The sacking of Commanding Admiral Diesen in the UK

Does anyone know the official, and unofficial, line for the sacking of Commanding Admiral Diesen when he was in the UK?

There appear to be no records of this in the National Archives and therefore the official file may not yet have been released by the security services - MI5.

Thanks in advance for any assistance on this.

Kind regards,

Bob

Hei Bob.
According to "Norge i krig" (author for this chapter Olav Riste), Henry Diesen was an elegant and representative officer and by Sec-of-Def, Fredrik Ljungberg, he was given very much free to run his office after his own mind.
Trygve Lie, however, thought that Diesen carried a little too much self-confidence and made a joke of that this qualities grown even more distinct after the British honoured him with the order KCB, wich gave British officers the right to be adressed by "Sir".
In August 1941 Diesen demand a vote of confidence on a case on priority for the Stockholm-flight, where Diesen thought that Navy-personell should be given preference. The (Nor)Cabinet met his challenge and dismissed him, however he was admitted to give the Cabinet advise in picking out his successor.

mvh Hans Olav

Hei Hans Olav,

Many thanks for that - much appreciated.

Do you know if there any rumours that Diesen 'talked loudly'? In other words was he careless with how he conducted his conversations? A lady who worked for Norwegian SOE claimed he was sacked for this reason, but I can find no evidence.

Its odd that he was awarded the KCB but no record of this appears in the National Archives. It could be that the record was lost or destroyed at some point.

Mvh,

Bob

Hello,

I was always under the impression that Diesen's dismissal was partly due to him being held accountable for the Royal Norwegian Navy's poor response to the invasion of Norway. As I do not read Norwegian or any of the other Scandanavian languages, I have not been able to read about the RNoN leadership. I believe that after being relieved as CinC RNoN, Diesen spent time with the RN aboard a cruiser in a Malta convoy. He later was a convoy commodore in the Atlantic. I also believe he was given a command again after the war.

If someone has access to the Norwegian language literature and can provide a detailed record of Diesen's service record 1940-retirement, that would be of interest to me. I am also interested in the other senior officers (commodore or rear admiral) who served either in Norway and were taken prisoner or who made it to the UK.

Mark C. Jones