Bascomb - The winter fortress : the epic mission to sabotage Hitlers atomic bomb

Copyright 2016 by Neal Bascomb

All rights reserved

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bascomb, Neal.

Title: The winter fortress : the epic mission to sabotage Hitlers atomic bomb / Neal Bascomb

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by the publisher; resource not viewed.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015048287 (print) | LCN 2015042716 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544368064 (ebook) | ISBN 9780544368057 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: World War, 19391945Commando operationsNorway. | World War, 19391945Underground movementsNorway. | SabotageNorwayHistory20th century. | Atomic bombGermanyHistory. | World War, 19391945GermanyTechnology.

Classification: LCC D 794.5 (print) | LCC D 794.5. B 373 2016 (ebook) | DDC 940.54/86481094828dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048287

v1.0516

Cover design by Albert Tang

Cover photograph: Norsk Hydro ASA photo collection/Norsk Industriarbeidermuseum

All maps Svein Vetle Trae/Fossy; interior maps rendered by Jim McMahon/Scholastic. Map source notes: Knut Haukelid, Knut Lier-Hansen.

To those who brave the struggle

Operation Grouse/Swallow

Jens-Anton Poulsson, leader of Grouse

Knut Haugland, radio operator

Claus Helberg

Arne Kjelstrup

Einar Skinnarland

Operation Gunnerside

Joachim Rnneberg, leader of Gunnerside

Knut Haukelid, second in command

Birger Strmsheim

Fredrik Kayser

Kasper Idland

Hans Storhaug

D/F Hydro Sinking

Alf Larsen, engineer at Vemork

Knut Lier-Hansen, Milorg resistance fighter

Gunnar Syverstad, laboratory assistant at Vemork

Rolf Srlie, construction engineer at Vemork

Kjell Nielsen, transport manager at Vemork

Ditlev Diseth, Norsk Hydro pensioner

Norwegians

Leif Tronstad, scientist and Kompani Linge leader

Jomar Brun, chief engineer at Vemork

Torstein Skinnarland, brother of Einar

Olav Skogen, leader of local Rjukan Milorg

Lillian Syverstad, courier for Einar Skinnarland

Hamaren, Hovden, and Skindalen families, farmers who aided Skinnarland

Allies

Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain

Franklin D. Roosevelt, president of the United States

Eric Welsh, head of the Norwegian branch of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)

John Wilson, Norwegian section chief of British Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Wallace Akers, head of the Directorate of Tube Alloys

Mark Henniker, commanding officer of Operation Freshman

Owen Roane, American Air Force pilot

Nazis and Collaborators in Norway

Josef Terboven, Reichskommissar in Norway

General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, head of German military forces in Norway

Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Fehlis, head of the Gestapo and security forces in Norway

Captain Siegfried Fehmer, Gestapo bloodhound in Oslo

Second Lieutenant Muggenthaler, Fehliss SS official in Rjukan

Vidkun Quisling, leader of the Nasjonal Samling, Norwegian fascist party

German Scientists

Kurt Diebner

Werner Heisenberg

Paul Harteck

Abraham Esau

Walther Gerlach

You have to fight for your freedom and for peace. You have to fight for it every day, to keep it. Its like a glass boat; its easy to break. Its easy to lose.

JOACHIM RNNEBERG , Gunnerside leader

Nazi-occupied Norway, February 27, 1943

In a staggered line, the nine saboteurs cut across the mountain slope. Instinct, more than the dim light of the moon, guided the young men. They threaded through the stands of pine and traversed down the sharp, uneven terrain, much of it pocked with empty hollows and thick drifts of snow. Dressed in white camouflage suits over their British Army uniforms, the men looked like phantoms haunting the woods. They moved as quietly as ghosts, the silence broken only by the swoosh of their skis and the occasional slap of a pole against an unseen branch. The warm, steady wind that blew through the Vestfjord Valley dampered even these sounds. It was the same wind that would eventually, they hoped, blow their tracks away.

A mile into the trek from their base hut, the woods became too dense and steep for them to continue by any means other than on foot. The young Norwegians unfastened their skis and hoisted them to their shoulders. It was still tough going. Carrying rucksacks filled with thirty-five pounds of gear, and armed with submachine guns, grenades, pistols, explosives, and knives, they waded, slid, and clambered their way down through the heavy, wet snow. Under the weight of their equipment they occasionally sank to their waists in the drifts. The darkness, thickening when the low clouds hid the moon, didnt help matters.

Finally the forest cleared. The men came onto the road that ran across the northern side of Vestfjord Valley toward Lake Ms to the west and the town of Rjukan a few miles to the east. Directly south, an eagles swoop over the precipitous Mna River gorge, stood Vemork, their target.

Despite the distance across the gorge and the wind singing in their ears, the commandos could hear the low hum of the hydroelectric plant. The power station and eight-story hydrogen plant in front of it were perched on a ledge overhanging the gorge. From there it was a six-hundred-foot drop to the Mna River, which snaked through the valley below. It was a valley so deep, the sun rarely reached its base.

Had Hitler not invaded Norway, had the Germans not seized control of the plant, Vemork would have been lit up like a beacon. But now, its windows were blacked out to deter nighttime raids by Allied bombers. Three sets of cables stretched across the valley to discourage low-flying air attacks during the day as well.

In dark silhouette, the plant looked an imposing fortress on an icy crag of rock. A single-lane suspension bridge provided the only point of entry for workers and vehicles, and it was closely guarded. Mines were scattered about the surrounding hillsides. Patrols frequently swept the grounds. Searchlights, sirens, machine-gun nests, and a troop barracks were also at the ready.