Bjarne Thorsen

Bjarne Winter Thorsen (9 January 1922 – 15 February 2001) was a Norwegian resistance member during World War II and later a naval officer.

World War II When World War II reached Norway on 9 April 1940, with the German invasion, Thorsen was a student in secondary school. As early as 1940, he got together with friends and decided to take up resistance work. The group was self-initiated, but they lacked contacts, knowledge and materials to actually conduct intelligence work. Two of them were sent to the United Kingdom: Bjarne Thorsen and Leif Utne. Utne travelled via Sweden, while Thorsen crossed the Norwegian Sea on the vessel Duen. The radio communication post "Theta" was established on 4 December 1941, with its headquarters at the famous seaside location Bryggen. The radio was operated out of a secret room in a house owned by the Dahm family; Jan Dahm came to be the main operator. Thorsen returned to England when "Theta" was up and running. He had to return in early 1942 with new radio gear to make tracking by German intelligence harder. Kristian Ottosen was also a member of the group running "Theta", Thorsen helped Dahl and his family flee to the United Kingdom in April 1942 on the vessel Borghild.

From the 1980s, he was a part of a project group aiming to register imprisoned Norwegian war sailors. Thorsen lived in Eiksmarka, and died in February 2001.