‘You can keep [the Danish-Norwegian naval hero] Tordenskjold if we can have Kaj Birksted,’ Norwegian King Haakon VII reportedly said at an official dinner in Copenhagen shortly after World War II.
When Denmark was occupied and Norway attacked in April 1940, Danish naval aviator Kaj Birksted (1915-1996) fled to Norway to fight the Germans.
After a few days at the front, Birksted was evacuated to the UK, where - after six months as a war sailor - he became a fighter pilot in the Free Norwegian Air Force.
A comrade said of Birksted that he ‘flew like an angel and shot like William Tell,’ and with 10 kills, Birksted became one of the ‘aces’ of the air war. Birksted was also a brilliant tactician and an excellent leader, first of a Norwegian Spitfire squadron and later of a three-squadron wing. In 1944-1945, Birksted was a senior member of the RAF staff that planned the fighter operations for the Normandy landings and subsequent operations in Northwest Europe, i.a. Operation Market Garden. He ended the war as Wing Commander Flying of a Mustang wing flying long-range bomber escorts. In total, he flew more than 300 sorties over enemy territory.
After the war, Birksted became a central figure in the Danish defence debate. He had star status in the public eye and was highly regarded in Norway and the UK, but war experience and modern ideas were not favoured in the Danish military system. After some frustrating years in the Danish Air Force, Birksted was posted to SHAPE and ended his career as a civilian expert on NATO’ International Staff in 1980. In retirement, he lived in London and rarely visited Denmark.
Busts of Kaj Birksted are erected next to the bust of Major Anders Lassen VC, MC** outside the Resistance Museum in Copenhagen, at Royal Danish Air Force Academy and an the Danish Aviation Museum, Stauning.
(Gads Forlag, 422 pages, published on 17 May 2024)