by Neal Bascomb
Then, on June 23, bubbles rose to the surface of the heavy water tank in which their machine was submerged. When they lifted the machine from the tank and inspected it, flames shot through an opening in the outer sphere. They immediately dropped it back into the water. It was clear to them that hydrogen gas was leaking from the vessel. While Heisenberg and Döpel were trying to figure out what to do, the machine’s aluminum shell swelled like a balloon. They ran from the laboratory, escaping just moments before the machine exploded. Streams of flame and red-hot uranium powder shot through the ceiling. A call to the fire brigade followed, then a cascade of barbs about their success in building the first atomic bomb.
The disaster did not negate their experiment’s achievement. Still, Diebner thought their design was inferior to his own because the fast-moving neutrons in Heisenberg’s layered machine could only escape the uranium mass into a moderator in two dimensions. Diebner’s cube design made the neutrons move through heavy water in three dimensions, which increased the probability they would be slowed down to a point where they would split other U-235 atoms rather than be absorbed by U-238—or lost outside the machine.
Near the year’s end, after months of labor, his theories proved correct when his team tested the design. His G-I machine beat the neutron-production rates of machines like those Heisenberg had built. Up until this point Diebner had used cheap, spare materials like uranium oxide and paraffin. Now he asked the Reich Research Council for pure uranium metal and heavy water. With these, he promised he would make fast progress.
On December 2, unbeknownst to Diebner and any other physicist in the German atomic program, the Americans realized their first self-sustaining reactor. In a soot-black squash court underneath the football stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field, Enrico Fermi and his team listened to the rapid clickety-clacks of their neutron counters as their twenty-foot-high stacked pile of graphite bricks, many hollowed out and filled with uranium (metal and uranium oxide), went critical at last. After four and a half minutes, the pile was producing half a watt of energy—increasing every second. Fermi calmly called out to his assistants, “Zip in!” to halt the steady multiply of splitting atoms. They returned several cadmium rods completely into the pile, which soaked up the bombarding neutrons and brought the machine under control again. As one physicist involved in the momentous day said, “Nothing very spectacular had happened. Nothing had moved, and the pile itself had given no sound . . . We had known that we were about to unlock a giant; still, we could not escape an eerie feeling when we knew we had actually done it. We felt as, I presume, everyone feels who has done something that he knows will have very far-reaching consequences which he cannot foresee.” Fermi and his team celebrated with a paper-cup toast of Chianti. Now that the self-sustaining reactor was no longer the stuff of fiction, the United States and its allies forged ahead with even greater fervor toward the creation of an atomic weapon.
German police troops march into Oslo in May 1940.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF NORWAY
Kurt Diebner, first leader of the German atomic bomb program.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, COURTESY AIP EMILIO SEGRÈ VISUAL ARCHIVES
Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize–winning German physicist.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
The dam at Lake Møs.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Professor Leif Tronstad.
NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Jomar Brun, head of the Vemork heavy water plant.
NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Before the war, Knut Haukelid was a bit of a lost soul.
PRIVATE COLLECTION, HAUKELID FAMILY
SS Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Fehlis (left) and Reichskommissar Josef Terboven (center).
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Martin Linge, founder of the Norwegian Independent Company No. 1.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
The members of what became known as the Kompani Linge.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
The Norwegian king, Haakon VII, and Tronstad, in exile in Britain.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Lieutenant Colonel John Wilson, SOE Norwegian branch leader.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Einar Skinnarland.
THE LONGUM COLLECTION/NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Odd Starheim.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Galtesund, captured ship.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Norwegian commandos complete a parachute jump.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Jens-Anton Poulsson, leader of the Grouse mission.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Arne Kjelstrup.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Knut Haugland, Grouse radio operator.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Claus Helberg.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Parachute landing on the Vidda.
PRIVATE COLLECTION, HAUKELID FAMILY
The Vidda.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
A wireless radio set used by the Norwegian resistance.
FREIA BEER / ORKLA INDUSTRIMUSEUM
Halifax airplane towing a Horsa glider.
HULTON ARCHIVE / ROYAL AIR FORCE MUSEUM / GETTY IMAGES
Members of the 261st Field Park Company Royal Engineers from Operation Freshman. Seated: Lieutenant Colonel Mark Henniker (bottom row, fourth from left).
DENIS BRAY
General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst and Reichskommissar Josef Terboven visit Vemork.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Olav Skogen, Rjukan resistance leader.
PRIVATE COLLECTION / NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Møllergata 19, a Gestapo prison.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Reindeer herd in Norway.
ERIC CHRETIEN / GAMMA-RAPHO / GETTY IMAGES
Clockwise from top left: Fredrik Kayser, Kasper Idland, Birger Strømsheim, Joachim Rønneberg (leader), and Hans Storhaug.
NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Knut Haukelid, second in command of Gunnerside.
PRIVATE COLLECTION, HAUKELID FAMILY
Vemork.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
The suspension bridge and gorge at Vemork.
NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Dramatization of the Gunnerside saboteurs.
HERO FILM / RONALD GRANT ARCHIVE / ALAMY
Ruins of the heavy water cells.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Tronstad (seated, center) with his team after the Gunnerside mission.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
The building at Gottow, near Berlin, where Diebner’s team built their G-I and G-III piles using heavy water.
PHOTOGRAPH BY SAMUEL GOUDSMIT, COURTESY AIP EMILIO SEGRÈ VISUAL ARCHIVES, GOUDSMIT COLLECTION
Kurt Diebner’s G-III machine.
AIP EMILIO SEGRÈ VISUAL ARCHIVES, GOUDSMIT COLLECTION
Haukelid and Skinnarland outside Bamsebu.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Owen D. “Cowboy” Roane, flight officer.
COURTESY OF THE 100TH BOMB GROUP, WWW.100THBG.COM
The Bigassbird II and its crew in October 1943.
COURTESY OF THE 100TH BOMB GROUP, WWW.100THBG.COM
The American planes ready an attack on Vemork.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Rjukan after the American raid.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Rolf Sørlie, Rjukan resistance member.
THE LONGUM COLLECTION / NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
Knut Lier-Hansen, Rjukan resistance member.
PRIVATE COLLECTION / NORSK INDUSTRIARBEIDERMUSEUM
The D/F Hydro.
NORGES HJEMMEFRONTMUSEUM
Left to right: Haukelid, Poulsson, Rønneberg, Kayser, Kjelstrup, Haugland, Strømsheim, and Storhaug receive official honors for their service.
NORGES HJEMMEF
RONTMUSEUM
Celebration after the war at the hotel owned by the Skinnarlands.
O. H. SKINNARLAND FAMILY PHOTO
The saboteurs’ memorial at Vemork.
JÜRGEN SORGES / AKG-IMAGES
12
Those Louts Won’t Catch Us
* * *
MINUTES BEFORE DAWN on December 3, air-raid sirens blared throughout Rjukan. Residents awakened to find German soldiers marching through their streets. The Gestapo and several hundred Wehrmacht troops had arrived in the night on motorcycles and transport trucks, sealing off the Vestfjord Valley. Brandishing machine guns, they stomped from house to house, building to building. Soldiers stood on street corners and on bridges. Bundled in heavy coats, their breath frosty in the air, they looked none too happy to be there. The Germans ordered all residents to remain inside their homes—or they would be shot.
Throughout the town, the same scene played out over and over again. A hammering on the door. Shouts to open up. Soldiers, sometimes led by Gestapo officers, storming into the house, asking for the names of everyone who lived there, rummaging through rooms, closets, and chests, looking for illegal material—guns, radios, underground newspapers. If the Nazis discovered any contraband, they arrested the occupants and took them away by truck. Often, the soldiers broke furniture, punched holes through walls, and stole whatever food they could find.
Rolf Sørlie, a twenty-six-year-old construction engineer at Vemork, pleaded innocence when they came to his house, using the fluent German he had learned while studying in Leipzig. A short, slight young man with fair hair, Sørlie had been born with a condition that left the muscles of his hands and feet in constant spasm. Surgery had corrected his twisted feet, but not his hands, which were stuck in a half-clench. Nonetheless, he had never let his disability stop him from wandering the Vidda with his friends Poulsson and Helberg.
As soldiers filed into his house, past his younger brother and the housemaid, Sørlie tried to conceal his fear. Not only was he close to the local Milorg leader, Olav Skogen, but there were two radios hidden in his attic. Fortunately, the soldiers gave the house only a cursory search, either out of laziness or a lack of suspicion about this young Norwegian who spoke such nice German. They left without incident.
Down the street, Sørlie’s friend Ditlev Diseth, a sixty-seven-year-old pensioner who had formerly worked for Norsk Hydro and now fixed watches, was not so lucky. Diseth was also a member of Skogen’s Milorg cell, and the Gestapo found a radio and weapons in his house. The Germans hauled him away, along with twenty-one other Rjukan residents, including several members of the Milorg cell. All were to be questioned and, if warranted, brought to Grini for further interrogation.
Hans and Elen Skinnarland threw a little party that day to celebrate their son Olav’s thirty-second birthday. Einar, who was working at the Kalhovd dam, was the only member of the family not present when the Gestapo roared up on their motorcycles. They arrested Torstein, thinking he was the Skinnarland rumored to be involved in resistance work. Nothing was said about Einar, but the family knew the Gestapo would soon mark him for arrest as well.
On December 8, Knut Haukelid arrived at Kingston House with a leg of venison slung over his shoulder. He was not the first Kompani Linge member to bring Tronstad a portion from a luckless animal that had “strayed into protective fire” at STS 26. Over the past year, the two had met a few times over drinks, to talk about building up Norwegian resistance forces. They shared the view that now was the time for ambition, not timidity. Operation Gunnerside, Tronstad knew, was particularly ambitious. Although Haukelid did feel that given his extensive experience, he should be the one leading the mission, not Rønneberg, an order was an order, and he was man enough to swallow his pride if it meant returning to Norway at last.
Tronstad greeted him warmly and thanked him for the meat. Then he turned in his chair and reached down into his safe, taking out a folder stamped TOP SECRET. He showed Haukelid a few of the diagrams and drawings of the Vemork plant. “Heavy water is very dangerous, you know,” he began. “It can be used for one of the dirtiest things man can make, and if the Germans get it, we shall have lost the war and London will be blown to pieces.”
Haukelid was not sure what to think of the possibility of such a weapon, but he made it clear that he was committed to the Gunnerside mission. He had come to London to talk about what happened next. He did not intend to make his way to Sweden; rather, he wanted to follow through with Grouse’s original mission: establishing a base in western Telemark and recruiting guerrilla groups. If Poulsson chose to stay, he could command eastern Telemark. The other Grouse members could be split between the two regions.
Tronstad wasn’t sure. He had helped develop this earlier plan, but things had changed. The Germans had launched an extensive manhunt after Operation Freshman—one could only imagine what they would do if the heavy water plant was actually blown up. “They will do all they can to catch you,” Tronstad said. “We can’t run such a risk as to have our men operating on the Vidda.”
Fearing that his request might be denied, Haukelid grew desperate with emotion. “They won’t find us. We’re used to the mountains. We can live in the wilderness. I won’t come back to England. I shall never come back again however long the war may last.” Finally, he vowed, “Those louts won’t catch us!”
Tronstad agreed to think about it.
Since Haugland informed Home Station that Swallow—the new codename the SOE had given Grouse, for security purposes—was heading up into the mountains after the glider disaster, there had been no further wireless communication. For more than two weeks, Wilson and Tronstad feared that the four had been caught up in the razzia at Rjukan. From what little was reported, the Germans were everywhere in Telemark, searching villages and setting up roadblocks. Terboven and Falkenhorst had made a great display of checking on Vemork’s defenses, and a state of emergency that further limited travel had been declared. It was clear the Germans had learned the target of the glider operation, intelligence no doubt extracted from the captured Royal Engineers.
On December 9, station operators at Grendon Hall received communications from the Swallow team at last. “Our working conditions difficult,” the first message began. Then came details of ski patrols searching around Lake Møs and the setting up of a Gestapo D/F station near the dam to locate any wireless radios operating in the area. A second message reported Torstein Skinnarland’s arrest. The Home Station boss instructed his operators that any traffic from Swallow was of the “highest possible priority,” to be delivered to Tronstad and Wilson in London immediately.
A few minutes before 10:00 a.m. on December 10, the telephone rang in Olav Skogen’s office at a Norsk Hydro factory in Rjukan. It was Gunnar Syverstad, calling from Vemork: “Four Gestapo are on their way to Kalhovd.” Skogen knew what this meant: the Germans, who had been unraveling the resistance networks throughout the area over the past week, were finally closing in on Einar Skinnarland. Skogen immediately called the Norsk Hydro office in Kalhovd. He was told that Skinnarland had left the day before to visit his parents at Lake Møs. Skogen asked the switchboard operator to ring the dam-keeper’s house, but was told that this was not possible; the Germans had suspended that line. Skogen feared the Gestapo would soon be on their way to the Skinnarland home, if they were not already. In the factory, Skogen tracked down Øystein Jahren, his main courier and a relative of the Skinnarland family, and asked him to take a bus up to Lake Møs to warn Einar. If anyone asked him why he was there, he was to say that he was buying some fish for a special dinner.
Jahren hurried from the factory and, with only seconds to spare, caught a bus at the depot. When he arrived at Lake Møs, there were no Germans in sight. He knocked urgently on the door of the Skinnarland house. Elen answered. Jahren told her that the Gestapo was on its way for Einar. He was not at home, she said, but she would warn him. His duty done, Jahren left, eager to be gone before the Germans came.
The bus taking him back to
town had traveled only a few hundred yards when it was stopped by German soldiers. Several Gestapo officers, who had been surveiling the Skinnarland home, boarded the bus and arrested Jahren.
At that same moment, Einar Skinnarland was skiing up into the hills behind his family home. Despite his mother’s words to the contrary, he had indeed been at home when Jahren called, and had fled out the back door. Speeding through the woods, he headed for a remote cabin known as High Heaven. It was owned by his brother-in-law. Unless the Germans were skilled cross-country skiers and trackers—and very lucky—they would never find him there.
