Where is my bag? A green lady’s handbag, lock missing, lost …

—Politiken newspaper ad, January 1, 1942

Just before midnight on December 27, 1941, the drone of a British plane could be heard in the cold skies over Denmark. If anyone had been awake to listen, that is. The houses below were still and dark in the winter night, their windows taped because of a blackout.

The pilots, though, were wide-awake as they searched for a small town called Haslev, less than fifty miles from Copenhagen. Behind them, four men huddled in the noisy cargo compartment of the plane. In just a short while, a recent medical school graduate named Dr. Carl Johan Bruhn, along with Mogens Hammer, a former member of the merchant navy who’d left his ship to volunteer in England, would be dropped by parachute into the forest below. Bruhn and Hammer were the first agents being sent in by the SOE.

(Preceding image) Carl Johan Bruhn.

Bruhn was a bright, dedicated young man with the ability to organize—the kind of leader Ralph Hollingworth and the SOE needed to establish a network of sabotage groups in Denmark. Bruhn would carry their most valuable piece of equipment: a wireless transmitter to set up ongoing radio communication with London. Hammer had recently been trained in Morse code to serve as a radio operator and to support Bruhn.

There would be one other parachute, though it wouldn’t drop a person. A metal container with explosive materials and supplies to be used for sabotage operations sat in the rear of the plane, ready to be flung out with the two agents. This was just the first load of material they’d need to begin large-scale sabotage actions against targets like factories supporting the German war machine.

Months of planning, training, and preparation had gone into the SOE’s first operation. It was about to become a disaster.

In the long months since he’d taken charge of the Danish section of the SOE, Ralph Hollingworth had worked diligently to develop a thorough, meticulous operations plan. He called it BOOKLET. It had six separate parts, each named for a piece of furniture. All together, it was designed to provide a blueprint for an effective resistance effort in Denmark. The six areas of action were:

CHAIR—building a secret army within Denmark;

DRESSER—developing lines of communication;

SETTEE—a financial structure to fund local resistance operations;

CHEST—anti-German propaganda;

DIVAN—a special intelligence network;

TABLE—the effort to build sabotage groups within Denmark.

By December 15, 1941, Ralph had received official approval for his plan from SOE leaders. By then, preparations were well under way to launch the first project within TABLE, dropping two agents by parachute into Denmark to organize and recruit people to take part in sabotage.

As the plane rumbled through the sky to the drop site, Carl Bruhn must have felt a heavy weight of responsibility on his shoulders. The SOE had placed an enormous challenge before him: to disrupt and destroy the German war machine in Denmark. The SOE’s goals included dividing Denmark into six regions of sabotage operations. Bruhn’s job would be to recruit leaders for each area to develop trained, active sabotage groups of individuals willing to undertake this hazardous work.

Bruhn would also begin identifying potential sabotage targets—factories all over the country that were making everything from German weapons to uniforms. The SOE envisioned a coordinated effort—not at all like the homegrown sabotage Niels Skov and others were doing. Regular radio communications from Denmark to Great Britain would be used to share information about potential targets and arrange for the drop of explosives.

Ralph thought Bruhn would be perfect for this difficult job. In his mid-thirties, Bruhn had been born in Denmark. A love of adventure had taken him to Malaya, where he’d met and married an English doctor. When war broke out, Bruhn and his wife were living in London; he had gone back to school for a medical degree. A bright future awaited him. Yet he wanted to help his country. He’d volunteered and been selected for an SOE training program. Ralph called Bruhn “ ‘a fine man, an idealist in all he undertook … a man of brilliant talents.’ ”

Bruhn and Hammer had been briefed on how to send a secret message to the SOE once they arrived, using a code placed in a newspaper advertisement. They were ready. All systems were go.

At about 3:00 a.m. on December 28, 1941, the bomber reached the drop zone near the town of Haslev, where Carl Bruhn had contacts who could help the two agents once they landed. The pilot dropped to about five hundred feet. Since Bruhn was lighter than Mogens Hammer, he’d been chosen to carry the radio set. Bruhn jumped first. Hammer followed close behind. The container with the explosives was tossed out right behind them.

From above, the pilots thought all went well. Although the dispatcher who gave the order for the men to jump thought there might have been a problem with one of the lines, the rear gunner was certain he saw three parachutes open. Once they were back in Britain, crew members reported a successful mission: The two agents, the radio set, and the sabotage material had all been dropped safely.

That’s not what happened.

Carl Bruhn’s parachute never opened. He hit the ground and was killed instantly. The radio set he carried on his back was completely destroyed.

“Bruhn’s death was a catastrophe,” wrote resistance historian Jørgen Hæstrup. “Not only did SOE lose the man they had chosen as the pioneer of the work, and in whose ability and character they had put such hopes, but in addition, Hammer found himself in a hopeless situation, so that the work in Denmark had a false start, with all the difficulties this dragged with it.”

Mogens Hammer didn’t leave a written account of that night, but he did tell his brother what happened next. Svend Erik Hammer remembered his brother’s story this way: “ ‘When he landed, he hid his parachute in a ditch and immediately began to look for Bruhn, with whom he had arranged a particular whistle signal. However, he heard no sound, and it was only by chance that he found Bruhn lying dead. He had to search Bruhn at once. He knew that his friend had money hidden in his boots, and he had to cut them open.’ ”

Bruhn’s body remained where he had fallen. The footsteps in the snow would tell the whole story to the Danish police and German military officials: Two British agents had been dropped by parachute. One had been killed. The other was on the loose, most likely in Copenhagen. But if the Nazis had their way, he wouldn’t be free for long.

As light dawned on the morning of December 28, 1941, a shaken young man made his way out of the wintry forest toward the town of Haslev. Mogens Hammer was six feet tall, with broad shoulders and the body of an athlete. He’d been a Danish swimming champion before the war.

The original plan had gone something like this: Carl Bruhn knew several of the farmers in the area around Haslev. He would ask for their help in getting false identity papers and ration cards for food for both men. Then he and Hammer would get settled in Copenhagen and try to make contact with like-minded people willing to work against the Germans.

Secrecy would be key to the agents’ success. They knew German patrols had equipment that could detect illegal radio transmissions. They’d need to move around frequently and find people willing to let their apartments be used for this dangerous activity. Before they left London, the SOE’s Ralph Hollingworth had given Bruhn some names to contact to help with this part of the operation.

All the plans had been well thought out—up to a certain point. There was no plan B. No one had anticipated Bruhn’s death. The element of surprise was blown. Hammer hadn’t been trained to fill Bruhn’s shoes. He wasn’t an experienced agent, or even a soldier. He was a young man completely on his own.

It can’t have been easy for Hammer to cut away Bruhn’s boots to retrieve the money hidden inside. But he did. Then he followed the railway lines until he could get on a train. Hammer knew that both the Danish police and German soldiers would be looking for him. Even if he’d been able to hide his parachute, his footsteps in the snow would be proof that two agents had arrived and one was still alive.

In fact, within days after the tragedy at Haslev, the Germans sent a note to the Danish police asking for their help in finding the surviving parachute agent. They’d been put on alert and would be watching for more secret drops. College student Jørgen Kieler recalled reading an article in a newspaper a few weeks later, calling for any information leading to the spy’s arrest. There was even the promise of a reward.

Mogens Hammer was most definitely a wanted man.

(Preceding image) Mogens Hammer.

Given the danger from possible informants, the last thing Mogens Hammer should have done is contact people he knew. Doing so might put them in danger. But with nowhere else to turn, Hammer had no choice: He needed a place to sleep. He didn’t let on the actual truth: that he had left the Danish merchant navy when his boat docked in Great Britain and volunteered to help his country. Instead, he made up a story about his sudden reappearance, telling friends and family he’d been shipwrecked and had managed to make his way to Denmark through Sweden.

Next, Hammer went looking for help to find other like-minded people involved in secret resistance efforts. His path took him to a newspaper editor named Erik Seidenfaden.

“ ‘One fine day, a stranger rang at my door. He introduced himself as Mr. Hansen, and asked to speak with me. I was alone at home and asked him in, and he at once put his cards on the table, told me that he was a British agent, that he had just landed near Haslev,’ ” Seidenfaden recalled later. “ ‘We had a long talk, and he seemed to take it for granted that I had contacts which I did not have.’ ”

Even as Hammer struggled to find his way, the Germans and the Danish police went on the alert, watching for signs of radio activity or of anyone acting suspicious. Things weren’t looking good for the start of the SOE’s efforts to build an effective sabotage organization.

Things weren’t going much better for the other British spy in Denmark: Tommy Sneum.