The Vemork hydroelectric plant, site of ammonia production with a militarily important byproduct, heavy water.

The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was a series of actions taken by Norwegian saboteurs during World War II to prevent the German nuclear energy project from acquiring heavy water which could be used to produce nuclear weapons. King Haakon VII King Haakon VII of Norway, Christian Frederik Carl Georg Valdemar Axel (August 3, 1872 - September 21, 1957) was the first King of Norway after the dissolution of the personal union with Sweden in 1905. ... Campaign poster of Johan Nygaardsvold Johan Nygaardsvold (September 6, 1879 - March 13, 1952) was a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party. ... Carl Joachim Hambro (usually C.J. Hambro) (January 5, 1885 – 15 December 1964) was a leading politician from the Norwegian Conservative Party. ... Carl Gustav Fleischer (1883-1942) was a Norwegian general and the first allied general(actually not allied, as the allies and Norway never had any official cooperation, in writing) to win a major victory against the Germans in World War II. In 1940, as commander of the Norwegian 6th division... Otto Ruge (January 9, 1882 - 1961) was a Norwegian general. ... Max Manus was a famous Norwegian World War II resistance fighter. ... Jens Christian Hauge (born 1915) was the leader of the secret military organisation Milorg in WWII occupied Norway. ... Gunnar Sønsteby (born 11 January 1918) is known as a Norwegian resistance fighter during World War II. Known also as Kjakan and , he participated in the resistance effort from 1940. ... Vidkun Quisling Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling, (July 18, 1887 – October 24, 1945) was a Norwegian officer and fascist politician. ... Jonas Lie (1899-1945) was a Norwegian councillor of state in the NS government of Vidkun Quisling in 1940, then acting councillor of state 1940-1941, and minister between 1941 and 1945. ... Born May 14, 1915 in Levanger, Norway Died Executed on February 1, 1947 by shooting. ... Josef Terboven Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven (May 23, 1898 - May 8, 1945) was a Nazi leader most known for his brutal leadership during the Nazi occupation of Norway. ... Wilhelm Rediess (October 10, 1900 – May 8, 1945) was the German chief of secret police (General der Polizei) during the German occupation of Norway in the Second World War. ... Milorg was a secret military organization under World War II in Norway. ... Xu can be a pinyin transliteration of one of several Chinese surnames: 徐 (pinyin Xú, also spelled Hsu or Tsui or Eu) 許 (traditional) or 许 (simplified), (pinyin Xǔ, also spelled Hui or Hii) In this context it is pronounced somewhat like Shoo or simply Shh. ... Norwegian Independent Company 1 (NOR.I.C.1, also Norisen) was a SOE group formed in March of 1941 for the purpose of perfoming commando raids in occupied Norway. ... The Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission (Nortraship) was established in London in April 1940 to administrate the Norwegian merchant fleet outside German controlled areas. ... Nasjonal Samling (Norwegian for National Gathering or National Unification) was a fascist party in Norway before and during World War II, founded on May 17, 1933 by Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort. ... The Vemork hydroelectric plant near Rjukan in the Telemark region. ... The Vemork hydroelectric plant near Rjukan in the Telemark region. ... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom France Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Charles de Gaulle Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian... The German experimental nuclear pile at Haigerloch The German nuclear energy project was an endeavor by scientists during World War II in Nazi Germany to develop nuclear energy and an atomic bomb for practical use. ... Heavy water is dideuterium oxide, or D2O or 2H2O. It is chemically the same as normal water, H2O, but the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the proton found in the nucleus of any hydrogen atom. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 kilometers (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ...

Between 1942 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 "Freshman", "Grouse" and "Gunnerside" — finally managed to knock the plant out of production in early 1943, basically ending the German research. Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction. ... Norwegian resistance to the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945 took several forms: Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled Norwegian government, and by implication the lack of legitimacy of the Quisling regime and Terboven administration The initial defense in Southern Norway, which was largely disorganized, but... Look up ally in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Boeing B-52 strategic bomber taking off A strategic bomber is a large aircraft designed to drop large amounts of ordnance on a distant target for the purposes of debilitating an enemys capacity to wage war. ...

The raid was later dubbed by the British SOE as the most successful act of sabotage in all of World War II. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), sometimes referred to as the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organization initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ...

Technical background

When Nazi Germany investigated the possibility of building an atomic bomb, a range of potential paths forward became clear. Details of how the decision to go down the heavy water route was made are likely to remain somewhat obscure but, although unsuccessful, it was based on what was later demonstrated to be a technically viable approach: Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ...

• Plutonium-239 (Pu²³⁹) makes an effective weapons material.
• Heavy water has been demonstrated as an effective moderator for Pu²³⁹ production.
• Heavy water can be effectively produced by electrolysis.

General Name, Symbol, Number plutonium, Pu, 94 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery white Atomic mass (244) g/mol Electron configuration [Rn] 5f6 7s2 Electrons per shell 2, 8, 18, 32, 24, 8, 2 Physical properties Phase solid Density (near r. ... In nuclear engineering, a neutron moderator is a medium which reduces the velocity of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction. ... It has been suggested that Electrolytic process be merged into this article or section. ...

Approaches to developing a weapon

In nuclear weapon development, the main problem is securing sufficient "weapons grade" material, in particular the fissile isotopes of either uranium-235 (U²³⁵) or Pu²³⁹. In order to produce weapons grade uranium, one may elect to extract uranium from natural ore and enrich it. Alternately one can "breed" plutonium in a nuclear reactor using unenriched uranium as a fuel and then chemically separate the Pu²³⁹ produced. Unlike the Allies, who chose to pursue both the enrichment of uranium and production of plutonium in reactors, German scientists elected to focus on plutonium production, as the industrial complex required to make weapons this way was less expensive. Isotopes are any of the several different forms of an element each having different atomic mass. ... General Name, Symbol, Number uranium, U, 92 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery gray metallic; corrodes to a spalling black oxide coat in air Atomic mass 238. ... These pie-graphs showing the relative proportions of uranium-238 (blue) and uranium-235 (red) at different levels of enrichment. ... Core of a small nuclear reactor used for research. ...

Plutonium production

Although the most common isotope of uranium, uranium-238 (U²³⁸), is useless as fissile material for an atomic bomb, U²³⁸ can be used to produce Pu²³⁹. The fission of U²³⁵ produces neutrons, some of which will be absorbed by U²³⁸ creating U²³⁹. After a few days the U²³⁹ will decay, turning into weapons-usable Pu²³⁹. The Germans did not examine ultrapure graphite, but instead settled on the heavy-water-based reactor design^[1]. A heavy water moderated nuclear reactor could be used to do nuclear fission research, and, ultimately, to breed plutonium from which a bomb could be constructed. Heavy water is dideuterium oxide, or D2O or 2H2O. It is chemically the same as normal water, H2O, but the hydrogen atoms are of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the proton found in the nucleus of any hydrogen atom. ... General Name, Symbol, Number plutonium, Pu, 94 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery white Atomic mass (244) g/mol Electron configuration [Rn] 5f6 7s2 Electrons per shell 2, 8, 18, 32, 24, 8, 2 Physical properties Phase solid Density (near r. ...

Heavy water production

Heavy-water production is a byproduct of ammonia fertilizer production. Hydrogen was, at the time, mainly produced by electrolysis of water.^[2] The Haber Process is then used, reacting the hydrogen with nitrogen from air to produce ammonia. At the time, Europe's major supply of ammonia came from the Norwegian Vemork hydroelectric plant, run by Norsk Hydro, near Rjukan in the Telemark region. Heavy water is a loose term which usually refers to deuterium oxide, D2O or 2H2O. Its physical and chemical properties are somewhat similar to those of water, H2O. The hydrogen atoms are of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the proton found... Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3. ... It has been suggested that Electrolytic process be merged into this article or section. ... The Haber Process (also known as Haber–Bosch process and Fritz Haber Process) is the reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia. ... The Vemork hydroelectric plant, site of the heavy water production Vemork, a small community in Norway, close to the city Rjukan and within the Tinn municipality, in the county of Telemark. ... Norsk Hydro ASA is a Norwegian oil and energy and integrated aluminium company, headquartered in Oslo. ... Map showing the position of Rjukan between lakes Møsvatn (West, upstream) and Tinnsjø (East) Rjukan is the centre of Tinn municipality in Telemark, Norway. ... Telemark is a county in Norway, bordering Vestfold, Buskerud, Hordaland, Rogaland and Aust-Agder. ...

The technology is straightforward. Heavy water (D₂O) is separated from regular water by electrolysis because the difference in mass between the two hydrogen isotopes translates into a slight difference in the speed at which the reaction proceeds. To produce pure heavy water by electrolysis requires a large cascade of electrolysis chambers, and consumes large amounts of power. Since the production of hydrogen relied on electrolysis at Vemork, heavy water was a routine byproduct.

Hans Suess was a German advisor to the production of heavy water. Suess had assessed the Rjukan plant as being incapable of producing militarily useful quantities of heavy water in less than five years at its then current capacity. Hans Eduard Suess (December 16, 1909 in Vienna - September 20, 1993) was an Austrian physical chemist and nuclear physicist. ...

Operations Freshman and Grouse

Map showing Rjukan between lakes Møsvatn (West, upstream) and Tinnsjø (East)

Destruction of the plant was mounted by the Combined Operations command in November 1942. The plan consisted of two operations: the first would drop a number of Norwegian locals into the area as an advance force, and once in place a party of British engineers would be landed by glider to attack the plant itself. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1043x479, 228 KB) Map of Rjukan and lakes Møsvatnet, Tinnsjå, and Mårvatn. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1043x479, 228 KB) Map of Rjukan and lakes Møsvatnet, Tinnsjå, and Mårvatn. ... Combined Operations was a department of the British War Office set up during World War II to harass the Germans on the European continent by means of raids carried out by use of combined naval and army forces. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... Gliders or Sailplanes are heavier-than-air aircraft primarily intended for unpowered flight. ...

On 19 October 1942, a four man team of Special Operations Executive (SOE) trained Norwegian commandos parachuted into Norway. From their drop point in the wilderness they had to ski a long distance to the plant, so considerable time was given to complete this part of the mission, known as Operation Grouse. This plan, unlike those which did not succeed before, included the team studying and memorising blueprints. October 19 is the 292nd day of the year (293rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... The Special Operations Executive (SOE), sometimes referred to as the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organization initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ... Norwegian resistance to the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945 took several forms: Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled Norwegian government, and by implication the lack of legitimacy of the Quisling regime and Terboven administration The initial defense in Southern Norway, which was largely disorganized, but...

Once the Norwegian Grouse team managed to make contact with the British, the British were suspicious, as they had not heard from the SOE team for a long time: they had been dropped at the wrong place, and had gone off course from there several times. The secret question took the form of: "What did you see in the early morning of (a day)?" The Grouse team replied: "Three pink elephants." The British were ecstatic at the success of Norwegian team's injection, and the next phase of operations commenced.

On 19 November 1942, Operation Freshman followed with the gliderborne landing on frozen lake Møsvatn near the plant. The two Airspeed Horsa gliders, towed by Handley Page Halifax bombers, each carrying two glider pilots and fifteen Royal Engineers of the 9th Field Company, 1st British Airborne Division, took off from RAF Skitten near Wick in Caithness. The towing of gliders had always been a hazardous profession, but these circumstances were made worse by the long flying distance to Norway and poor weather conditions which heavily restricted visibility. One of the Halifax tugs crashed into a mountain, killing all seven aboard; its glider was able to cast off, and it crashed nearby, resulting in several casualties. The other Halifax successfully delivered its charge to the area of the landing zone, but although the conditions had substantially improved it was impossible to locate the landing zone itself due to the failure of the link between the Eureka (ground) and Rebecca (aircraft) beacons. After much endeavour and with fuel running low, the Halifax pilot decided to abort the operation and return to base. However, shortly afterwards, the tug and glider combination encountered heavy cloud and in the resulting turbulence the tow rope broke. The glider made a crash landing, not far from where the other glider had come down, similarly inflicting several deaths and injuries. The Norwegians were unable to reach the crash sites in time, and the survivors quickly came into the hands of the Gestapo, who tortured them during interrogation (not sparing the badly injured) and later had them executed under Hitler's Commando Order. November 19 is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1942 calendar). ... Møsvatn (or Møsvann) is twelfth largest lake in Norway with a surface area of 78. ... Airspeed Horsa The Airspeed AS.51 Horsa was a World War II troop-carrying glider built by the British company Airspeed Ltd and subcontractors and used for air assault by British and Allied armed forces. ... The Handley Page Halifax was one of the British front-line, four-engine heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. ... The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ... The British 1st Airborne Division was a military unit that fought in World War II. It suffered terrible casualties, especially in Operation Market Garden. ... Location within the British Isles Noted point: Designer musician Douglas More hails from Wick! Wick (Inbhir Uige in Gaelic) is an estuary town in Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland, on the main highway (the A99-A9 road) linking John O Groats with southern Britain. ... Caithness (Gallaibh in Gaelic)[1] is a committee area of Highland Council, Scotland; a lieutenancy area; and a registration county, Caithness was formerly a district within the Highland region from 1975 to 1996 and a local government county with its own county council from 1890 to 1975. ... The Deaths Head emblem similar to skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The   (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei; Secret State Police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... The Commando Order was a top secret order issued by Adolf Hitler on October 18, 1942 stating that all commandos captured in Europe and Africa (but excluding sailors), should be immediately executed even if they attempted to surrender. ...

The Norwegian Grouse team thereafter had a long arduous wait in their mountain hideaway, subsisting on moss and lichen during the winter until, just before Christmas, a reindeer was caught. Subclasses Sphagnidae Andreaeidae Tetraphidae Polytrichidae Archidiidae Buxbaumiidae Bryidae Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1-10 cm tall, occasionally more. ... Lichenes from Ernst Haeckels Artforms of Nature, 1904 Crustose and foliose lichens on a wall A foliose lichen on basalt. ... Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday that marks the traditional birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth. ... Binomial name Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758) The reindeer, known as caribou when wild in North America, is an Arctic and Subarctic-dwelling deer (Rangifer tarandus). ...

A 1948 Norwegian movie based on this raid, called Kampen om tungtvannet, features performances by at least four of the original participants in the raid. [1] Year 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ...

Operation Gunnerside

British command was aware of the "success" of the Grouse team, and decided to build another operation in concert with them. By this time the original Grouse team were being referred to as Swallow. On the night of 16th February 1943, in Operation Gunnerside (named after a village and the moor where the Hambro Family and Sir Charles Hambro, the head of SOE, used to shoot grouse), an additional six Norwegian commandos were dropped into Norway by a Halifax bomber of 138 Squadron from RAF Tempsford. They too were successful in landing, and found the Swallow team after a few days of searching. The combined team then made final preparations for their assault on the night of 27 February. The Handley Page Halifax was one of the British front-line, four-engine heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. ... RAF Tempsford was perhaps the most secret RAF airfield in World War II. It was home to the Special Duties Squadrons, 138, which dropped Special Operations Executive agents and their supplies into occupied Europe, and 161, which specialised in personnel delivery and retrieval by landing in occupied Europe. ... February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

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 Army Air Corps, who were exercising in the area. The container was brought back to England and is now on display at the Airborne Museum at Aldershot.)

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 slackened somewhat over the winter months. However, the single 75-metre bridge spanning the deep ravine, 200 metres above the River Maan, was well guarded.

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 leveled, they followed a single railway track straight into the plant 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.

The saboteurs then placed explosive charges on the heavy water electrolysis chambers, and attached a fuse allowing sufficient time for their escape. Other than the night watchman, whom they had to "silence", no one interfered with their mission, nor intercepted their escape. A British machine gun was purposely left behind to indicate that this was the work of British forces and not of local resistance, in order to prevent reprisals. The explosive charges detonated, destroying the electrolysis chambers and releasing the stocks of heavy water. A machine gun is a fully-automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. ...

All ten made good their escape whereafter six skied 400 kilometres to Sweden and four remained in Norway for further work with the resistance. The plant was restored by April and SOE concluded that a repeat raid would be extremely difficult, as German security was thereafter very considerable. In November the plant was attacked by a massed daylight bombing raid of 143 B-17 bombers dropping 711 bombs, of which at least 600 missed the plant. The damage, however, was quite extensive; the reason for the original ground assault a year earlier was that the available alternative of night bombing was considered unrealistic at that time. Ski warfare, the use of ski-equipped troops in war, is first recorded by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in the 13th century. ... The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed for the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC). ...

Aftermath

While this attack did little damage to the plant, it did stop production for a short period. Almost as soon as production re-started, the USAAF started a series of raids on it. The Germans were convinced that this would eventually result in some "hits", and they decided to abandon the plant and move remaining stocks and critical components to Germany in 1944. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was a part of the U.S. Army during World War II. The direct precursor to the U.S. Air Force, the USAAF formally existed between 1941 and 1947. ... Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ...

Knut Haukelid discovered their plan and decided to sabotage a ferry carrying the heavy water across lake Tinnsjø. He recognised a crew member and talked to him, taking this advantage to slip into the bottom of the ship and plant the bomb, after which he escaped. Eight and half kilograms of plastic explosive with two alarm-clock fuses were fixed to the keel of the ferry, D/F Hydro, which was to carry the railway tankers of the water. On 20 February 1944, shortly after setting off around midnight, the ferry and its cargo sank in deep water, finally capping the original mission's objective and halting Germany's atomic bomb development programme. A number of Norwegian civilians were killed as the ferry sank. Witnesses reported seeing barrels floating after the sinking, leading to speculation that they did not really contain heavy water. But an examination of records after the war showed that some barrels were only half full, and therefore would have floated. A few of these may have been salvaged and transported to Germany. Around 2005, an expedition retrieved a barrel (numbered "26") from the bottom of the lake. Its concentration of heavy water matched the records, and confirmed that the shipment was not a decoy. Knut Haukelid (Brooklyn, New York May 17, 1911 - Oslo, Norway March 8, 1994) The twin-brother of actress Sigrid Gurie, Knut, graduated from the Norwegian Military Academy in 1948. ... TinnsjÃ¥ TinnsjÃ¥ (Tinnsjø, Tinnsjøen) is a lake that is the 3rd deepest, 6th largest by volume and 20th largest in surface area in Norway. ... D/F Hydro was a Norwegian steam powered railway ferry that operated on Tinnsjø in Telemark. ... February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ...

Unknown to the saboteurs, a "Plan B" had been set up by the SOE, who arranged a second team to attack the shipment at Herøya 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. Norsk Hydro industry park on Hærøya Herøya is a peninsula in Porsgrunn, Norway that features a large industrial park. ... Project ALSOS, also called Operation Alsos, was an effort at the end of World War II by the Allies (principally Great Britain and the United States), branched off from the Manhattan Project, to investigate the German nuclear energy project, seize German nuclear resources, materials and personnel to further American research...

With the benefit of hindsight, the consensus on the German wartime nuclear program is that it was a long way from producing a bomb, even without the sabotage. Nevertheless, the feats of the Norwegian saboteurs have made them national heroes.

SOE Norwegian agents involved

The first agent inside the plant

Einar Skinnarland

The Grouse/Swallow Team

Jens Anton Poulsson

Arne Kjelstrup

Knut Haugland

Claus Helberg

The Gunnerside Team

Joachim Rønneberg

Knut Haukelid

Fredrik Kayser

Kasper Idland

Hans Storhaug

Birger Strømsheim

(Leif Tronstad) (planner, in the United Kingdom)

The Lake Tinnsjø Team

Knut Haukelid, alias "Bonzo"

Rolf Sørlie (local resistance)

Einar Skinnarland (base wireless operator)

Gunnar Syverstad (plant lab assistant)

Kjell Nielsen (plant transport manager)

(“Larsen”) (senior plant engineer)

(NN) (car procurer and driver)

Knut Haugland (b. ... Joachim Rønneberg (born in Ålesund August 30, 1919), is a Norwegian officer. ... Knut Haukelid (Brooklyn, New York May 17, 1911 - Oslo, Norway March 8, 1994) The twin-brother of actress Sigrid Gurie, Knut, graduated from the Norwegian Military Academy in 1948. ... Knut Haukelid (Brooklyn, New York May 17, 1911 - Oslo, Norway March 8, 1994) The twin-brother of actress Sigrid Gurie, Knut, graduated from the Norwegian Military Academy in 1948. ...

Books, films, radio and television programmes

• A French/Norwegian black and white docu-film from 1948 titled La Bataille de l'eau lourde / Kampen om tungtvannet (trans. "The Fight Over the Heavy Water"), featured some of the original saboteurs.
• Some of these exploits were used as the basis for the US 1965 war movie The Heroes of Telemark starring Kirk Douglas whose character, Dr. Rolf Pedersen, was supposed to be Joachim Rønneberg. Rønneberg himself has stated, "The Fight over the Heavy Water was an honest attempt to describe history. The Heroes of Telemark, on the other hand, had little to do with reality."
• 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 name is an obvious pun on above film and its inaccuracy.
• 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.
• The book Assault In Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program by Thomas Gallagher, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975 (ISBN 0-15-109582-5) / The Lyons Press, 2002 (ISBN 1-58574-750-5) focuses on the part played by the Norwegian commandos.
• The book Operation Freshman: The Rjukan Heavy Water Raid, 1942 by Richard Wiggan, published by W. Kimber, 1986 (ISBN 0-7183-0571-X) focuses on the ill-fated Operation Freshman.
• The book "Blood and Water: Sabotaging Hitler's Bomb" by Dan Kurzman, published by Henry Holt & Company, 1997 (ISBN 0-8050-3206-1) documents all operations against the Vemork plant.
• The book E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (ISBN 0-330-39165-8) has a rather detailed section on the raid.
• The book Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks has a chapter about the raid, from the viewpoint of an SOE cryptographer who helped organize the communications between the SOE and the saboteurs.
• The 2003 BBC Radio 4 programme Telemark Heroes, Julian Pettifer talked to survivors of Operation Gunnerside, Listen Again
• The 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation's The Big Picture: Real Heroes Of Telemark, written and produced by Martin Pailthorpe, executive produced by Dick Colthurst.
• The 2005 PBS documentary Hitler's Sunken Secret.
• The book The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (ISBN 0-684-81378-5) has a detailed section on the raid.

... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... Heroes of Telemark is a 1965 war film based on the story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during World War II. Norwegian resistance fighters sabotage the Nazi German effort to produce heavy water for German atomic research during World War II. Snowy Norwegian locations serve as a backdrop for... Kirk Douglas (born December 9, 1916) is an American actor and film producer known for his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as sons of bitches. He is also father to Hollywood actor and producer Michael Douglas. ... Cover of the Outdoor Survival Handbook by Ray Mears Ray Mears (born 1964) is a British author and TV presenter on the subject of bushcraft and survival techniques. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is one of the largest broadcasting corporations in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of more than £4 billion. ... Knut Haukelid (Brooklyn, New York May 17, 1911 - Oslo, Norway March 8, 1994) The twin-brother of actress Sigrid Gurie, Knut, graduated from the Norwegian Military Academy in 1948. ... Between Silk and Cyanide (British & Australian editions, original cover, 1998. ... Leo Marks at the opening of the Violette Szabo Museum, Wormelow Leopold Samuel Marks (September 24, 1920 - January 15, 2001) was an English cryptographer and scriptwriter. ... Julian Pettifer (born 21 July 1935) is a well-known British television journalist. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... Richard Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American author of fiction and verity, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb in 1986, and most recently, John James Audubon: the Making of an American in 2004. ...

References and notes

1. ^ The heavy water concept was perfectly viable—one needs only consider the heavy water moderated production reactors at Savannah River Site’s R-Reactor, P-Reactor, L-Reactor, K-Reactor, & C-Reactor or Mayak’s production reactors to see compelling proof that heavy water is fully effective for plutonium production if available in sufficient quantities.
2. ^ Today, most large-scale hydrogen production is by steam reforming of natural gas, which is cheaper.

The Savannah River Site is a nuclear materials processing center in the US state of South Carolina, located on land adjacent to the Savannah River near Augusta, Georgia. ... Mayak is the name of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant between the towns of Kasli and Kyshtym (also transliterated Kishtym or Kishtim) 150 km northwest of Chelyabinsk in Russia. ... Steam reforming, or catalytic oxidation, is a method of producing hydrogen from hydrocarbons. ... Natural gas is a gaseous fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane. ...

External links

• NOVA: Hitler's Sunken Secret
• A slide show from a CNN report about the raids
• Vemork Raid
• Operation Freshman
• Norsk Hydro's official site on Rjukan during the war
• Interview with Joachim Rønneberg
• The Assault Glider Trust
• Operation Freshman memorial at RAF Skitten
• Operation Freshman roll of honour, awards and images.