Olav V of Norway

The Norwegian Royal Family in 1921

Olav was born Prince Alexander Edward Christian Frederik in Appleton House on the royal Sandringham Estate, Flitcham, United Kingdom.[2] His parents were Prince Carl, second son of Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark (later King Frederick VIII), and Princess Maud, youngest daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who was the eldest son of Britain's Queen Victoria. In 1905, Carl was elected king of Norway and took the name Haakon VII. On the day Haakon was crowned, he gave his two-year-old son the Norwegian name Olav after Olaf Haakonsson, king of Norway and Denmark.[3]

Olav was thus the first heir to the throne since the Middle Ages to have been raised in Norway. Unlike his father, who was a naval officer, Olav chose to complete his main military education in the army. He graduated from the three-year Norwegian Military Academy in 1924, with the fourth best score in his class. Olav then went on to study jurisprudence and economics for two years at Balliol College, Oxford.[4]

During the 1930s, Crown Prince Olav was a naval cadet serving on the minelayer/cadet training ship Olav Tryggvason.[5] Olav moved up the ranks of the Norwegian armed forces, rising in the army from an initial rank of first lieutenant to captain in 1931 and colonel in 1936.[6]

He was an accomplished athlete. Olav jumped from the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo and competed in sailing regattas. He won a gold medal in sailing at the 1928 Summer Olympics[7] in Amsterdam and remained an active sailor into old age.

On 21 March 1929 in Oslo, he married his first cousin Princess Märtha of Sweden with whom he had two daughters, Ragnhild and Astrid and one son, Harald. As exiles during World War II, Crown Princess Märtha and the royal children lived in Washington, D.C., where she struck up a close friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt. She died in 1954, before her husband ascended the throne.

The British Film Institute houses an early film, made in 1913, in which a miniature car (a "baby Cadillac") commissioned by Queen Alexandra for Crown Prince Olav tows a procession of Londoners through the streets of the capital, before being delivered to a pair of "royal testers" of roughly Olav's age.[8] The car is a battery-powered, one-third size replica on a four-foot wheelbase, and is on permanent loan to the Norsk Teknisk Museum in Oslo.[9]

King Haakon VII and Crown Prince Olav in Scotland during World War II

As Crown Prince, Olav had received extensive military training and had participated in most major Norwegian military exercises. Because of this he was perhaps one of the most knowledgeable Norwegian military leaders and was respected by other Allied leaders for his knowledge and leadership skills. During a visit to the United States before the war, he and his wife had established a close relationship with President Roosevelt. These factors would prove to be important for the Norwegian fight against the attacking German forces. In 1939, Crown Prince Olav was appointed an admiral of the Royal Norwegian Navy and a general of the Norwegian Army.[6]

During World War II, Olav stood by his father's side in resisting the German occupation of Norway. During the campaign he was a valuable advisor both to civilian and military leaders. When the Norwegian government decided to go into exile, he offered to stay behind with the Norwegian people, but this was declined. He reluctantly followed his father to the United Kingdom, where he and his staff and servants and aides continued to be a key advisor to the government-in-exile and his father. It is a popular legend among his countrymen that he did not allow himself any dessert or sweets for the duration of the Norwegian occupation. Olav made several visits to Norwegian and Allied troops in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. In 1944, he was appointed to the post of Norwegian Chief of Defence and after the war he led the Norwegian disarmament of the German occupying forces. His war decorations from other nations, including the War Crosses of Norway, France, Greece and the Netherlands, the US Legion of Merit and the French Médaille Militaire, are testament to the international recognition of his contribution to the war against Hitler.

Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha with their children Princess Astrid, Princess Ragnhild and Prince Harald at their exile home, Pook's Hill, in Bethesda, Maryland

Norwegian Royalty House of Oldenburg (Glücksburg branch)
Haakon VII
Children Olav V
Olav V
Children Princess Ragnhild, Mrs. Lorentzen Princess Astrid, Mrs. Ferner Harald V
Harald V
Children Princess Märtha Louise Crown Prince Haakon Grandchildren Princess Ingrid Alexandra Prince Sverre Magnus

King Olav V at Holmenkollen in 1975

Succeeding to the Norwegian throne in 1957 upon his father's death, Olav reigned as a "People's King," and became extremely popular. He liked to drive his own cars, and would drive in the public lanes, even though as a monarch he was allowed to drive in bus lanes. During the 1973 energy crisis driving was banned on certain weekends. King Olav never wanted to miss an opportunity to go skiing, and while he could have driven legally, he wanted to lead by example. So he dressed up in his skiing outfit, and boarded the Holmenkollbanen suburban railway carrying his skis on his shoulder.[10] He was later asked how he dared to go out in public without bodyguards. He replied that "he had 4 million bodyguards" —the population of Norway was at the time 4 million.

For his athletic ability and role as King, Olav earned the Holmenkollen medal in 1968, the Medal for Outstanding Civic Achievement in 1970 and was made Name of the Year in 1975. He had a strong interest in military matters and took his role as titular Commander-in-Chief very seriously. As well as his ceremonial roles in the Norwegian Army, he also served as Colonel-in-Chief of the Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Yorkshire Regiment), the British regiment named for his grandmother Queen Alexandra.

The King represented Norway extensively abroad during his reign, conducting state visits to both neighbouring countries and more distant destinations such as Ethiopia and Iran. King Olav V opened the 14th World Scout Jamboree in July 1975 in the presence of 17,259 Scouts from 94 countries.

Although the constitution nominally vested Olav with executive power, he was not responsible for exercising it. His acts were not valid without the countersignature of a minister–usually the Prime Minister–who then became politically responsible for the act in question. He had the right to appoint the government, but in practice it was not possible for him to keep a government in office against the will of the Storting. Thus, in practice, his role was mostly representative and ceremonial in nature. Nonetheless, like his father before him, he commanded great moral authority as a symbol of the nation's unity.

During the summer of 1990, the King suffered from health problems, but recovered somewhat during Christmas the same year. At the age of 87, on 17 January 1991, while residing in the Royal Lodge Kongsseteren in Oslo, he became ill and died in the evening of a myocardial infarction. An interview given by King Harald V and hints in a biography by Jo Benkow, who was the President of the Storting at that time, mention the possibility that King Olav suffered great trauma upon learning of the outbreak of the first Gulf War, which began the day of his death. Olav's son Harald V succeeded him as King.

On the night of his death and for several days up until the state funeral, Norwegians mourned publicly, lighting hundreds of thousands of candles in the courtyard outside the Royal Palace in Oslo, with letters and cards placed amongst them.[11] The National Archives have preserved all these cards.

King Olav's leadership during the Second World War made him a symbol of Norwegian independence and national unity. As King Olav's wife, Princess Märtha, died of cancer, the King Olav V's Prize for Cancer Research was established in 1992.

A 2005 poll by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation named King Olav "Norwegian of the Century".[1]

• 
  Crown Prince Olav arrives in Norway in 1905 on his father's arm and is greeted by Prime Minister Christian Michelsen
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  Drawing, 1906, by Andreas Bloch
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  Märtha and Olav on the cover of Time on the occasion of their wedding
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  Crown Prince Olav and his father King Haakon VII take shelter under birch trees as the German Luftwaffe bombs Molde
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  Märtha and Olav in 1950.
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  Olav in 1921 as Crown Prince.
• 
  Haakon VII of Norway, Maud of Wales and Crown Prince Olav on 17 July 1913 in Norway

• Benkow, Jo (1991). Olav – menneske og monark (in Norwegian) (3rd ed.). Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. ISBN 82-05-20192-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Bratli, Kjell Arne; Schau, Øyvind (1995). Sjøoffiser og samfunnsbygger : Vernepliktige sjøoffiserers forening : 100-års jubileumsbok : 1895–1995 (in Norwegian). Hundvåg: Sjømilitære Samfund ved Norsk Tidsskrift for Sjøvesen. ISBN 82-91008-09-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Dahl, Hans Fredrik (1982). Norge under Olav V (in Norwegian). Oslo: Cappelen. ISBN 8202090520.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Flint, Peter B. (18 January 1991). "Olav V, Norway's King 33 Years And Resistance Hero, Dies at 87". New York Times.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Suits, Julia (2011). The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions: The Curious World of the Demoulin Brothers and Their Fraternal Lodge Prank Machi nes - from Human Centipedes and Revolving Goats to ElectricCarpets and SmokingC. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-101-54576-8.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olav V of Norway.

• Official Website of the Royal House of Norway
• King Olav – biography (Official Website of the Royal House of Norway)
• The Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav – H.M. King Olav V the former Grand Master of the Order
• Holmenkollen medalists – click Holmenkollmedaljen for downloadable pdf file (in Norwegian)
• Newspaper clippings about Olav V of Norway in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW