Posted on 03/02/2021 6:58:49 PM PST by BeauBo
After handing them their suicide capsules, Norwegian Royal Army Colonel Leif Tronstad informed his soldiers, “I cannot tell you why this mission is so important, but if you succeed, it will live in Norway’s memory for a hundred years.”
These commandos did know, however, that an earlier attempt at the same mission by British soldiers had been a complete failure. Two gliders transporting the men had both crashed while en route to their target. The survivors were quickly captured by German soldiers, tortured, and executed. If similarly captured, these Norwegians could expect the same fate as their British counterparts, hence the suicide pills.
Feb. 28 marks the anniversary of Operation Gunnerside, and though it hasn’t yet been 100 years, the memory of this successful Norwegian mission remains strong both within Norway and beyond. Memorialized in movies, books and TV mini-series, the winter sabotage of the Vemork chemical plant in Telemark County of Nazi-occupied Norway was one of the most dramatic and important military missions of World War II. It put the German nuclear scientists months behind and allowed the United States to overtake the Germans in the quest to produce the first atomic bomb...
The Manhattan Project – the American program to produce an atomic bomb – was actually undertaken in reaction to Allied suspicions that the Germans were actively pursuing such a weapon. Yet the fighting in Europe ended before either side had a working atomic bomb...
Had the Germans developed their own bomb just a few months earlier, the outcome of the war in Europe might have been completely different. The months of setback caused by the Norwegians’ sabotage of the Vemork chemical plant may very well have prevented a German victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at taskandpurpose.com ...
The rest of the story is that the Nazis where trying to take what was left of the heavy water back to Germany and the locals were able to sink the ferry boat carrying the casks. Unfortunately they had to sacrifices innocent Norwegian lives to do so.
Nazi Germany was never close to developing a nuclear weapon. The purpose of the heavy water plant was to provide a moderator for a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium. Had the plant not been molested, Germany would still fall far short of the amount of heavy water needed for one reactor. The US used two graphite moderated reactors to produce plutonium for Trinity and Fat Man. We knew that enough heavy water couldn’t be produced in time. The Germans didn’t think graphite would work. They also never enriched uranium, so a Little Boy type bomb was out of the question.
my wife and i just finished an biography/history of just this story.
it’s amazing how the Norwegian resistance were able to pull it off (with inside help) and then just ski away.
these guys were brave, determined and physically tough. a very encouraging read in these times of what a determined resistance can accomplish against overwhelming odds.
We learned years later - long after his death - that my uncle was the leader of this group. He married my mother’s sister - their father was also born in Norway. He was the only resident of Miami, Flordia, who spoke Norwegan, so he was used by the government as the official translater for any problems with Norwegan speaking sailers. This young man needed a transaltor, and ended up staying in my grandfathers upstairs appartment - eventually wedding my mother’s sister. Many years later one of his daughters visited Norway on what happened to be the 50 anniversery of this raid, and found his picture all over the papers. So the secret was out. You just never know . . .
(Mission “Nordlys”, totally disrespects the sacrifices by the team that actually did the real life mission.)
That's a shame, since modern multiplayer war-games *usually* strive for authenticity. Unlike, say, having the Nazis hide a shipment of heavy water on the grounds of Stalag 13, and turn the entire topic into yet another way to make Colonel Klink look like a buffoon (Yes, Hogan's Heroes did have such an episode).
My dad had a cousin living in Norway when the Nazi’s came. He would have been an older teen. The only story he told was how he hid under a pile of potatoes in the cellar when they searched the house.
Very similar to the boy in the true story “Snow Treasure” where they took the town’s gold by sled (road by kids) right past the Nazi soldiers. (In the story the boy hid in the pile of coal iirc).
Anyway - a a child I always liked to think that was my relative. And who knows what other stuff he did while in the Resistance.
My dad asked him what he did during the Resistance. In a whisper (in his own home) he said “No one knows - not even my wife. There are still Nazi’s you know.” That conversation would have been in the late 70’s.
He was a very wealthy person too.
“They retrieved the heavy water containers just a few years ago from the fjord.”
I didn’t read the entire article. I seem to recall the Resistance sank the boat they were on. Was that part of this raid?? I’m thinking it was a different event.
WOW! I hope this is written down for your family for generations to come!
EA/Dice initially marketed the game as “realistic” and “most authentic depiction of wwii ever”.
Theeeeeeen they started with the transgender lesbian cyborg nazis of color, wish I was joking but that is pretty accurate with their customization choices, and then they decided they were going to do “untold stories of wwii”.
Which really meant they were going to completely fabricate stories.
Like: inject racial strife in the French army between the black french soldiers and the white french soldiers abd insert a literal “we was kangs” line at the end of the mission.
And who had the most influence in that abortion of a game?
Anita Sarkeesian of “feminist frequency” who scammed people out of money to “pay” for a discord server when you can set up one for free...
She’s also responsible in part for the trash fire that is The Last of Us part 2 and the weird decisions on direction in Uncharted 4.
As for EA/Dice, they scrubbed most of their “most authentic” and “realistic” claims from the internet.
The announcement stream for battlefield 5 used to still have their “most authentic depiction of ww2” claim unless they finally scrubbed that.
Who was your uncle?
That’s what I thought.
I watched that a few months ago. Very good film.
Amazing. Thanks for sharing that.
Sorry, don't see the connection between Iceland and the Dolomites/sleds. Are you saying that, after you went skiing in the Dolomites (northern Italy), and pulled some damn sled, you are unable to imagine doing what your uncle did?
Regards,
I am glad to hear that they were remembered, and honored in Norway, 50 years later.
They have my respect today.
God bless them.
+ True.
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We would have killed them even worse ...
Unfortunately, this author has never read the “Farmington Notes”. Farmington was where the German nuclear scientists were kept after the war and spied on by the allies. The scientists were stunned by the bomb dropped in Japan and were besides themselves for not knowing the weapon could be built. They did not have a clue that it could be done!
Heavy Water Wars — a good mini series released a few years ago.
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