Polar bacillus
By Einar Sverre Pedersen
Einar Sverre Pedersen (born January 29, 1919 in Trondheim, died January 16, 2008) was chief navigator at SAS.
Pedersen trained as a navigator in Little Norway during the war. He was later a navigator on the Stockholm route, which was the link between the government in London and Sweden, before being transferred to 330 Squadron in Shetland. He was part of the crew that flew the first plane to Norway on 8 May 1945 with the British negotiating delegation.
Pedersen was hired by the then DNL in 1946 to run navigation courses for the company's flight navigators. He developed a method for navigation in the Arctic and over the North Pole, which led to SAS becoming the first airline to operate scheduled flights from Europe to Asia over the North Pole.
Together with his brother, he founded the company Norsk Polarnavigasjon AS in 1958, whose purpose was to explore the possibilities for oil drilling in Svalbard and Alaska. Together with his wife, Ingrid, he founded the airline Svalbardfly in 1963 for internal transport in Svalbard.
As a retiree, Pedersen settled in Anchorage, Alaska, and for his pioneering efforts in polar navigation was created an honorary doctorate at the University of Alaska.
In 1969 he published the book Polarbasillen – thirty years around the Arctic (Cappelen forlag). The book has a foreword by Helge Ingstad.
Nice copy.
