| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| February in history: Operation Gunnerside ends Nazi A-bomb plans |
| 2009-02-13 |
| Feb 28 marks the anniversary of Operation Gunnerside in 1943, which was a commando attack against the Norsk Hydro power plant in Vemork, Norway. Feb. 20 marks the anniversary of the sinking of the Lake Tinn railroad ferry in 1944, containing the last of Vemork's heavy water slated for shipment to Germany for the Nazi atomic bomb project. These two attacks, combined with screwups by Hitler and his brass, prevented the Nazis from developing the atomic bomb. The Nazi atomic bomb project required heavy water as a "moderator, a substance that slows down the neutrons emitted from U-238...Slower neutrons give more collisions and more fission elements. (Haukelid, p. 235)" When Germany conquered Norway, they gained the only plant in Europe to produce heavy water in any quantity; and it was a slow, slow process even at Norsk Hydro. Hitler had been so convinced of his Wehrmacht's invincibility that he told those scientists working on the atomic bomb that, by the time they got the bomb ready, Germany wouldn't need it. As the Nazi war machine bogged down in Russia, Hitler changed his mind and gave the bomb project greater priority; but by then the scientists had lost more than a year of progress. In 1942, the Germans demanded that Norsk Hydro increase its production of heavy water. The Special Operations Executive in London, directing organization for planning and supplying resistance fighters and commandos, decided to destroy the Germans' supply of heavy water. A 35-man British commando force in two gliders, Operation Freshman, crashed in Norway in bad weather. Those surviving the crash were tortured and shot by the Gestapo. On Feb. 28, 1943, Norwegian commandos under the leadership of Jens Poulsson and Knut Haukelid infiltrated the Norsk Hydro plant . They succeeded in blowing up the machinery for creating heavy water, stopping production for two months. An Allied bombardment of the plant did some damage; and Norwegian workers carefully and continually sabotaged production by adding tiny amounts of cod liver oil to the water being processed. The Germans decided to ship the remaining heavy water to Germany. The Germans carefully guarded the railway line--but forgot to post guards on the railroad ferry on Lake Tinn. Haukelid and fellow resistance leader Rolf Sorlie gained access to the ferry and planted a time bomb on the night of Feb 19, 1944. The bomb went off Sunday morning, when the ferry was over the deepest part of the lake. The ferry sank in 5 minutes, dropping the barrels of heavy water 1300 feet to the bottom of the lake. Eleven Norwegian civilians and between 13 and 20 German soldiers were lost in the wreck. Haukelid's comments on why he fought the Nazis are valuable: "(We) felt quite simply that our country and our people were worth fighting for....What counted was not where or how we lived, but that we were Norwegians, and were holding our bit of the front." |
| Posted by:mom |
| #1 Oh man, if that had happened today, CNN would be all over the 11 civilian dead, interviews with the family, "the Nazis weren't going to make a bomb anyway, it's just peaceful nuclear research", and so on. |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-02-13 01:20 |