Nortraship - Internal Fighting

Internal Fighting

As Nortraship was a huge organisation, with tens of thousand of people working around the world during 5 years of war, it is not strange that there were internal problems. The main ones were between the offices in New York and London, each led by determined shipowners: Øivind Lorentzen and Ingolf Hysing Olsen. The various intrigues by Hilmar Reksten constituted a special case as he worked at both offices. Reksten had already got into trouble with Hysing Olsen when Reksten arrived in London in April 1940, as he had wrongly got an insurance settlement from one of his ships transferred to his accounts; this was to be handled by Nortraship, according to the requisition. Reksten was indeed a highly competent shipping man, but after allying himself with various of the Nortraship leaders he was in the end sidelined and expelled from the organisation.

Other problems were created by Arne Sunde, Minister of Provisioning in the Norwegian exile government from autumn 1940 and Minister of Shipping from 1942. Supported by his protege Reksten, he made various attempts to micromanage the two main Nortraship offices, which were in turn repudiated either by the powerful foreign minister Trygve Lie or by the prime minister Johan Nygaardsvold.