The Shetland Bus

Our bestseller now reprinted for a fifth time. A classic story of secret wartime missions across the North Sea. Dark winters provided the perfect cover for missions to occupied Norway during the Second World War, and the closest base was in Britain’s most northerly group of islands, Shetland. Most Norwegians knew about the “Shetland Bus”, which did not go overland, but across the North Sea, taking supplies and saboteurs into the fjords under the noses of the Germans, and taking refugees to safety on the return journey – journeys in small fishing boats which covered thousands of miles, testing the skills of the Norwegian seamen who risked their lives in hurricanes, fog and darkness to make the crossing. David Howarth was a junior naval officer who helped set up and operate the base. His story is of successes and failures, and the courage, skill and adventurous spirit of the men who risked their lives on the Shetland Bus.