Publisher's description:
When darkened enemy warships approached the coast of Norway on the night of April 9, 1940, hundreds of men from Vestfold were called up to man the coastal forts in the outer Oslo Fjord or as crew on board naval vessels. Before midnight, the first of them had been in combat. In Narvik harbor, the crew prepared, among other things, Aksel Sparre Moen, the cannons on the two old armored ships Norge and Eidsvold, as a fleet of modern German destroyers sailed into Ofotfjorden. After a short time, the Germans had secured control of the coastal fortifications and many of the navy's ships, but not without resistance and loss of life. The king and government decided to continue the defensive struggle, and several young men from the towns and villages of Vestfold made their way to units in the interior. They wanted to defend their homeland and ended up participating in combat operations in places such as Elverum, Roverud, Lundehøgda, Bagn, Gausdal, Tretten, and Kvam, some of which are mentioned in the book De valgte å kjempe - Vestfoldinger under felttoget 1940 (They chose to fight - People from Vestfold during the 1940 campaign). The book tells the story of the many people from Vestfold who fell, and of some who survived the campaign. In addition to the accounts of the 91 fallen from Vestfold during the campaign, the book also contains complete lists of all those who fell from the county in the period 1939-1945. The book is richly illustrated with pictures and maps. The book was written in 2016 by Thomas Nilsen and Dag O. Bruknapp.Published by Ares Publishing and has 256 pages.Approximately one tenth of the books come from the library's largest special collection, which is the Eastern European collection of 1.3 million books.
Every year, the State Library purchases around 5,000 books from Russia. The collection includes all genres, from novels to scientific books and even old, valuable handwritten works from the 1500s.
