Major General Makoto Onodera, a Japanese military attaché in Stockholm, during a visit to the German Fjell coastal battery on the island of Sotra in Norway. Behind Makoto Onodera is frigate-captain Robert Morath, military commander of the port of Bergen, to his left – lieutenant colonel Eberhard Freiherr von Zedlitz und Neukrich – commander of the 502nd airfield regiment. Behind Makoto Onodera’s arm raised in a military greeting, one can see General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, commander-in-chief of German troops in Norway.
Major General Makoto Onodera, among other things, was an employee of the Second (Reconnaissance) Directorate of the General Staff of the Japanese Land Forces and the head of the Japanese residency in Scandinavia and Finland.
The Fjell shore battery controlled access to the port of Bergen. It was commissioned on July 1, 1943 and became part of the 504th Marine Artillery Division. In the background is a three-gun 28 cm turret type Drh LC / 28 “B” (“Bruno”) dismantled from the battleship “Gneisenau”. The Fjell battery, like all other German coastal batteries in Southern and Central Norway, did not fire a single shot at the enemy.
Location: Norway
Photo Time: December 1942