David Samuel Pettersen
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- Deltok i 2. verdenskrig
- Tilhørt Sjøforsvarets Skytteravdeling for Handelsflåten
David Samuel Pettersen. Vestfossen. SSH nr.891. Bilde - Nortrashipflåtens Skyttere 1941 til 1946.
Ex gratia-arkivet:
Registernummer under krigen: London 24407, NY 12374.
Skal ifølge Pettersen selv ha vært påmønstret panamaskip LOCKOUT i tiden september 1941 til mars 1942.
Påmønstret D/S DRAMMENSFJORD 4. april 1946 til Norge.
"Nortrashipflåtens Skyttere 1941 til 1946":
Skytter nr. 891: Pettersen, David Samuel. Født 13.6.1921 i Vestfossen.
Antatt i marinen og ble utdannet til skytter i Camp Norway, Lunenburg, Canada.
Senere gjorde han tjeneste som skytter på følgende norske handelsskip:
M/S EMMA BAKKE fra 11.8.1942 til 2.6.1943.
M/T BRALANTA fra 19.6.1943 til 12.6.1944.
M/T PETTER fra 17.10.1944 til 15.3.1945.
M/S TORRENS fra 28.5.1945 til 19.10.1945.
Dimittert i New York den 10. desember 1945.
For sin innsats for Norge under den annen verdenskrig ble han tildelt Deltakermedaljen og Haakon den VII`s 70 års medalje.My Story at Sea. By David Pettersen. Page 11-12, 18-19:
"We got to Holland in the beginning of December [1939] when Hitler had invaded Poland, and Holland was invaded not long after that. We had a nice time in Rotterdam one organization took us on a tour to Hag where the world court is. That was very interesting. That is where all the big cases are held when there is any dispute between two countries. We left Holland just in time. We felt that something was going on. There were a lot of military out, and it was not long after that when Hitler invaded. Then we were on our way to Philadelphia. This time the cargo was different. Everything was sealed in big crates and nobody would say what the cargo was. Somehow we found out. It was war material for Italy. They were fighting in Sudan at that time. Most of us did not want to stay on because of that, so a lot of us sign off. The fellow that got me that job was not very happy that I left. I would have stayed if the others stayed, but I found out that they had started a new union and if I joined my pay would be three times more. And that was something I could not pass up".
"It was in Feb., 1940 I left the ship with $16 in my pocket. Those who stayed on thought I had lost a few marbles by leaving. I did not speak the language and did not know anybody, but when you are only nineteen, you don’t think about things like that. The union had a hotel that I stayed at and I did not have to pay anything before we got a job. We had to help keep the place clean. I met a fellow there and we become very good friends. One day there was a note on the board that a Danish ship needed seven men. My friend and I thought that sounded good. They were sailing to South America. It will be nice to get down to where it is a little warmer. We sailed the next morning. The first port was Rio de Janeiro. That is a beautiful city with that big statue of Christ overlooking the harbor from Sugarloaf Mountain. We were there for two weeks when we left for Bahia Blanca, Argentina. There we loaded wheat for Peru. When we left there we did not expect that we were going to be back only a few days later. We got as far as Falkland Island when it was announced over the radio that Hitler had invaded Denmark and Norway. We had lost contact with the company and now it was up to the skipper to decide what to do. We turned around and headed back to the port we come from. That was the 9th of April, 1940. It took a few days for the skipper to find out what to do. One day he told us that he had gotten clearance to leave, but we the crew was not ready. We wanted our money before we left. He could not leave without us because; too many of the crew was missing. We stayed ashore and after a few days he came ashore with our money. We wanted to make sure we got the money we had coming up to this time. He was not very happy about that, but if he wanted to leave, that was the only way. Then another thing happened when the English did not want us leaving under the Danish flag. They wanted to sail under the English, but the captain refused. After a lot of haggling they let us leave. It was not safe to leave because a Germen battleship was near by. We were finally on our way. But we stayed very close to the shore. The next stop was a little place before we entered the Strait of Magellan. We needed a pilot to go through the Strait because it is very narrow some places and the current is very strong. We saw a German ship up in the rocks. They probably had tried to take the ship through without the pilot. There are not many ships that go around Cape Horn any more, there are so many ships that have gone down there. The current is so strong where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans come together. We left the pilot off in a little town in Chile; the next port was Callao Peru".
Pettersen sailed during most of the Second World War: "I was never on a ship that was torpedoed, but I was on two ships that went down not long after I left it. We saw many ships that were blown up. You can’t do much because they don’t come to the surface very much. Even if they did, there was not much we could do anyway. The ships that were on the outside could do something. There were so many that lost their life out there. It gives you a helpless feeling. We would have liked to stop to help them. If we did, we would have disrupted the whole convoy. We were not allowed to stop or change the curse unless the whole convoy changed and that order had to come from the commodore. That was a ship that followed us that took care of that. Many ships never made it. One day I was on watch at the gun platform. I could see the wake of a torpedo coming toward us, right under me! For a minute nothing registered. You would just wait for it to hit. But nothing happened and I did not see any other ships that were hit. I could have been wrong. Some times when you are nervous, you see things that are not there, but it looked real to me. It was always nice to come to port, and get away for a couple of weeks".
Se "dokumenter" for detaljert 24-siders dagbok om hans fartstid under krigen.
Sjøforsvarets londonarkiv:
Antatt i Marinen: 5. juni 1942, som: U.d.m.
Sivil stilling: Matros.
Dimittert fra Marinen: 10. desember 1945.
Kilder
RA/S-3545/G/Gg
Nortrashipflåtens Skyttere 1941 til 1946
My Story at Sea. By David Pettersen. (Diary)
Sjøforsvarets londonarkiv ved Marinemuseet i Horten: P.32. Kort 323-324.
RA/RAFA-5156/G/Gb/Gbb/Gbba/L0004
RA/S-3545/G/Gi/L0013
Ellis Island og andre New York passasjerlister, 1820-1957 - MyHeritage
