Gravesite: Square CML, Row 00, Grave #224

An upright inscribed gravestone which also includes the names of his immediate family members.

Corporal Knut J Falck was a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Norwegian Group Team Norso.  On April 7, 1945, as part of Operation Rype, he was KIA when the plane he was flying on crashed on the Plukkutjønnfjellet mountain peak near Snåsa in Norway, the land of his birth.

Knut Falck (Knut Yon Falch) was born on May 5, 1908 in Halden, Norway and immigrated to the United Staes in 1924. He became a citizen in 1928 in New York where he worked as a plumber.  In 1942 he enlisted in the US Army (Service Number 32421335) and was recruited as a Norwegian speaker to serve with the OSS.

On April 7, 1945 the B-24 “ Carpetbagger” Mission Aircraft that was taking his OSS team (Norso I) to join Operation Rype in Norway crashed killing all aboard.  (See Site Snasa- Plukkuttjonnfjellet for more on the Crash site memorial to this team on this website)

Operation Rype was an OSS Mission led by Major William Colby (later a Director of the CIA) the Leader of the OSS Norwegian Operation Group which included teams Norso I & II with the mission of impeding the redeployment of 350,000 enemy forces from Norway to Germany in 1945. The OSS Team was partially recruited from the 99^th Infantry Battalion (Sep) (Norway) who formed the core of the OSS Norwegian Operation group; the OSS was a precursor to the present day CIA. Operation Rype (Grouse) was very successful despite the loss of two aircraft (this crash and one at Kirkwall, Orkney Islands, Scotland; see this website Site Kirkwall for more on the other crash).

The text on the Family Grave which includes Knut is written in Norwegian and reads:

Familien FALCH Gravsted