The Operation Gunnerside reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Operation Gunnerside

During World War II, Operation Gunnerside was the second raid on the Norsk Hydro “heavy water” plant at Vemork in the Rjuken Valley, Norway on 16 February, 1943. At the outbreak of war this was the only plant producing “heavy water”, deuterium oxide (D2O), in quantity. Hitler required increasing amounts of this for the development of an Atom Bomb.

The first attempt, Operation Freshman, mounted by Combined Operations in November 1942, failed when thirty four Royal Engineers of the 1st British Airborne Division, together with the crews of two gliders and one bomber, died when their craft crashed into mountains during poor visibility. Survivors were executed by the Germans under Hitler’s Commando Order.

In advance of Freshman’s arrival, a four man team of SOE trained Norwegians were parachuted in on 19 October to receive the Engineers and guide them to their target, Operation Grouse. The SOE operation was successful, but the Grouse team thereafter had a long arduous wait in their mountain hideaway, subsisting virtually on moss and lichen during the winter until a Reindeer was eventually found and shot just before Christmas.

Operation Gunnerside was mounted completely by the SOE and proved to be one of, if not, the most successful acts of sabotage in the war. A six man Norwegian team dropped by parachute and made their way to contact the Grouse team. For communication security, the Grouse team had now been recoded as “Swallow”. After several days the teams found each other and made final preparations for their assault on the night of 27/28 February.

Following the Freshman attempt, mines, floodlights and additional guards were set around the plant. Whilst the mines and lights remained in place, security of the actual plant had slacked somewhat over the winter months. However, the single 75 metre bridge spanning the deep ravine which led to the plant, 200 metres above the River Maan, was well guarded.

The force elected to descend into the ravine, ford the river and climb the far side. All went well. The winter river level was very low and on the far side, where the grounded levelled, they followed a single railway track straight into the plant without encountering any guards. The demolition party entered the main basement by a cable tunnel and though a window. Even before Grouse landed in Norway, SOE had a Norwegian agent within the plant who supplied detailed plans and schedule information. Other than keeping the night-watchman quiet, (and finding his glasses for him), no one interfered with their mission or immediate escape following what they described as a “dull thud”. A Tommy Gun was purposely left to indicate this was a British raid and not local resistance, to try and prevent reprisals.

All ten made good their escape whereafter six skied 400 kilometres to Sweden while four remained in Norway for further work with the resistance. The plant was restored by April and SOE concluded a repeat raid would be extremely hard as German security was thereafter very considerable. In November the plant was attacked by a massed daylight bombing raid of 143 B17 bombers dropping 711 bombs, (the reason for the original ground assault a year earlier was that the available alternative of night bombing was considered implausible).

While this attack did little damage it convinced the Germans to abandon the plant and move remaining stocks and critical components to Germany in 1944. SOE operatives in the area were ordered to prevent any ‘heavy water’ leaving Norway. Eight and half kilos of plastic explosive with two alarm-clock fuses were fixed to the keel of the ferry, ‘Hydro’, which was to carry the railway tankers of the water down Lake Tinnsjo. On 20 February, the ferry and its cargo sank shortly after sailing when in deep water, finally capping the original mission’s objective and halting Germany’s development programme. Unknown to the saboteurs a plan ‘B’ has been set-up by SOE who arranged a second team to attack the shipment at Heroya should the first attempt fail. The disassembled factory was later found in southern Germany during the closing stages of the war by members of Operation Alsos nuclear seizure force.

SOE Norwegian agents involved

The first agent inside the plant

Einar Skinnarland

The Grouse/Swallow Team

Jens Anton Paulsson

Arne Kjelstrup

Knut Haugland

Claus Helberg

The Gunnerside Team

Joachim Rønneberg

Knut Haukelid *

Fredrik Kayser

Kasper Idland

Hans Storhaug

Birger Strømsheim

The Lake Tinnsjo Team

“Bonzo” alias Knut Haukelid *

Rolf Sorlie (local resistance)

Einar Skinnarland (base wireless operator)

Gunnar Syverstad (plant lab assistant)

Kjell Nielsen (plant transport manager)

‘Larsen’ (senior plant engineer)

unknown car procurer and driver

Additional:

Some of these exploits were used as the basis for the US 1965 war film “The Heroes of Telemark” starring Kirk Douglas whose character, Dr. Rolf Pedersen, was supposed to be Joachim Rønneberg.

Norway made a black and white docu-film in 1948 titled "Kampen om tungtvannet" - "The Fight Over Heavy Water", which featured most of the ‘original cast’, so to speak.

Joachim Rønneberg has stated; "'The Fight over Heavy Water' was an honest attempt to describe history. On the other hand 'Heroes of Telemark' had little to do with reality.”

The book “Skis Against the Atom” (ISBN 0-942323-07-6) is a full first-hand account by Knut Haukelid*, one of the raiders who stayed behind.

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