Leif Oistad

Leif Oistad

Just twelve days following an award ceremony in his honor at Silsbee Convalescent Center, in which Rear Admiral Trond 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 1936. Oistad worked on various commercial vessels, including the Texaco oil tanker, Brasil. In 1942, Oistad was recruited for a 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 until 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 captain of a vessel for Texaco, and moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, 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, Texas. 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° Mason.    Oistad donated his papers and books to History Department archives at Lamar University.   Survivors include his wife Delene of Village Mills; daughter, Charlotte Alicia “Lisa” Oistad Mowen, Ph.D. of Harvey, Louisiana; son, Leif Erik Oistad of Rockwall; step-son, Shayne Riley of Eagle River, Alaska; step- daughter, Shawna Riley of Houston; grandchildren, Chase and Meagan Riley; nephew, Kay Oistad of Fredrikstad, Norway; and nieces and nephews in Norway and Canada.    His Memorial service will be 10:00 a.m., Saturday, March 26, 2011, at Wildwood-Village Mills United Methodist Church, 5943 FM 3063, Village Mills under the direction of Broussard’s in Kountze.  

The family requests that in lieu of flowers contributions be made to Wildwood-Village Mills United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 332, Village Mills,Texas  77663.