American administration, but mostly Norwegian labourers, and named the town Longyear City. Coal was transported the from the mine to the port using an aerial tramway built by the aerial cableway company Adolf Bleichert & Co. of Leipzig, Germany. In 1913, the company started preliminary work to open Mine 2a. Following financial difficulties during the First World War, the mining operations were bought by Store Norske, which was incorporated in Oslo on 30 November 1916. That year, SNSK built five new barracks, including one that was made into a hospital. SNSK introduced its own money with the approval of Norges Bank, consisting entirely of banknotes at par with Norwegian krone. The American community buried their dead at Hotellneset. In 1918, eleven people were killed by the Spanish flu and a graveyard was established in Longyear City. Two years later, 26 men were killed in a coal dust explosion in Mine 1. This resulted in the mine being closed and the electrification of Mine 2. The same year, the first truck was delivered for use in the mining operations. The Church of Norway appointed Thorleif Østenstad as Svalbard's first vicar and teacher in 1920. A school was established jointly by the church and SNSK and had an inaugural eight pupils. The first church in Svalbard opened on 28 August 1921, and the church's reading room was from then on used as a school. Longyear City was renamed Longyearbyen in 1926. The Norwegian Telecommunications Administration established a coast radio station, Svalbard Radio, at Finneset in 1911, which was moved to Longyearbyen in 1930. The town's tourist industry started in 1935, when SS Lyngen started calling regularly during the summer season. In 1937, SNSK established Sverdrupbyen to house workers for Mine 1b, and operation of the mine started in 1939. In 1938, Longyearbyen's first road was completed, between the town centre and Sverdrupbyen. Operations at Mine 2b, a different entrance to Mine 2a, started in 1939. Svalbard remained unaffected by the German occupation of Norway in 1940. However, from 1941 the archipelago became of strategic importance in the supply chain between the Allied powers, as well as a source of badly needed coal. The Norwegian government-in-exile rejected a Soviet–British occupation; instead the British Army started Operation Gauntlet to evacuate Spitsbergen. On 29 August 1941, the entire population of Ny-Ålesund was evacuated to Longyearbyen, and on 3 September 765 people were evacuated from Longyearbyen