rest of the royal family, including King Haakon. After the liberation of Norway, he refused job offers from both the British and Norwegian intelligence services. "I didn't want any more war," he explained. "I had had enough. I'd lost five years of my life." Instead, in the autumn of 1945, Sønsteby moved to Boston, where he worked at a government purchasing center in New York and took part in an executive study program at Harvard Business School. He worked for Standard Oil (Esso). In 1949 he returned home to Norway, where he held several major positions in private business. Later, he also worked at the Norwegian Home Front Museum. Throughout the post war years and particularly after his retirement, Sønsteby gave many lectures in an effort to pass on the lessons of the Second World War to future generations. His credo, he said, was as follows: "As long as I live, I will tell the important facts. The historians can analyze, but I was there." Harald Stanghelle wrote in 2018 that Sønsteby was for many years a "living war encyclopedia" who helped serve as "an effective political vaccine against all forms of fascism" and who, while "factually oriented and sober," could get angry in debates at persons who tried to equate democracies with autocracies and had little patience for "historyless historians and ignorant journalists." At the same time, he minimised his own personal contributions to the war effort, saying that the merchant marines had played a more significant role in Norway's fight against the Nazi occupiers. Two days before Sønsteby's death, Norwegian Financial Minister Sigbjørn Johnsen unveiled a statue of Sønsteby at Rjukan torg and stated, "Gunnar Sønstebye is a great hero who risked his life so that we could win our freedom and our democracy". Honours and awards Captain (Kaptein) Sønsteby is the only person awarded the War Cross with Three Swords (more properly known as "War Cross with sword and two swords"). All three awards were made in 1946. His additional recognitions include the following: In 1945, Sønsteby was awarded the British Distinguished Service Order and the U.S. Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm. In 2001 he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation's culture award. On 13 May 2007, a statue of him was erected on Solli plass in Oslo. The statue was sculpted by Per Ung and portrays a 25-year-old Sønsteby standing next to his bicycle. The statue