In the church graveyard.

A standard upright US Military gravestone with a Norwegian epitaph.

Technical Sergeant 5 Gjerulf “Gerald” Ottersland was born on January 28, 1920 in Arendal, Norway. He became a US Citizen and enlisted in the US Army in 1942. Being a Norwegian speaker he was recruited into the OSS. 

Ottersland was a member of OSS (Office of Strategic Services) Operational Group Norway, Team Norso.  On March 31, 1945 he along with five other team members were being deployed to Norway to support Operation Rype by an Operation Carpetbagger B-24 aircraft..  The plane was unable to make the drop and crashed upon returning to home base in the Orkney Islands in Scotland; all but the Co-Pilot were killed in the crash.

See site Kirkwall- Orkney (this website) for more on Operation Rype and the crash that killed Ottersland. 

Each of the Norwegian-American OSS Team members were buried in their native Norway after the war.   See this website for the Isolated Burials (ISOBs) for each of the OSS team.

Special thanks to the OSS Gjefsjoen Group for assistance with this memorial.  OSS Gjefsjoen is a group that fosters the memory of Operation Rype and works out of the former HQ of Operation Rype at  the Gjefsjøen fjellgård.

The text is in English; the epitaph in Norwegian:

GJERUF

OTTERSLAND

NEW YORK

TEC 5 INFANTRY

JANUARY 28, 1920

MARCH 31, 1945

Du stred og falt,

du ofret alt.

Kjært er ditt minne.

The epitaph is translated as:

You fought and fell,

you sacrificed everything.

Dear is your memory.