Norwegian sailors remembered in Saranac Lake
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Norwegian merchant sailors memorial in Pine Ridge Cemetery.

Tomorrow is a day of national pride for millions of Norwegians around the world and the North Country. It’s the 17th of May, or “Syttende Mai.” But it’s not just Norwegians who pay tribute to Norway’s Constitution Day. A quiet ceremony will take place Saturday morning at a small plot of graves in Saranac Lake’s Pine Ridge cemetery. During WW II hundreds of Norwegian merchant sailors ended up in Saranac Lake as tuberculosis patients. 15 men, and the daughter of a ship’s captain, died and were buried there. And a longtime cemetery volunteer has made it her mission to make sure they’re not forgotten. Todd Moe has more.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Thank you for remembering my country on our Constitutional Day, JCF..

I started threads about Norwegians fighting in the Waffen SS and in the US Army, and I had in mind to start a thread about the Norwegian Merchant Fleet, which was the third largest merchant fleet in the world in 1940.

In the early years of the war, before the US came in with its Liberty programme, the Norwegian Merchant Fleet was the back bone in the Atlantic convoys, sustaining heavy losses.
One out of 10 sailors never returned home.

My father was a naval officer ( he passed away last winter), and he had an extensive library. I have only recently started to search through the books, and there are many volumes on the Merchant Fleet.

Sincerely
RAM