Hope you’re back drinking Coke soon.

As for WWII in Norway, I prefer to recall a Lieutenant Colonel Eriksen. He commanded the Oscarborg fortress in Oslofjord in 1940 when the Germans invaded. He had about one-third of the full garrison, all coastal artillery reservists and no infantry. When he heard the German task force was steaming up the fjord he resolved to fight.

He could man only two of the three 11 inch cannons in the fort. As the German cruiser Blucher came into view he boresighted the 11 inchers himself and when the ship was centered ordered the shells loaded and fired. Hit by the shells, the Blucher drifted on fire and without power into the arc of fire of the fort’s torpedo battery. A spread of torpedos sank her. With her went down the task force’s admiral and the Gestapo detatchment tasked to arrest the King and the government. Consequently, they were able to escape capture and lead the struggle against the invaders.

Eriksen had to surrender to infantry attack from the rear the next day. He was 65 years old in 1940. I don’t know what happened to him after, but I always hoped that the lived long enough to see Norway liberated in 1945.

The story comes from MG J. L. Moulton, RM (ret.), “A Study of Warfare in Three Dimensions” which is a history of the Norwegian Campaign of 1940.

I refuse to watch it out of sheer principle. I don’t want to give them the ratings.

They’re actually easier for me to watch than MSNBC (not hard) or CNN (not much harder).

It’s actually interesting. I haven’t watched a lot, but I have been impressed.

Maybe it’s just because Obama is pres so their anti-Americanism coincides with my anti-Obamaism, but I’ve been surprised.