Lief Oistad was born on March 12, 1922 in Norway.
He was a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Operational Group Team Norso.
He was part of a team who were inadvertently parachuted by “Operation Carpetbagger” (8th Air Force- 856th Bomber Squadron, 492nd Bomb Group) mission into Sweden on March 25, 1945. The team landed on the frozen Landösjön lake (near the marker) in Lien (Krokum Municiaplty), Swede ; this team was supposed to land in Norway to support Operation Rype. The team was detained by Swedish authorities and after a short time, allowed to go to Norway where they participated in the successful Operation in North Trondelag, Norway.

Members of the Team Included:
T/Sgt Leif Oistad
Cpl Knut Andreasen
T/5 Tom Rusdal
T/5 Sivert Windh
T/5 Eddie Hovland.


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 99th 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 which crashed trying to parachute additional operatives into Norway.
A memorial in Lien, Sweden remembers the landing in neutral Sweden.

FROM FIND A GRAVE:
Leif Oistad March 12,1922- March 17, 2011 Just twelve days following an reward ceremony in his honor at Silsbee Convalescent Center, in which Rear Admiral Tron d Grytting presented a medal from Harald V king of Norway, Leif Oistad died Thursday, March 17, 2011. Oistad grew up skiing in Moum just outside the historic fortified city of Fredrikstad, Norway. Years later, those skills proved useful when Technical Sergeant Leif Oistad, served as squad leader of an elite force of U.S. Special Forces paratroopers skiing and demolishing railroad sections north of Trondheim in German-occupied Norway Youngest of eight children, Oistad was hired as a deckhand upon graduation from public school in 1933. Oistad worked on various commercial vessels, including the Texaco oil tanker, Brazil. In 1942, Oistad was recruited for special group in the U.S. Army. As part of the 99th Mountain Battalion (Separated) at camp Hale in Colorado, Sergeant Oistad instructed his team in skiing. Oistad was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services to form the Norwegian Special Operations (NORSO) Group. At one point, Technical Sergeant Oistad mentioned to an officer, "If i am about to give my life for this country, i would prefer to do it as an American citizen". Within the hour , he was granted U.S. citizenship. The NORSO Group parachuted behind enemy lines in occupied France after D-Day working with the French resistance forces untl the liberation of France. In 1945, Oistad parachuted behind enemy lines in Norway and skiied to sabotage railroads and bridges choking off German troop transport to Europe. NORSO group was led by Major William E. Colby, who later served as director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Sergeant Oistad is cited and pictured in Colby's autobiographical Honorable Men: My Life in the C.I.A. published in 1978. Sergeant Oistad was among American and Norwegian troops serving as honor guard to Crown Prince Olav upon his return to Norway in June 1945. Following honorable discharge from the U.S. Army in November 1945, Oistad joined four military buddies diving for sponges off the Florida coast until the advent of synthetic sponges in 1947. Oistad qualified as a ship's master, married, took a job as a captain of a vessel for Texico, and moved to Corpus Christi, Tx where his daughter Lisa was born in 1950. In 1949, Captain Oistad joined Shell Oil Company and later moved his family to New Orleans, Louisiana, where his son Erik was born in 1953. As captain of Shell's oceangoing seismic research vessels Phaedra,Niobe, and Shell America, he conveyed scientific personnel who searched for oil and gas deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bering Sea, the south China Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Oistad consulted on the design and construction of the Shell America, his last commission. After divorce, Captain Oistad moved to Nederland, Texas. He met and married his wife Delene Foster, a teacher, and they retired to Wildwood in Village Mills, TX. Enjoying golf, fishing with his grandson Chase, gardening, dancing and travel with Delene, Oistad remained a very active member of the Norwegian Seaman's Church, Wildwood Methodist Church, the Sons of Norway, the Office of Strategic Services Society and various veterans' and Masonic organizations. Oistad was a 32 degree Mason. Oistad donated his papers and books to History Department archives at Lamar University.

From Special Forces Roll of Honor:
from Suffolk County,New York​ born Norway​ arrived USA September 1940​ entered service 14.9.1942 Fort Jay,Governors Island,New York​ jumped due navigational error over Lien,Sweden March 1945​