front of me. I took a mouthfull, and nearly lost my breath. This had to be what dynamite taste like. The cook must have lost his box of spice into the pot. The life onboard was not so spiced up though. Out beds were always cleared out for the day, so we had to be on our feet the entire day. We took a stroll to to the deck, but was told to disappear by a very angry Norwegian officer. Our only «break» were the meals.
On the 23rd of May, «Batory» arrived in Greenock, Scotland. Leif Lundsten and most of the air force personell was shortly sent to Dumfries in Scotland. The stay would last for three weeks, and according to Nyerrød, there was little to do in the small Scottish town. The cinema, as well as local dances, were frequently visited.
Originally, the plan had been to establish a traning base in France for the Norwegian pilots, but with the fall of France, a new plan had to be figured out. Captain Bjarne Øen therefore made plans of establishing a training base in Toronto, Canada, instead. Friday 21st of July, the Norwegians left Dumfries for Canada. Many of the pilots were frustrated with the decision to leave, and Wilhelm Mohr (later 332 sqdn leader) felt it was like taking a bucket of water and leave when the house was on fire. The Battle of Britain had just began, and the Norwegians responded by leaving Britain. Captain Øen later defended his decision of leaving by saying he did not want the few Norwegians he had at his disposal at the time to disappear in RAF squadrons.
Picture 1: Leif Lundsten, Arnt Hvinden and Morten Ree finally in Great Britain.
Picture 2:Group of pupils at Kjeller. Leif Lundsten, Rolf Arne Berg, Per Endresen, Stein Sem and an unknown. All known personell in this picture would die in WW2.
Little Norway and Great Britain once again
With Leifs experience in focus, he quickly became an instructor at the base in Canada, usually called «Little Norway». Ole Reistad was in command of the base, and the constrruction of a more permament establishment was done in record-time. It was officially opened on the 10th of November 1940, just by Maple Leaf Stadium. For flying they used Fairchild Cornell, Douglas 8A-5 and Curtiss Hawk 75A-8, while the bomber pilots used Douglas8A-5. Leif stayed on as an instructor for a six month period before he left Canada 10th May 1941 as part of the 1st Fighter Wing with men such as Finn Thorsager, Rolf Arne Berg, the Piltingsrud brothers and Jens Muller.
Tarald Weisteen, a pupil at Kjeller with Leif in 37, arrived at Little Norway about six months after the camp was opened, and was one day given a ride up to the estate of «Vesle Skaugum» were the 1st Fighter Wing was based waiting for their journey across the Atlantic. Weisteen tells of a warm welcome from the men, amongst them Leif, as he mentiones him in his book «Nightfighter». Weisteen felt though, that some of them were a bit lukewarm to him, as they felt he should have arrived in Canada sooner. Leif Lundsten was not among those, but greeted him with open arms.
Leif Lundsten left Halifax onboard a merchant vessel called «Aurania» and arrived in Iceland on the 23rd of May. The journey had been quite eventful.
Rolf Arne Berg wrote in his diary; I had been standing at the deck for a few minutes when a torpedo hit a 12.000 tonner just 200 meters to the left of us. The torpedo was fired from a U-boat 200 meter to our right, and later we heard it had just missed our boat. A second after the first explosion, another torpedo hit the same boat from the other side, and at the same time a second boats gets it. This boat was in our path and took the hit for us. In no time, the tanker was a burning inferno. Just after that, a tremendous bump rocked our boat violently. It was one of the U-boats bumping into us. We released a few bombs. The convoy was split up after that.
A whole amount twelve ships were sunk before the Norwegians reached Iceland.
13 men from «Aurania», amongst them Leif, arrived at 52 OTU Aston Down in the middle of June 1941. At Aston Down, Leif would fly a Hurricane for the first time. Nyerrød, also at Aston Down, later wrote that the Hurricanes were well used, shabby looking and probaply survivors from the Battle of Britain the year before.
Picture 1: Official photo from Little Norway.
Picture 2: Norwegian guard by the entrance.
Picture 3: Some of the aeroplanes at the Norwegians disposal.
Picture 4: Overview of their base by Maple Leaf Stadium.
331 squadron established
The week before Leif joined the squadron from Aston Down, 331 squadron was officially established at Catterick in Yorkshire. It wasn't without problems the squadron was formed. The Norwegians felt that the British based at the station were working against them, and it made everything even more difficoult than it should have been to get a squadron on it's feet.
331 had Hawker Hurricanes at their disposal, and these too were well used. Dirty, tired and with daily leaks of glycol. Pumps and hydraulics also failed regularly, and the Norwegians were disappointed over the quality of the Hurricanes.
On the 20th and the 21st of August, the squadron moved to Castletown in Scotland.
The miracle-landing
On the 27th of August, Leif would get a task on his hands few, if any, had done before him. How do you land a Hurricane with 90% of the rudder and the elevator gone? On this occation, Leif flew a Hurricane with squadron codes FN-K and serial number Z5266. The squadron had taken to the air to practise formation-flying, and they were split into each flight of six aeroplanes. The squadron was in line abreast. To keep the formation tight in a turn, the inner pilot had to reduce his speed while the outer pilot had to increase his. At the same time, it's also a limit to how slow the inner pilot can fly, and how quick the outer one can go, so therefore you change positions in the formation. On this occation, Jens Muller was on the inner side and Leif was on the outer.
Muller writes: I increased my speed to glide outwards. At the same time, Lundsten was coming inwards. Soon we came to the point where we were to cross each other. Lundstens Hurricane was just a tad in front of mine, and then we hit.
Mullers propellor chopped off the most of Leifs elevator and rudder. With a completely damaged propellor, Muller had to jump out. He got away with it with no injuries.
With Leif, things are a bit different. He decided to land his Hurricane at Castletown. The engine was running nicely, and Lundsten set course for the airfield. With wheels and flaps out, he went in for landing almost like normal. Flabbergasted mechanics could only watch Leif come in for landing with fabric flapping in the wind from his tail. He hit the ground perfect, but with no rudder he couldn't control his Hurricane on the ground. He thencollided with a Spitfire from 124 squadron.
Mechanic Ragnvald Myhre tells us; I was standing there, watching it all. It was a brilliant landing with no rudder. I still remember the crushing sound when he hit the Spitfire.
The Spitfire was fairly damaged, Leifs Hurricane likewise, but Leif got away with it with just a few bruises.
Picture 1: Coloured photo a 331 Hurricane.
Picture 2, 3, 4: The pictures speak volumes. How did Leif manage to LAND this aeroplane?