Fridtjof Nansen was the first ship in the Norwegian armed forces to be built specially to perform coast guard and fishery protection duties in the Arctic.

On 8 June 1940 she took on board in Tromsø Rear Admiral Henry E. Diesen, foreign minister Halvdan Koht and General Carl Gustav Fleischer, in addition to some other refugees.

On 8 November she ran aground on an unmarked shallow off the south coast of the Norwegian Arctic island of Jan Mayen and sank.

[6][11] After the loss of their ship, the crew reached land at the Eggøya peninsula, and took shelter in the abandoned Norwegian radio station on Jan Mayen.

Help arrived before the boat could leave, when the naval trawler HNoMS Honningsvåg came from Iceland four days later, responding to the emergency messages the crew had sent before Fridtjof Nansen had to be abandoned.