NORWAY: H7

In occupied Norway the symbol for defiance ofHitler’s Nazis was not Winston Churchill’s stubby-fingered V forvictory, but an H crossed by the figure 7. Painted on walls, trampedout in the snow, scratched on the sides of Nazi troop trains, chalkedon Gestapo command cars, perpetually erased, perpetually reappearing,the omnipresent H7 was a perennial reminder to the people of Norway andto their occupiers that the true sovereign of their indomitable spiritwas their exiled King Haakon VII.

The first King to rule Norway as an independent monarch since the 14thcentury, Haakon (rhymes roughly with token) began life as Prince Carl,second son of the ruling house of Denmark, with little hope and evenless desire of becoming a ruler. His elder brother Christian wasdestined to succeed his father on the Danish throne. In a desperatemotherly effort to secure a like position for Carl, Denmark’s QueenLouise did her best to promote a marriage between him and TheNetherlands’ young Queen Wilhelmina. Carl would have none of it.Smitten with Britain’s Princess Maud, and dedicated, like herbrother—the future George V—to the sea, the strapping, 6-ft.-3¢-in.youngster married his love and embarked on a promising career in theDanish navy, achieving on his own merits the right to command anyvessel in the fleet.

King by Election. In 1905, after centuries of subjugation to one oranother of its neighbors, Norway effected a peaceful divorce from itscurrent master, Sweden. Seeking a constitutional king in the relativelyneutral ground of Denmark, the Norwegian Parliament offered the crownto the second son of the prolific royal House ofSchleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (whose members today includeKing Paul of Greece, Prince Philip of Great Britain and the Duchess ofKent). The young “sailor Prince,” as he was called, agreed only if thepeople ofNorway confirmed his choice in a national plebiscite. This they did, andon Nov. 27, 1905 Carl of Denmark ascended the throne of Norway asHaakon VII (after a 14th century Norwegian King). A tactful,well-loved, conscientious and friendly monarch, he was not too proud tobe seen by his subjects riding the trolley cars or pedaling the streetsof Oslo as one of them.

To the Hills. In 1940, with the German might pouring over his beaches,King Haakon refused to appoint the traitor Quisling to the Norwegianpremiership. He fled Oslo to the forbidding North, and, relentlesslypursued by the Nazis, twice narrowly escaped death. His forces held outfor longer than those in any other Nazi-invaded country, and during the62 days of resistance more Nazi soldiers were killed than there weremen in the entire Norwegian army. Aboard a British cruiser, Haakonescaped at last to England, where his voice, broadcast by the BBC,carried on a clarion call for resistance to those he left behind.Thousands turned out in a driving rain to greet him when he returnedhome in 1945, and the re-enthroned King, sensing his people’s wishes,began his new reign by rejecting all pleas for clemency for the traitorQuisling, who was tried and promptly executed.

Last week, long ill from complications resulting from a leg accident hesuffered two years ago, just before his golden anniversary, King HaakonVII, devoted ruler of his adopted country for 52 years, died at 85. Hissuccessor: Crown Prince Olav, 54, his only son, who became commander ofFree Norwegian forces in Britain during World War II.