https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage
Published histories[edit]
A 1962 book by John D. Drummond, titled But For These Men (ISBN 0705700453), tells a true account of two dramatic raids: one on the Norsk Hydro heavy water factory at Vemork, and another on the railway ferry "Hydro" to destroy Germany's heavy water production efforts.
The book The Real Heroes of Telemark: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Stop Hitler's Atomic Bomb by Ray Mears, published by Hodder & Stoughton 2003 (ISBN 0-340-83016-6) describes the events from the perspective of the unique survival skills of the Norwegian commandos. It accompanied a BBC television documentary series, The Real Heroes of Telemark, which sticks more to the facts than the film it is named after. It also describes the survival aspects of the attack: how to survive for months in a mountain cabin.
The book Skis Against the Atom (ISBN 0-942323-07-6) is a first-hand account by Knut Haukelid, one of the Gunnersideraiders who stayed behind.
Jens-Anton Poulsson (Swallow/Grouse) has told the story in the book The Heavy Water Raid: The Race for the Atom Bomb 1942–1944, Orion forlag As (2009), ISBN 978-82-458-0869-8.
The ill-fated Operation Freshman is covered extensively in two books: Richard Wiggan's Operation Freshman: The Rjukan Heavy Water Raid 1942, William Kimber & Co Ltd (1986), ISBN 978-0-7183-0571-0, and the more recent, Jostein Berglyd's Operation Freshman: The Actions and the Aftermath, Leandoer & Ekholm (2007), ISBN 978-91-975895-9-8.
Richard Rhodes's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Making of the Atomic Bomb includes details on the events in chapters 14–15.[30]
Leo Marks' 1998 book Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's Story 1941-1945 covers the story in some detail. Marks was SOE's cryptographer. He knew the Norwegian team, trained them in cryptography so they could communicate with SOE back in England, and avidly followed their progress after they were dropped in Norway. Published by HarperCollins. ISBN 0-684-86780-X
The raid is also the subject of the book, Assault in Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program by Thomas Gallagher, published by Lyons Press (2002), ISBN 978-1-58574-750-4. This book is based on the author's interviews with many of the commandos.
An account of Operation Gunnerside is told in The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitlers Atomic Bomb, by Neal Bascomb, published by Houghton Mifflin (2016), ISBN 978-0-544-36805-7.
Damien Lewis's 2016 book Hunting Hitler's Nukes: The Secret Race to Stop the Nazi Bomb, ISBN 978-1-78648-208-2, covers the raid and the subsequent sinking of the SF Hydro in detail.
Fiction, film, and video coverage[edit]
A 1948 Norwegian film based on Operations Freshman and Grouse, called Kampen om tungtvannet, features performances by at least four of the original participants in the raid.[31]
A 1965 British film based on the Operation Gunnerside raid, titled The Heroes of Telemark. It features a performance by one of the original participants in the raid – as the Nazi pursuer of the escapees.[25]
A 1966 book by Czech author František Běhounek, titled Rokle u Rjukanu (Gorge at Rjukan), is a fiction inspired by the events.
A 1979 Canadian movie and TV-series titled A Man Called Intrepid, based on the book of the same name by William Henry Stevenson. It features David Niven, Michael York and Barbara Hershey.[32]
"NOVA: Hitler's Sunken Secret". The Corporation for Public Broadcasting – WGBH Educational Foundation. 1996–2005. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy
Heavy water (deuterium oxide) played a sinister role in the race for nuclear energy during the World War II. It was a key factor in Germany's bid to harness atomic energy primarily as a source of electric power; its acute shortage was a factor in Japan's decision not to pursue seriously nuclear weaponry; its very existence was a nagging thorn in the side of the Allied powers. Books and films have dwelt on the Allies' efforts to deny the Germans heavy water by military means; however, a history of heavy water has yet to be written.
Filling this gap, Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy concentrates on the circumstances whereby Norway became the preeminent producer of heavy water and on the scientific role the rare isotope of hydrogen played in the wartime efforts by the Axis and Allied powers alike. Instead of a purely technical treatise on heavy water, the book describes the social history of the subject.
The book covers the discovery and early uses of deuterium before World War II and its large-scale production by Norsk Hydro in Norway, especially under German control. It also discusses the French-German race for the Norwegian heavy-water stocks in 1940 and heavy water's importance for the subsequent German uranium project, including the Allied sabotage and bombing of the Norwegian plants, as well as its lesser role in Allied projects, especially in the United States and Canada. The book concludes with an overall assessment of the importance and the perceived importance of heavy water for the German program, which alone staked everything on heavy water in its quest for a nuclear chain reaction.
Filling this gap, Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy concentrates on the circumstances whereby Norway became the preeminent producer of heavy water and on the scientific role the rare isotope of hydrogen played in the wartime efforts by the Axis and Allied powers alike. Instead of a purely technical treatise on heavy water, the book describes the social history of the subject.
The book covers the discovery and early uses of deuterium before World War II and its large-scale production by Norsk Hydro in Norway, especially under German control. It also discusses the French-German race for the Norwegian heavy-water stocks in 1940 and heavy water's importance for the subsequent German uranium project, including the Allied sabotage and bombing of the Norwegian plants, as well as its lesser role in Allied projects, especially in the United States and Canada. The book concludes with an overall assessment of the importance and the perceived importance of heavy water for the German program, which alone staked everything on heavy water in its quest for a nuclear chain reaction.
Operation Gunnerside[edit]
British authorities were aware the Grouse team was still operational, and decided to mount another operation in concert with them. By this time the original Grouse team was being referred to as Swallow. On the night of 16 February 1943, in Operation Gunnerside (named after the village where SOE head Sir Charles Hambro and his family used to shoot grouse), an additional six Norwegian commandos were dropped by parachute by a Halifax bomber of 138 Squadron from RAF Tempsford. They were successful in landing, and encountered the Swallow team after a few days of searching on cross country skis. The combined team made final preparations for their assault, which was to take place on the night of 27/28 February 1943.[15]
Supplies required by the commandos were dropped with them in special CLE containers. (One of these was buried in the snow by a Norwegian patriot to hide it from the Germans; he later recovered it and in August 1976 handed it over to an officer of the British Army Air Corps, which was conducting exercises in the area. The container was brought back to England and was displayed in the Airborne Museum at Aldershot. The museum closed in 2008 and is now part of the Imperial War Museum Duxford).[16]
Following the failed Freshman attempt, the Germans put mines, floodlights, and additional guards around the plant. While the mines and lights remained in place, security of the actual plant had slackened somewhat over the winter months. However, the single 75 m (246 ft) bridge spanning the deep ravine, 200 m (660 ft) above the river Måna, was fully guarded.[13] Gallagher, Thomas (2002). Assault In Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program. Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press. ISBN 1-58574-750-5. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
The force elected to descend into the ravine, ford the icy river and climb the steep hill on the far side. The winter river level was very low, and on the far side, where the ground levelled, they followed a single railway track straight into the plant area without encountering any guards. Even before Grouse landed in Norway, SOE had a Norwegian agent within the plant who supplied detailed plans and schedule information. The demolition party used this information to enter the main basement by a cable tunnel and through a window. Inside the plant the only person they came across was the Norwegian caretaker (Johansen), who was very willing to cooperate with them.[13]Gallagher, Thomas (2002). Assault In Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program. Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press. ISBN 1-58574-750-5. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
The saboteurs then placed explosive charges on the heavy water electrolysis chambers, and attached a fuse allowing sufficient time for their escape. A Thompson submachine gun[17][18][19] was purposely left behind to indicate that this was the work of British forces and not of the local resistance, in order to try to avoid reprisals. A bizarre episode ensued when fuses were about to be lit: the caretaker was worried about his spectacles which were lying somewhere in the room (during the war new glasses were nearly impossible to acquire). A frantic search for the caretaker's spectacles ensued, they were found — and the fuses lit. The explosive charges detonated, destroying the electrolysis chambers.[13]
The raid was considered successful. The entire inventory of heavy water produced during the German occupation, over 500 kg (1,102 lb), was destroyed along with equipment critical to operation of the electrolysis chambers. Although 3,000 German soldiers were dispatched to search the area for the commandos, all of them escaped; five of them skied 400 kilometres to Sweden, two proceeded to Oslo where they assisted Milorg, and four remained in the region for further work with the resistance.[15]
Historical perspective[edit]
Recent investigation of production records at Norsk Hydro and analysis of an intact barrel that was salvaged in 2004 revealed that although the barrels in this shipment contained water of pH 14—indicative of the alkaline electrolytic refinement process, they did not contain high concentrations of D2O.[27] Despite the apparent size of shipment, the total quantity of pure heavy water was limited, with most barrels only containing between 1/2–1% pure heavy water, confirming the success of the Operation Gunnerside raid in destroying the higher purity heavy water. The Germans would have needed a total of about 5 t (5.5 short tons) of heavy water to get a nuclear reactor running; while the manifest indicated that there was only 500 kg (0.55 short tons) of heavy water being transported to Germany. Hence the Hydro was carrying too little heavy water to supply one reactor, let alone the 10 or more tons of heavy water needed to make enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon.[27]
With the benefit of hindsight, the consensus on the German wartime nuclear program is that it was a long way from producing a bomb,[28] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nazis-and-the-bomb.htmleven if the Norwegian heavy water had been produced and shipped at the maximum rate. Nevertheless, the unsuccessful British raid (Freshman) and the feats of the Norwegian saboteurs (Swallow, Grouse, Gunnerside) made the top secret war against the heavy water production internationally known and the saboteurs national heroes.
Norwegian heavy water sabotage
| Norwegian heavy water sabotage | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |||||
 The Vemork Hydroelectric Plant in 1935. The heavy water was produced in the front building (the Hydrogen Production Plant) | |||||
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The Norwegian heavy water sabotage (Bokmål: Tungtvannsaksjonen, Nynorsk: Tungtvassaksjonen) was a series of operations undertaken by Norwegian saboteurs during World War II to prevent the German nuclear weapon project from acquiring heavy water (deuterium oxide), which could have been used by the Germans to produce nuclear weapons. In 1934, at Vemork, Norway, Norsk Hydro built the first commercial plant capable of producing heavy water as a byproduct of fertilizer production. It had a capacity of 12 tonnes per year. During World War II, the Allies decided to remove the heavy water supply and destroy the heavy water plant in order to inhibit the Germandevelopment of nuclear weapons. Raids were aimed at the 60 MW Vemork power station at the Rjukan waterfall in Telemark, Norway.
Prior to the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, the Deuxième Bureau (French military intelligence) removed 185 kg (408 lb) of heavy water from the plant in Vemork in then-neutral Norway. The plant's managing director, Aubert, agreed to lend the heavy water to France for the duration of the war. The French transported it secretly to Oslo, to Perth, Scotland, and then to France. The plant remained capable of producing heavy water.[1]
The Allies remained concerned that the occupation forces would use the facility to produce more heavy water for their weapons programme. Between 1940 and 1944, a sequence of sabotage actions, by the Norwegian resistance movement—as well as Allied bombing—ensured the destruction of the plant and the loss of the heavy water produced. These operations—codenamed Grouse, Freshman, and Gunnerside—finally managed to knock the plant out of production in early 1943.
In Operation Grouse, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) successfully placed four Norwegian nationals as an advance team in the region of the Hardanger Plateau above the plant in October 1942. The unsuccessful Operation Freshmanwas mounted the following month by British paratroopers; they were to rendezvous with the Norwegians of Operation Grouseand proceed to Vemork. This attempt failed when the military gliders crashed short of their destination, as did one of the tugs, a Handley Page Halifax bomber. The other Halifax returned to base, but all the other participants were killed in the crashes or captured, interrogated, and executed by the Gestapo.
In February 1943, a team of SOE-trained Norwegian commandos succeeded in destroying the production facility with a second attempt, Operation Gunnerside. Operation Gunnerside was later evaluated by SOE as the most successful act of sabotage in all of World War II.[2]
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