They finally left for the United Kingdom from Farsund on 14 September. According to Reed-Olsen, they had almost reached the Aberdeen district when the wind turned and brought them as far east as Jutland. After the wind turned again, they almost reached the Thames, when on 29 September they were picked up by the British destroyer HMS Bedouin. After an excursion when the ship had to salvage crashed pilots (one of five was alive), the Norwegians set foot in Edinburgh on 4 October.

Air service and intelligence

They soon travelled to London. They reported at the Norwegian recruiting office, spent one month in the city before leaving for Canada via Scotland, on the ocean liner SS Duchess of Richmond. They reached Toronto and was drafted into the Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service. They were stationed on the ship Iris before the training camp Little Norway opened, and then about three months at Toronto Flying Club before finally going to Little Norway. Reed-Olsen graduated from the air force academy there in 1941. They then went on a fourteen day boat trip from Halifax, Canada via England and Scotland to Iceland.

He served in the No. 330 Squadron RAF. From 1942 he underwent training in intelligence, telegraphy and parachuting. On 20 April 1943 he was paradropped over Eiker, from whence he bicycled to Southern Norway. He performed intelligence radio broadcasts from the Birkenes district and elsewhere. He served the Secret Intelligence Service. In the autumn of 1943 he operated the radio station codenamed Meton in Lommedalen together with Hjelm Waage Thurn-Basberg, with whom he had worked in Southern Norway. Meton was one of nine illegal transmitters in Bærum; four of these belonged to the Secret Intelligence Service. It was also transmitted from Kolsås for a short time.

Both Reed-Olsen and Thurn-Basberg fled to England via Sweden shortly thereafter. Reed-Olsen then had another stay in Norway before going to Canada again. In 1944 he married Joan Whiteside in Toronto. Lastly, he went on a fundraiser tour in the United States for the post-war rebuilding of Norway. For his efforts he was decorated with the War Cross With Sword and the Distinguished Service Cross.

Post-war life

After the war he worked for the Royal Norwegian Air Force (as a Captain), then the civil companies Det Norske Luftfartsselskap and Norsk Brændselolje before becoming an independent businessman. He also dedicated himself to Scouting, arranged summer camps at Håøya and was a board member of the Norwegian Guide and Scout Association. He chronicled his war experiences in the books Contact (1946, reissued 1983) and Vi kommer igjen (1953). The first book was made into the motion picture Kontakt in 1956, with Reed-Olsen contributing as a screenwriter and actor. He died in October 2002 in Oslo.