The Winter Fortress

by Neal Bascomb

  26

  Five Kilos of Fish

  * * *

  ON FEBRUARY 1, 1944, a Milorg courier arrived in Rjukan with the news that Minister President Quisling wanted to mobilize seventy-five thousand Norwegians to fight for the Germans on the Eastern Front. Milorg called for all its members in the area, young and old, to go into hiding in the mountains. Already in the past three months, a spate of Gestapo arrests in Rjukan, Notodden, and Kongsberg had decimated the underground organization. It could not afford to lose more fighters.

  That night, Sørlie, who had just returned from the Hamarens’ farm, met with others in the resistance at a house in town. It was decided: in the morning, they would head to cabins in the mountains, bringing enough food with them to last at least a week. The danger was clear. The Germans would not fail to note the disappearance of some two hundred to three hundred men, many of whom worked for Norsk Hydro. Patrols were sure to be sent out to find them. If it came to a fight, they were armed with only a scattering of guns and homemade grenades filled with glass and nails.

  The orders from Oslo were plain, but there was a chance it was a Nazi trick to draw out the underground cells. Viten asked Sørlie to seek out Skinnarland and obtain confirmation of the order from London. Sørlie was happy to go; he had more information to provide to Skinnarland on Vemork. Some workmen had discovered fat floating in the high-concentration cells—the result of Gunnar Syverstad’s doctoring them with cod-liver oil. Any further such sabotage would pose too great a risk. Further, Sørlie did not yet know when, or how, the drums of heavy water would be moved from the plant, but Syverstad and Kjell Nielsen, the transport manager, whom Sørlie had recruited into the local Rjukan resistance, were going to find out soon.

  The next day, Sørlie returned to the Hamaren farm, arriving late in the afternoon. As before, Jon Hamaren invited him in for a meal, then led Sørlie through the darkness into the hills. The terrain grew steeper and rougher with every passing minute. Eventually they reached a farmhouse. Sørlie thought he had arrived at Skinnarland’s, but he was greeted by Olav Skindalen. Skindalen offered them coffee and, after a short break, they continued into the wilderness.

  At last they arrived at an old hunter’s cabin shrouded in darkness. Hamaren knocked firmly and a light flickered from inside. Skinnarland appeared in the doorway and welcomed Sørlie and Hamaren to Nilsbu. The floor was covered with reindeer pelts; there was a line of rifles on the wall, and a wireless set on the table in the center of the room. Sørlie delivered his report on Milorg and the heavy water. Soon Skinnarland was sending a message to Tronstad and Wilson. Hopefully, they would respond soon.

  Hamaren left them and headed back down the hillside, and Sørlie was soon asleep, exhausted from the journey. When Sørlie awoke the next morning, Skinnarland was shaved and in fresh clothes. “Do you always keep the place this nice?” his visitor asked, admiring the orderly cabin.

  “Yes,” Skinnarland replied. “If it were a pigsty, I’d have gone mad. If you’re careless and disorganized, you lose your ability to see things clearly.” Skinnarland then spoke about the Hamarens and the Skindalens, how essential they had been to his survival. “Through generations,” he said, “these farmers have learned how small people are in the face of the forces of nature. Being helpful, without the thought of betrayal, is necessary when you live in a place like this. It’s in their blood.”

  At last, an answer came in about the mobilization order. No one in London knew of any order from the Oslo Milorg leadership to retreat into the mountains. There must be some mistake; either that or the Germans were trying to draw them out. Tronstad instructed Skinnarland to have the order reversed immediately. A second message stressed how important it was to find out everything about the heavy water shipment.

  Sørlie returned the twenty miles to Rjukan as fast as he could travel.

  Three days later, on Sunday, February 6, Knut Haukelid was returning to Nilsbu from the mountains to the west, furious that a herd of reindeer had escaped him after his rifle failed to fire. As he made his way down toward Lake Møs, he spotted a number of ski tracks in the snow. There were far more than there should have been at that time of year. Being cautious, he returned up the slope and followed a ridgeline until he was close to the Hamaren farm. Jon Hamaren answered the door with, “Did you meet them?

  “We had fifteen men here not long ago,” Hamaren explained. “German soldiers, combing the hills.”

  Haukelid skied away quickly for Nilsbu, keeping a close eye out for Germans. When he reached the cabin, his dark beard was half-frozen from the cold. Inside, Skinnarland was with a stranger, a slight-looking man he introduced as Rolf Sørlie, a construction engineer from Rjukan. He had helped Helberg before the Gunnerside operation.

  Skinnarland dished up a meal and some coffee as the men spoke. Sørlie reported that the Milorg order had been reversed, but not before many in the resistance had taken to the hills. The initial communication had been valid, but the Milorg courier had failed to relay that the evacuation should be undertaken only if the mobilization order was put into effect. The German patrol that Haukelid had so narrowly avoided was likely a response to this flight. As far as Sørlie knew, however, the Germans were of the mind that it was not an organized retreat but rather a rash escape into the mountains by the men of Rjukan who were afraid of being sent to the Eastern Front.

  Haukelid was less concerned about Nazi patrols on the Vidda than he was about Sørlie’s intelligence on the recent activity at Vemork. The Nazis intended to move all the stocks of heavy water, at every level of concentration, within the week. The drums would be shipped from Vemork by train, then ferry. Haukelid and Skinnarland knew they had to do whatever they could to stop it. With limited time and no commando team at the ready, an operation would not be easy. Skinnarland sent a message to Tronstad: “We will probably be able to blow up the transport, but as time is short, I must be told soonest what to do.”

  Sørlie returned to Rjukan to glean more information about the transport. Meanwhile, Haukelid and Skinnarland started collecting explosives and selecting a team of men they knew could help. What they needed more than anything else was the order to proceed.

  After a week of long days at Kingston House followed by long nights in his bedroom listening to the German bombers thundering over London, Leif Tronstad just wanted to spend his Sunday afternoon at rest. Maybe he would catch up on some reading, take a walk in Hampstead Heath, or write a letter to his family. Then he got a telephone call from a member of his staff. It was urgent he come into the office. There, he received the cipher message from Skinnarland, asking for the go-ahead to sabotage the Vemork transport.

  Over the past week, he had sent many questions for Skinnarland to answer: What equipment was to be dismantled? How much heavy water was to be shipped? Of what concentration? Might they be able to contaminate it first? When was the transport planned? Could it be prevented? And if so, how?

  Now Tronstad had all his answers. The time for contamination was past, and any opportunities to tamper with the heavy water had been taken. Transport was imminent and included even the most dilute concentrations. The shipment would weigh many tons and would require roughly forty drums. Immediately Tronstad alerted Colonel Wilson and Eric Welsh. An attack on the shipment needed approval at the highest level.

  In the end, everyone from General Hansteen at the Norwegian high command to the British War Cabinet agreed that a strike should be made. When Welsh brought the news to Michael Perrin and his boss John Anderson, they were dismayed at the amounts of heavy water remaining at Vemork and thought it vital to the war effort to stop the Germans obtaining either the stocks or the equipment required to produce more. The order was given, ultimately by Anderson himself, to intercept the shipment, no matter what it took.

  On February 8 Tronstad drafted a note to be sent by Home Station operators on the next scheduled transmission to Swallow: “We are interested in destroying as much of the heavy water as possible. The demolition or perforation
of the drums, especially drums containing high concentrations is of the greatest importance . . . Leave British effects where the action takes place and if possible use uniforms as before . . . Try to make the action to cause the least harm to the civil populations.”

  In his diary, Tronstad wondered what the outcome would be: “We will do the best we can, but with a heavy heart for the consequences at home. I fear it will result in a lot of suffering, but we have to hope that it will save us from worse things. The guys are outstanding. They are happy to give everything.”

  “Einar, you awake?” Haukelid asked late in the night of February 7. They were still waiting for the green light from London on the attack, and the thought of it kept him from sleeping.

  “I wasn’t until you began bellowing,” Skinnarland replied.

  “You’re as fast as anybody in Norway on the British sets now.”

  Skinnarland grunted.

  “You’ll have to stay in the hills as the radio link-up with London.”

  “Not bloody likely,” Skinnarland said. It was true that he did not have as much commando training as Haukelid, but it was still a sight more than anybody else they would find to help with the job.

  “If we ‘buy it’—as they say so charmingly in England,” Haukelid said, “you’ll have to go down and see that the heavy water never makes it to Germany.”

  “I’ll sleep on it,” Skinnarland said.

  The next morning, they received the critical message from Tronstad to “make the action” against the shipment.

  Sørlie arrived at the cabin again soon after, with detailed information from Nielsen about the transport route. What was more, Syverstad had recruited his boss, the plant’s lead engineer Alf Larsen, into the fold. From what Larsen said, the Gestapo was already aware that the shipment might be targeted. Security for the transport would be high. Syverstad and Larsen would tap the heavy water into the drums as slowly as possible in order to allow more time to prepare for an operation.

  Seated at the table in Nilsbu, Haukelid, Skinnarland, and Sørlie began what they called a “council of war.” From their intelligence, they knew that a train would leave Vemork with roughly forty iron drums onboard. The drums would be labeled “potash lye” but would contain heavy water at various levels of concentration (from 3.5 to 99.5 percent). Taking into account the German security preparations and the inside efforts to delay filling the drums, this train was unlikely to depart before February 16. When it did leave, it would travel down to Rjukan, then on to Mæl at the north west tip of Lake Tinnsjø. Then a ferry would bring the railcars down the length of the long, narrow lake. On the opposite shore, eighteen miles away, another train would haul them the short distance to Notodden, then on to the port of Menstad to meet a ship bound for Germany.

  The three men talked over their options. First they could try to blow up the drums while they were still at Vemork. With all the additional defenses put up after Gunnerside—minefields, steel doors, bricked-out windows, and soldiers at every entrance—and more guards expected soon, it was unlikely the commandos could get into the plant. Next, they could hit the train while it wound its way down the cliffside to Rjukan. There was a shack along the route where Norsk Hydro kept explosives it used for construction. As the train passed, they could use pressure switches on the track to set off a huge detonation that would send the railcars pitching down into the gorge. The heavy water drums were thick, however, and some of them might survive the fall intact. Such an attack would also kill any Germans guarding the transport—deaths that would be avenged on the people of Rjukan.

  Alternatively, they could wait until the railcars were loaded onto the ferry, then sink it. Given the depth of Lake Tinnsjø, it was unlikely that any drums would be recovered. But the ferry also carried civilian passengers, and some of them were sure to drown, along with the Germans guarding the railcars. They could attack the train as it traveled from the far shore toward Notodden, but this carried the same risks as hitting it between Vemork and Rjukan. Or an operation could be staged near Menstad, or at sea, en route to Hamburg, Germany. Both of these last options, however, were far from their home base and involved many unknowns.

  By the end of their war council, they had decided that sinking the ferry was the best way to stop the shipment, despite the potential loss of life. They were also agreed that Skinnarland would stay at Nilsbu to keep up contact with London and as backup in case the operation unraveled. Haukelid and Sørlie would set up in a cabin near Rjukan to organize and carry out the operation.

  The following morning, Sørlie left for town, charged with learning as much as he could about the ferry: its schedules, schematics, and any known security measures. Back at Nilsbu, Skinnarland sent a message seeking approval for an operation against the ferry. He felt oppressed by the thought that their decision would mean the deaths of innocent Norwegians. While they were waiting for an answer, Haukelid headed away to collect the explosives stored at Bamsebu, and Skinnarland went to recruit some local men to haul supplies and perhaps participate in the operation.

  When the three men reconvened the following evening, they had received their permission from Tronstad. “Agree to sinking of ferry . . . If the seacocks are opened, this must be combined with an explosion to indicate a limpet attack from outside . . . The engine must be put out of order so that the ferry cannot be driven further to shallow water . . . The sinking must not fail . . . Good luck.”

  Thanks to Syverstad and Larsen’s efforts to slow down the tapping of the heavy water cells for transport, the ferry would definitely not leave until at least the sixteenth, probably later. Now that they had some time, Haukelid decided to give Sørlie a crash course in commando training. Over two bright, clear days, he taught him how to fire a pistol and a machine gun. Sørlie practiced until it was dark, using snowmen as targets. Haukelid also showed him how to throw grenades and the basics of hand-to-hand combat. “You have to know it all,” he told him whenever he wavered. “You have to be tough.” He would punctuate this by throwing Sørlie into a bank of snow.

  The training helped Haukelid keep his mind off his wife, Bodil, who was in Sweden. Sørlie had brought him a letter from her. Apparently she had been trying to get in touch with him for months, but no one in the Norwegian government or in the British Embassy would help her. Believing he was part of the action in Rjukan, she sent her letter via Milorg. Too much time had passed without contact, she said. The absence was too great, and their wedding had been a rushed affair in the first place. She was seeing another man in Stockholm—and she wanted a divorce.

  The letter was a blow to Haukelid. He never once regretted his decision to fight against the Germans, but his soldier’s life had come at a price. He had faced many dangers. He had starved, he had almost frozen to death, he had nearly shot off his own foot. Many of his friends—some of them close ones—were dead. His own mother had been brought in for questioning by the Gestapo; his father was in their hands and, as far as Haukelid knew, he was still being tortured. And now this.

  When he received the letter, he asked Skinnarland to send a message to London, requesting three weeks of leave after the ferry mission so that he could travel to Stockholm and attempt a reconciliation with Bodil. Even if they agreed, he would still have to survive the operation, a long shot at best.

  During the Gunnerside mission, now almost a year before, Haukelid had been on a team with nine other hardened commandos. They had trained for months and knew almost every detail of their target and its defenses. In this new action against the ferry, he was going in with the brave but inexperienced Sørlie and whatever ragtag collection of men he could assemble. The Germans were on the highest possible alert, and he would probably have to improvise a plan as events developed. There would be only a short window of time to destroy the target while limiting casualties, and if innocent people died he would carry that burden for the rest of his life—if, that is, he himself survived.

  On February 13 Haukelid and Sørlie skied away from Nilsbu into a bi
tter southwest wind. Skinnarland waved them goodbye from the door. He wished he was going with them, but they all knew that he was more valuable as their lifeline to London during the operation—and after, if things went sour.

  Olav Skindalen met them at his farm with two local men: Karl Fehn, who had helped Poulsson and his Swallow team haul batteries and equipment throughout the long winter of 1943, and Aslak Neset, an unmarried farm owner, strong as a mule. Fearing German patrols, the four waited until after midnight to cross Lake Møs and climb up into the Vidda. Their heavy load of supplies included explosives, detonators, and enough food for ten days.

  Sørlie led them through the pitch black. He stared alternately at his compass and at his watch to measure where they were on their route. Four hours later, he ran into the wall of a building and knew they had arrived at their destination: Ditlev Diseth’s cabin by Lake Langesjå. The door was locked, and Haukelid used a hacksaw to break in. An icy sleet was starting to fall. They woke up at noon the next day and looked out at the sun reflecting sharply off newly fallen snow.

  Haukelid believed that the operation required three men: one to be lookout and two to place the timed explosive charges on the ferry. Fehn volunteered to be their third man, and Neset returned to his farm. At dusk, with Sørlie again leading the way, they moved to a hut near the top station of the Krossobanen, nestled in the narrow, heavily forested ravine. It was an ideal hideout from which to move back and forth to Rjukan.