One of the most specific and least-known chapters of King Harald’s life is its first eight years: the child who fled Nazi occupation at age 3, lived as a wartime guest at the White House, and at age 6 christened Norwegian warplanes at a base in Canada. The wartime experience shaped Harald’s character and his reign in ways he acknowledged throughout his life.
THE EXILE TIMELINE
▸ April 9, 1940: Nazi Germany invades Norway; Harald is 3 years old
▸ April-June 1940: Harald flees Norway with his mother, Princess Märtha; they eventually reach the United States
▸ During the war: the family lives in the United States; President Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt host them at the White House; Roosevelt and Crown Prince Olav (Harald’s father) develop a close wartime relationship
▸ 1941-1945: Harald’s childhood is American; he attends school in Maryland and lives in a house in Pooks Hill, a suburb of Washington DC
▸ Age 6 (1943): christens Norwegian warplanes at a Norwegian air training base in Canada — his first official royal duty
▸ May 1945: Norway is liberated; June 1945, the family returns; Harald is 8
THE WHITE HOUSE YEARS
The Norwegian royal family’s wartime relationship with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is a largely forgotten chapter of American wartime history. President Roosevelt was personally supportive of the Norwegian cause and of Crown Prince Olav specifically; he called Olav ‘my good friend.’ Harald spent years as a child guest in the White House and its grounds, playing with the Roosevelt grandchildren. The specific personal relationship between the Norwegian royal exile community and the Roosevelt administration was a meaningful part of wartime Allied solidarity.
A 3-year-old fled the Nazis. A 6-year-old christened warplanes. An 8-year-old went home. The man who died at 89 was the same person who did all three things. The war was the first chapter of a very long life.
THE CANADIAN WARPLANE CHRISTENING
At age 6, Harald christened new warplanes at a Norwegian training base in Canada — a base where Norwegian airmen trained for combat against Nazi occupiers. The specific act: a 6-year-old prince from a country that no longer existed as a free state, performing a formal royal function to commission aircraft that would fight to restore that state. The image became part of Norway’s wartime national narrative.
| CONFIDENCE: HIGH | Harald wartime exile timeline (April 1940, US exile, White House, Canada warplane christening, June 1945 return) is from AP obituary confirmed documentation. |
SOURCES
▸ Associated Press — King Harald wartime exile White House Canada warplanes biography, August 29, 2026
