MINUTES BEFORE DAWN on December 3, air-raid sirens blared throughout Rjukan. Residents awakened to find German soldiers marching through their streets. The Gestapo and several hundred Wehrmacht troops had arrived in the night on motorcycles and transport trucks, sealing off the Vestfjord Valley. Brandishing machine guns, they stomped from house to house, building to building. Soldiers stood on street corners and on bridges. Bundled in heavy coats, their breath frosty in the air, they looked none too happy to be there. The Germans ordered all residents to remain inside their homes — or they would be shot.
Throughout the town, the same scene played out over and over again. A hammering on the door. Shouts to open up. Soldiers, sometimes led by Gestapo officers, storming into the house, asking for the names of everyone who lived there, rummaging through rooms, closets, and chests, looking for illegal material — guns, radios, underground newspapers. If the Nazis discovered any contraband, they arrested the occupants and took them away by truck. Often, the soldiers broke furniture, punched holes through walls, and stole whatever food they could find.
Rolf Sørlie, a twenty-six-year-old construction engineer at Vemork, pleaded innocence when they came to his house, using the fluent German he had learned while studying in Leipzig. A short, slight young man with fair hair, Sørlie had been born with a condition that left the muscles of his hands and feet in constant spasm. Surgery had corrected his twisted feet, but not his hands, which were stuck in a half-clench. Nonetheless, he had never let his disability stop him from wandering the Vidda with his friends Poulsson and Helberg.
As soldiers filed into his house, past his younger brother and the housemaid, Sørlie tried to conceal his fear. Not only was he close to the local Milorg leader, Olav Skogen, but there were two radios hidden in his attic. Fortunately, the soldiers gave the house only a cursory search, either out of laziness or a lack of suspicion about this young Norwegian who spoke such nice German. They left without incident.
Down the street, Sørlie’s friend Ditlev Diseth, a sixty-seven-year-old pensioner who had formerly worked for Norsk Hydro and now fixed watches, was not so lucky. Diseth was also a member of Skogen’s Milorg cell, and the Gestapo found a radio and weapons in his house. The Germans hauled him away, along with twenty-one other Rjukan residents, including several members of the Milorg cell. All were to be questioned and, if warranted, brought to Grini for further interrogation.
Hans and Elen Skinnarland threw a little party that day to celebrate their son Olav’s thirty-second birthday. Einar, who was working at the Kalhovd dam, was the only member of the family not present when the Gestapo roared up on their motorcycles. They arrested Torstein, thinking he was the Skinnarland rumored to be involved in resistance work. Nothing was said about Einar, but the family knew the Gestapo would soon mark him for arrest as well.
*
On December 8, Knut Haukelid arrived at Kingston House with a leg of venison slung over his shoulder. He was not the first Kompani Linge member to bring Tronstad a portion from a luckless animal that had “strayed into protective fire” at STS 26. Over the past year, the two had met a few times over drinks, to talk about building up Norwegian resistance forces. They shared the view that now was the time for ambition, not timidity. Operation Gunnerside, Tronstad knew, was particularly ambitious. Although Haukelid did feel that given his extensive experience, he should be the one leading the mission, not Rønneberg, an order was an order, and he was man enough to swallow his pride if it meant returning to Norway at last.
Tronstad greeted him warmly and thanked him for the meat. Then he turned in his chair and reached down into his safe, taking out a folder stamped TOP SECRET. He showed Haukelid a few of the diagrams and drawings of the Vemork plant. “Heavy water is very dangerous, you know,” he began. “It can be used for one of the dirtiest things man can make, and if the Germans get it, we shall have lost the war and London will be blown to pieces.”
Haukelid was not sure what to think of the possibility of such a weapon, but he made it clear that he was committed to the Gunnerside mission. He had come to London to talk about what happened next. He did not intend to make his way to Sweden; rather, he wanted to follow through with Grouse’s original mission: establishing a base in western Telemark and recruiting guerrilla groups. If Poulsson chose to stay, he could command eastern Telemark. The other Grouse members could be split between the two regions.
Tronstad wasn’t sure. He had helped develop this earlier plan, but things had changed. The Germans had launched an extensive manhunt after Operation Freshman — one could only imagine what they would do if the heavy water plant was actually blown up. “They will do all they can to catch you,” Tronstad said. “We can’t run such a risk as to have our men operating on the Vidda.”
Fearing that his request might be denied, Haukelid grew desperate with emotion. “They won’t find us. We’re used to the mountains. We can live in the wilderness. I won’t come back to England. I shall never come back again however long the war may last.” Finally, he vowed, “Those louts won’t catch us!”
Tronstad agreed to think about it.
*
Since Haugland informed Home Station that Swallow — the new codename the SOE had given Grouse, for security purposes — was heading up into the mountains after the glider disaster, there had been no further wireless communication. For more than two weeks, Wilson and Tronstad feared that the four had been caught up in the razzia at Rjukan. From what little was reported, the Germans were everywhere in Telemark, searching villages and setting up roadblocks. Terboven and Falkenhorst had made a great display of checking on Vemork’s defenses, and a state of emergency that further limited travel had been declared. It was clear the Germans had learned the target of the glider operation, intelligence no doubt extracted from the captured Royal Engineers.
On December 9, station operators at Grendon Hall received communications from the Swallow team at last. “Our working conditions difficult,” the first message began. Then came details of ski patrols searching around Lake Møs and the setting up of a Gestapo D/F station near the dam to locate any wireless radios operating in the area. A second message reported Torstein Skinnarland’s arrest. The Home Station boss instructed his operators that any traffic from Swallow was of the “highest possible priority,” to be delivered to Tronstad and Wilson in London immediately.
*
A few minutes before 10:00 a.m. on December 10, the telephone rang in Olav Skogen’s office at a Norsk Hydro factory in Rjukan. It was Gunnar Syverstad, calling from Vemork: “Four Gestapo are on their way to Kalhovd.” Skogen knew what this meant: the Germans, who had been unraveling the resistance networks throughout the area over the past week, were finally closing in on Einar Skinnarland. Skogen immediately called the Norsk Hydro office in Kalhovd. He was told that Skinnarland had left the day before to visit his parents at Lake Møs. Skogen asked the switchboard operator to ring the dam-keeper’s house, but was told that this was not possible; the Germans had suspended that line. Skogen feared the Gestapo would soon be on their way to the Skinnarland home, if they were not already. In the factory, Skogen tracked down Øystein Jahren, his main courier and a relative of the Skinnarland family, and asked him to take a bus up to Lake Møs to warn Einar. If anyone asked him why he was there, he was to say that he was buying some fish for a special dinner.
Jahren hurried from the factory and, with only seconds to spare, caught a bus at the depot. When he arrived at Lake Møs, there were no Germans in sight. He knocked urgently on the door of the Skinnarland house. Elen answered. Jahren told her that the Gestapo was on its way for Einar. He was not at home, she said, but she would warn him. His duty done, Jahren left, eager to be gone before the Germans came.
The bus taking him back to town had traveled only a few hundred yards when it was stopped by German soldiers. Several Gestapo officers, who had been surveiling the Skinnarland home, boarded the bus and arrested Jahren.
At that same moment, Einar Skinnarland was skiing up into the hills behind his family home. Despite his mother’s words to the contrary, he had indeed been at home when Jahren called, and had fled out the back door. Speeding through the woods, he headed for a remote cabin known as High Heaven. It was owned by his brother-in-law. Unless the Germans were skilled cross-country skiers and trackers — and very lucky — they would never find him there.
Once safely at High Heaven, Skinnarland relaxed, shaken by his close escape. For the first time since beginning to live a double life, seven months before, he was a wanted man. Worse was the arrest of Torstein, who had acted as his cover. Skinnarland knew that he needed to inform London of the heightened security around Lake Møs and Vemork. He also had a decision to make: whether to head to Sweden and on to Britain or remain in Norway, living on the run. The next day, Helberg and Kjelstrup arrived at the cabin, having learned of Skinnarland’s narrow escape from the Nazis. The two stayed the night and told Skinnarland of the new mission to sabotage Vemork. Skinnarland’s decision was made.
*
In the late afternoon of December 11, the six Gunnerside men arrived at the ivy-clad Brickendonbury Hall. It was a week before their scheduled drop, and there was an uneasy feeling among them; only weeks before, the British sappers who perished in Operation Freshman were trained at this same school, by the same instructors, for the same target. The fact that the school had been cleared of other students because of their mission’s secrecy only added to the sense of foreboding. Waiting to welcome them on the manor steps was George Rheam, newly promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Rheam invited them to drinks and dinner that evening; then his adjunct led the six men to their second-floor dormitory room. On each bed was a kit bag with the clothes and gear they would need for their training, including a factory-new Colt .45 with a red belt holster. To a man, the six took out their new guns and tested the action.
Rønneberg cocked his, but when he pulled the trigger the gun fired. As his ears rang and plaster dust fell about him, he realized that he had by mistake fired the loaded gun he had brought with him to Brickendonbury. One of the school’s guards rushed into the dormitory, quickly followed by Rheam’s adjunct. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked. Straight-faced, Rønneberg looked up, pointed at the hole in the wall, and said, “I’ve tried my new weapon and it works perfectly.” The adjunct shook his head and walked out. Crazy Norwegians.
It was a rare moment of carelessness for Rønneberg. In the ten days since being charged with Gunnerside, he had been punctilious in his preparations for the mission. He had gathered several sets of maps of southern Norway from the high command’s intelligence office in London. One, at 1:250,000 scale, had been nailed to the wall at the base in Scotland and used to chart out the team’s routes. The others, at 1:100,000 scale, were given to the team, so each man could memorize every valley and mountain.
Then there were their weapons. Given the close-quarter fighting they expected, short-range guns were going to be the most important. They tried out the simply designed British Sten submachine guns but found them too heavy and unreliable, often firing in bursts when set on single shot. They selected the Thompson (Tommy) submachine gun, made famous by American gangsters. Within two hundred yards, these could be fired as accurately as a rifle, and, since they took .45 caliber bullets instead of the Sten’s 9mm, they could use the same ammunition for their Colt pistols. Rønneberg had the team meticulously clean their Tommy guns, dry-sand them, and paint them white. For the mission, he also asked for hand grenades, a sniper rifle, killing knives, chloroform pads to knock out guards, and lots of spare magazines of ammunition.
While his team trained and practiced shooting, Rønneberg gathered the equipment they would need to endure the harsh Vidda winter. When something didn’t meet his exact specifications, he redesigned or altered it. He picked out the best wooden skis, had them sealed with fresh pine tar and then painted white. To improve the design of the steel-frame rucksacks, he added gaiter pockets, drawstring tops, extra-long shoulder straps, and white coverings. He found rabbit-fur-lined underpants, wool trousers, and white camouflage ski suits. He had the quartermasters change the leather linings on their peaked ski caps for khaki, which was warmer. A shoemaker in the East Midlands rushed an order of sturdy, waterproof leather boots.
For rations, Rønneberg went to Professor Leiv Kreyberg. Working with dieticians at Cambridge University, the Norwegian professor had pioneered a method of compressing dehydrated food into blocks to make combat rations. The meals were lightweight, and to prepare them one only had to add water. Using these kinds of rations meant they would only have to carry a cup and a spoon. Given how far they would have to travel in escaping from Vemork to Sweden, every ounce mattered. Rønneberg also had his Gunnerside team build two sleds to minimize what they would have to carry on their backs.
In his quest for mission-compatible sleeping bags, he went to a London bedding manufacturer near Trafalgar Square. The owner sent him to their workshop in the Docklands. There, he sketched out what he needed: essentially two bags woven into one, the outer a waterproof shell, the inner filled with down and large enough to sleep in while fully dressed, with room for their gear. He also wanted a hood over the top with a drawstring tie that would close almost completely, allowing only a small opening for breathing. The head of the workshop took a look at his design and, recognizing the second lieutenant’s urgency, said, “Well, you just come back tomorrow afternoon and see what I’ve done.” The next day, Rønneberg climbed into the first prototype. It was perfect, apart from some seams that were stitched into the down that would allow water to penetrate. He made the design change, then ordered six bags to be picked up as soon as possible.
By the time Rønneberg and his men arrived at Brickendonbury Hall, they knew all the possible routes to and from Vemork, and most of their gear was ready to be packed for the drop.
Now they could focus on the operation itself. Rheam had taught hundreds of SOE operatives everything there was to know about incapacitating the German war machine by targeting their communication lines, railways, and factories. “Seven people properly trained can cripple a city,” said one instructor.
Rheam wanted his students to be able to walk into a plant and, within minutes, identify which machinery to disable. A well-placed swing of a sledgehammer might do the trick, or some handfuls of sand in the machinery. Most often, though, explosives were required. Nobel 808, a rust-colored explosive that smelled like almonds, was Rheam’s first choice. Soft and malleable, 808, or “stagger juice” (as some at STS 17 referred to it), could be cut, shaped, stretched, thrown against the wall, and even shot at, and it would not explode. But set off a small explosive charge (essentially, a detonator) buried within it — even while underwater — and... boom.
The Gunnerside team, Rønneberg foremost, was well trained in sabotage techniques and in the use of explosives. Once Rheam had satisfied himself on this, via some test exercises, he began to instruct them on how to blow up the heavy water facility at Vemork. Using the same wooden model on which the Freshman sappers had been trained, Rheam showed where on the base of each high-concentration cell they should place the explosive charges.
The facility had two rows of nine heavy-concentration cells. The team needed to place a daisy-chained series of nine half-pound charges connected by detonator cord on each row. This cord would then be rigged with an initiator of two-minute fuses to allow them time to clear the room before the explosion. The aim was not only to destroy the machinery but also to puncture the cells and drain them of their precious contents. Working with children’s modeling clay, the team trained in pairs to rig the explosives as quickly and efficiently as possible. They repeated the maneuvers so many times, they could nearly do them in the dark.
Almost every day, Tronstad came down to the school to answer any questions, bringing drawings and blueprints of the plant as well as aerial photographs of the surrounding area. Whenever a question was asked to which he did not have the answer, whether it was about layout, doors, guards, or patrols, he would leave the room and return soon after with the answers they needed. In hiding at Brickendonbury was Jomar Brun, the source of the information. He remained unknown to the team.
When the latest intelligence from Swallow detailed more guards at Vemork as well as new searchlights and a machine-gun nest atop one building, the team revisited potential approaches to the target. They could cross the suspension bridge, come down from the penstocks, or climb up from the gorge to the cliffside railway line that connected the plant with Rjukan. Plans for each were hashed out, but they decided to postpone the final decision until they could reconnoiter the site.
One realization they did have was that six men were not enough for the operation. They would need a covering party to give the demolition team the time — and security — to carry out the attack. Swallow could fill this role.
When they were not practicing for the sabotage, the men kept fit, exercising around the extensive grounds. One day, a burglar on loan from a local prison showed them how to break through locked gates. Another morning, they arrived at breakfast to find a monk-like figure sitting at one of the tables. He was Major Eric Sykes, a former Shanghai policeman who was now one of the British Army’s leading weapons instructors. He asked Rønneberg if his men wanted to show him what they could do. The six brought him out to the street-fighting range, where pop-up dummies appeared in open doors, behind windows, and across alleys. As they took aim through the sights on their pistols and Tommy guns, Sykes stopped them. “That’s doomed from the start,” he said. He urged them to shoot from the hip, as they had been taught at Stodham.
Rønneberg assured him they knew what best to do. Sykes waved them onto the range. Firing over two hundred times, Haukelid hit almost 100 percent of his targets, as did the others who followed him. Sykes was dumbfounded, and it was clear that there was nothing he could teach them.
*
Claus Helberg rummaged in a dark cupboard, desperate for food. He had been at Ditlev Diseth’s cabin beside Lake Langesjå a few days before and found some rakfisk, but he was hoping he might have overlooked some flour or oatmeal. There was nothing. Then he heard voices. His skis and boots were outside the door; there was no hiding his presence. He drew his pistol and waited. There was a knock. “Who’s there?” he asked sharply.
“Skogen.”
“Olav? Is that you?” Helberg asked.
“Yes, it’s me.”
Helberg yanked open the door, pistol still in hand. There were three men outside the cabin, each of them carrying a hunting rifle. With the sky darkening, it was hard to see who they were.
“It’s me, Claus,” Skogen said. “You can take it easy.”
Helberg stepped outside and started to lower his gun when another of the men approached. Skogen held him back. “Wait until the gun’s away, you’ll get yourself shot.” Then Helberg recognized his childhood friend. “Well, if it isn’t Rolf Sørlie!” The two embraced, then Skogen introduced the third man: Finn Paus, a member of Milorg. Because Diseth had been arrested during the Rjukan razzia, Skogen, Sørlie, and Paus had come to his cabin to hide contraband that was being kept there. They also had plans to hunt reindeer.
The four men got in out of the cold, and the new arrivals shared their bread and butter with Helberg. He asked after his family in Rjukan, and Sørlie told him they were safe. They informed him about the German raid and the string of arrests. Clearly, the Gestapo was not targeting people at random. Helberg said very little about why he was in the mountains. Already Skogen knew too much, and Swallow could not risk an expanded circle.
The next morning, they buried the weapons Diseth had been hiding in his cabin. Sørlie gave Helberg his Krag-Jørgensen bolt-action rifle and some ammunition. Given his team had only brought pistols and machine guns from Britain, they were desperate for such a hunting rifle. Helberg said his goodbyes, telling Sørlie, “You will hear from me soon.” Then he skied back to Grass Valley to rejoin his team.
Each of the four members of Swallow had a lucky escape during the razzia. Haugland had been out in the woods, searching for supplies, when a patrol missed him by only a few yards. Poulsson and Kjelstrup narrowly avoided some Germans when they were returning to Grass Valley from the mountains to the west. And Helberg, traveling to meet Einar Skinnarland by his house at the dam, had almost arrived at the same time as the Gestapo arrest party the day they had taken Øystein Jahren.
But when it came to food, their luck ran out. They had long since finished their treasured supplies of pemmican. The little bit extra they had recovered from the Songa Valley was already gone. Haugland had managed to find a shotgun and had killed several grouse, but they had picked those bones clean within a day. Helberg had gone up to Lake Langesjå in search of reindeer, but had spotted no herds. He had been searching cabins in the area for stores of rakfisk or meat when he’d encountered the Milorg team.
The four suffered constant hunger and had resorted to digging in the snow for the rust-colored moss the reindeer ate. “It’s full of vitamins and minerals,” Poulsson promised the others, who were more accustomed to using the moss as a bed when camping. Nonetheless, they boiled it in water with a handful of oatmeal. It made a bitter soup.
When Helberg arrived back at the Grass Valley cabin, Poulsson delivered the good news from London: They were to take an “active part” in the new operation against Vemork. There was much to be done before the standby period began, on December 18, in six days’ time. They had to secure some food, get the latest intelligence about security at Vemork, retrieve the Eureka device that had been left at Lake Sand, and recharge their wireless radio batteries. Then they needed to leave for a new hideout, twenty miles northwest of Vemork, far up in the Vidda, where Gunnerside was to be dropped.
Misfortune hounded them at every turn. German patrols delayed their fetching the Eureka device. Helberg was caught in a storm while returning with a freshly charged battery. Struggling to continue with the thirty-pound battery in his rucksack, he finally had to leave it behind in the woods for retrieval the next day. They failed to track down any reindeer, and some salted meat they found in a cabin by Lake Møs turned out to be rotten.
All of them became too sick to hold down the little food they had left. Helberg and Kjelstrup were in particularly bad shape, their malnutrition having caused edema. They grew so bloated they were unable to button their shirt collars and had to urinate six times a night. Still they went out every day to prepare for the new operation. Skinnarland provided them with what little food he could spare, as well as recharged batteries and intelligence on the new defenses at Vemork.
On December 17 Haugland received a signal from Home Station that Gunnerside was set to leave on the next clear night. It was time to head north, even though the charge on the Eureka battery was dwindling. Starving, sick, and with the clock against them, they soon moved deeper into the Vidda.
*
At Brickendonbury Hall, the Gunnerside team readied to leave for Gaynes Hall outside Cambridge to await their drop into Norway. They had come through the school, earning Rheam’s high, albeit understated, praise: “If the conditions are at all possible, they have every chance of carrying out operation successfully.” Tronstad visited one last time to go over the mission and to bid the men farewell. It was a solemn moment. Each of the saboteurs had been given a cyanide capsule; each knew that their chances of hitting the target and escaping with their lives were, at best, even. Tronstad reminded them of the executions of the Freshman sappers and warned them that they would likely be treated the same — or worse — if caught alive.
Then he concluded, “For the sake of those who have gone before and fallen, I urge you to do your best to make the operation a success. You do not know now exactly why it’s so important, but trust that your actions will live in history for a hundred years to come. Be an example for those that will later participate in the recapture of our country, and thus in the defeat of Germany. What you do, you do for the Allies and for Norway.” There followed an awkward pause. Some on the team felt Tronstad was looking at them like they would never come back.
“You won’t get rid of us so easily,” Rønneberg said.