The Saboteur

by Andrew Gross

  “Norway?” Wilson replied with palpable disappointment. He was forty-five, cool in judgment but quick to act, but a good ten years past many of the officers who held the plum jobs, and this was his last go of it at something important. And Scandinavia was as close to the front lines of the war then as London was to Edinburgh.

  “Be patient, Jack,” Gubbins told him. “You’ll see, the game will come to you.”

  And now it had.

  “So you’ve had a chance to analyze the film?” Lord Brooks, who had the ear of Mountbatten and the prime minister, looked at Gubbins expectantly.

  “We have, sir,” the SOE chief replied. “Major Tronstad, I think you’d be best to describe our response.”

  “Thank you, Major General.” The Norwegian stood up. He took a pointer and nodded to an aide, then went to the projector screen as several photos of the Norsk Hydro factory at Vemork appeared on the screen. “What you’re seeing, gentlemen, is the plant where the deuterium oxide is being produced.”

  The sight of the building itself produced an audible grunt from those in the room who had not seen it before.

  “It looks more like Edinburgh Castle,” Lord Brooks interjected, speaking of the massive seven-story building made of solid concrete, set high above the river valley on a perilous shelf of rock.

  “Yes, you can see how it’s tucked into what is basically an impenetrable gorge,” Tronstad said, “in one of the most treacherous and hard-to-access locations in Europe. The cliffs above it are virtually unscalable. Only a single suspension bridge”—the Norwegian chemist tapped an aerial photo with his pointer—“allows access by car or truck, and it’s guarded day and night, of course. The gorge itself is so deep and precipitous that even in the height of summer the sun never fully reaches the valley floor. In fact, workers at the plant are sent up the mountain by tram just to get their minimum doses of daily sunlight.”

  “Cheery,” Brant Kelch, the scientific adviser, remarked with a snort of sarcasm.

  “My sentiments as well,” Tronstad said. “Though for four years I did have the pleasure of working there. The heavy water electrolysis compressors are located in the basement of the main building. You’ll see that in this next photograph…”

  He nodded to the aide and a new image came on the screen: two rows of nine stainless steel compressors with networks of wires, tubes, hoses, and gauges coming from them, and each with a canister underneath to capture the precious drips of fortified water. “The best access to it would be through the basement. There’s a door on the side of the building. Chief Engineer Brun, who we are secretly in touch with at the plant, says the place is regularly defended by a force of twenty to thirty guards. There are gun towers here”—he pointed again, this time to an aerial photo of the surrounding grounds—“and here, by the bridge. There are hourly inspections inside by the guards. As you can see, the entire facility is surrounded by wire fencing. They have also begun to mine the rear of the plant, around the giant water turbines where access from the valley floor is easiest, and where the Germans imagine any attack would have to originate from. Rappelling down these cliffs”—Tronstad dragged the pointer down the steep cliffs above the plant that led from the vidda—“would be virtually impossible at night, even for the most experienced climbers, forgetting the weapons and loads of explosives that would have to be on the backs of any saboteurs. While the defenses at the plant are not overpowering, they believe—and it’s not unreasonable to feel this way—that the isolation of the location, and indeed Nature herself, is the best defense for the facility.”

  “Can’t we just bomb the place?” Lord Brooks proposed, looking around the table for support. “We have our Halifaxes and Sterlings that can make the round trip. The Yanks now have their new B-17s. I’m told they’ve been gearing up for pinpoint daytime bombing.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not as much of an option as it might first seem,” Major General Gubbins said. “Geographically, the gorge itself is far too narrow for our planes to get in that close. From higher up, the accuracy of such a strike would be highly in doubt—the plant is made of solid concrete and far too well protected by the cliffs. Not to mention the weather, which is a perpetual challenge, and seems to change hourly. And anyway, Major Tronstad here has other objections to such a raid.”

  “Any bombing would be completely haphazard, and the damage to the nearby town of Rjukan would be totally unacceptable. Under such conditions stray bombs would likely strike the plant’s liquid ammonia tanks, endangering the entire community. I can promise, not a single Norwegian would knowingly assist you in this endeavor.”

  “Even at what we’ve established as the cost of not doing so?” Lord Brooks, the Home Office minister, inquired.

  “To Norwegians,” Tronstad said, “you must understand that the mountains and the sea are our nation’s body. But our fellow countrymen are its blood.” He rested his pointer on the stand. “Not a single one, I can say for sure.”

  “All right.” Lord Brooks nodded and turned back to Gubbins. “So do I assume you and your men think you can get someone in?”

  “Commander…” The head of the SOE deferred to Henneker, his chief mission planner and one who Wilson knew played by the book.

  “Not someone,” the ex–Royal Highlander said. “A team. Though it would have to be large enough to overpower the guards, and nimble enough to get out once their work is done. Let us chew it around. We’ll come up with something.”

  “So to be clear, then,” Lord Brooks scanned the faces at the table, “we’re all aligned on the science?” He looked toward Kelch, the professor. “This heavy water … I wouldn’t know it from lemonade myself, but we agree, it’s essential that its production not be allowed to continue.”

  “We’ve run it by General Groves and the Metallurgy Committee in the States, as it’s called there,” Kelch said. “He’s in total agreement. Such a weapon, if it were allowed to progress, would have unimaginable consequences. Destroying the German heavy water stockpiles and their capacity to increase their stocks is the only way to stop its development.”

  “And as far as the War Command is concerned,” Lord Brooks cast a glance around the table, “it’s safe to say the prime minister has come to the same assessment.” He motioned to the screen. “This Chief Engineer Brun, on the inside, he took these photos?”

  “The interior ones.” Tronstad tapped out his pipe. “Yes.”

  “Then he seems to have done us quite a service.”

  “Indeed, he has.” Tronstad nodded appreciatively. “But the most troubling part is what he has passed along in his notes.” He took out a sheet of paper and passed it around. On the top, it read in German: Top Secret. Office of Economic Warfare. Uranverein Project. The key parts were highlighted: On orders from German High Command, June 25, D2O capacity is ordered to be increased from 3,200 to 10,000 pounds annually.

  “Ten thousand pounds…?” Brooks raised his white eyebrows. “I thought three thousand was sufficient.”

  “Which is precisely what’s so troubling,” Tronstad said. “With that amount, it is not a stretch to believe it is conceivable the Germans could be testing such a weapon within a year.”

  Brooks took the paper and read it through himself. “Then it seems we’d better get on it, gentlemen. I’m speaking for the prime minister and the entire War Command when I say the heavy water threat is too severe to let stand. Something must be done about it.” He went from eye to eye around the table. “We’re all agreed?”

  “We are.” Brant Kelch nodded, wiping his spectacles.

  “For me as well,” said Tronstad.

  Henneker and Wilson nodded too.

  “So there we are,” Brooks said to Gubbins. “See that you put your heads to it. And quick.” The Home Office lord from Whitehall stood up, placed his files back in his briefcase, and locked the clasp.

  “Of course, sir.” Gubbins stood up as well, with an eye toward Henneker and Wilson. “We’ll be on it right away.”

  “A
nd Major General…” The man from Whitehall picked up his bowler, tapping it contemplatively against the table’s edge. “Just so we all understand … we require complete and total secrecy on this matter. Not a word comes out about what we’re really after. Not even to the poor men who will ultimately carry it out, God protect their souls.”

  “Of course, sir,” Gubbins said with a look down the table toward Wilson. “That is how we do things here.”

  Jack Wilson knew the war had finally come to him.

  10

  For the next few months, Nordstrum and Jens trained as part of the Linge Company, named for Captain Martin Linge, a member of the Free Norwegian Army who was killed by a German sniper during a commando landing in 1941. They remained far from the action.

  The outfit’s real purpose soon became clear.

  SOE had established sixty special training schools (STSs), each with a different specialty, scattered at secure locations throughout the British Isles. Linge Company’s training was about as far from marching in step or learning to clean one’s weapon as it could be. Company members were taught the arts of close-combat fighting and silent killing; how to set up and operate a radio; the ins and outs of industrial sabotage and explosives; how to recruit an agent and maintain them in the field; how to recognize surveillance; and how to survive in the most hostile conditions, for months, if necessary. The regimen was thorough and never-endingly intensive. Nordstrum’s company trained and trained and then trained some more, until they were in the topmost physical condition they could possibly be.

  Many of the men were fellow resistance fighters Nordstrum had fought side by side with back in Norway. Soldiers who had made it to England against considerable odds to continue the fight were surely men of courage and determined spirit, but after being put through the rigorous SOE training programs they emerged soldiers of the highest caliber. All they awaited was the reason and opportunity to be sent back into the field.

  The Norwegian section of SOE was known as STS 26. It was based at Druminoul and Glenmore, shooting lodges in the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands, the most approximate terrain in the UK to their Norwegian homeland. The unit was under the direction of Colonel Jack Wilson. These lodges were so secluded that often the surrounding townspeople had no idea what took place in them. At Druminoul, near a loch teeming with trout and salmon and woods that were abundant with pheasant and deer, the men felt right at home, supplementing their rations, as when growing up, with fish and game caught that very day.

  Jens was still there, alongside some of the most capable “hill men” Nordstrum had ever met. But early on, Einar had been removed from the group. Word was he was being given different training at another location, a shortened version of the same skills. But after a couple of weeks, when Nordstrum inquired about his friend, the colonel only told him he was gone.

  “Gone…?”

  “He’s back in Norway. I’m afraid his ‘vacation’ has ended,” Wilson said with a wry smile. He told Nordstrum his friend had been secretly dropped by parachute onto the Hardanger vidda the week before and was now back in Vigne with his wife and kids and a secret radio.

  “Dropped in? By parachute?” Nordstrum said with surprise. “Einar can barely jump off a fence without closing his eyes.”

  “Well, he’s got a bit more expertise in it now. He’s an invaluable asset there for us. The company he was on leave from never even had the slightest idea he was gone.”

  Nordstrum felt his blood burn with envy. Einar had taken a risk to be here, just as they all had. But he did have a family and a well-placed job that could be of use to them down the line. Still, to be back in action! In Norway. Striking a blow against the enemy. That was the dream of all of them there.

  “Don’t worry, son.” Wilson gave Nordstrum an amiable slap on the back. “Your chance will come soon enough.”

  But “soon enough” didn’t come to be as quickly as Nordstrum or anyone hoped. Throughout the summer the company continued to sharpen their skills, while back home, the long days and high visibility made flying in low and landing a team on the vidda far too dangerous. Word filtered down through the ranks that the people upstairs were planning something big. But when, they all wondered, eager to test their skills.

  So they continued to train: nighttime parachute practice in the Highlands; wilderness survival; how to best blow up a bridge or a factory; how to detonate explosives in a matter of seconds. They were timed and retimed until they could thread wires to a fuse and trigger an explosive mechanism in the time it would take some to light a match. Then they did it again, all to shave off precious seconds.

  At a castle in the New Forest they learned the arts of coding, radio transmission, and microphotography. Near Manchester, they went over the preparation of drop zones and how to avoid capture and withstand interrogation. They knew this specific work was being drummed into them for some purpose, but even as summer turned into fall, what that was never became clear. Separated from their home by the expanse of the North Sea, one thought burned in Nordstrum’s mind each night before sleep: that the Nazis had tightened their yoke on his homeland, and that those who remained there must be wondering, agonizing: Where are our boys who left to continue the fight? Who is left to stand up to the Nazis?

  Word reached them that several of their fellow resistance fighters had been captured or killed in the fighting. Nordstrum’s own thoughts never strayed far from his father. No doubt they’d be keeping their eye on him—by now those Hirden bastards surely knew who had hijacked the ship. He’d already seen once in this war what the Gestapo and their NS underlings did to those whose family had resisted.

  It only made his will to get home even firmer.

  11

  In late September, the purpose of all their training finally became clear. Nordstrum was asked to the trophy room of the lodge in Glenmore. Several others he knew from the company were there too, including Jens. No one had any idea why.

  Colonel Wilson stepped in, accompanied by a stout, mustached Scottish commander named Henneker, and told the group that they’d been chosen as the advance party for a very important mission.

  Advance party … Nordstrum caught Jens’s eye with excitement.

  Wilson said, “You’ve all been singled out for your physical abilities and mental toughness, your various technical skills, and your nerves under duress. What we have in mind will be demanding, but you should know it will have as critical an importance as any mission that will be conducted in this war.”

  This was it! At last, they were getting their chance to prove their worth.

  “You called us the ‘advance’ party?” a tall, lean fighter named Poulsson asked the colonel. “Can I ask, in advance of what?”

  The ex–Royal Highlander clasped his hands behind his back. “You’ll be informed. Right now it’s our job to get you ready to be sent back.”

  “Ready,” Jens said defiantly. “What have we been training for all these months if we’re not ready?”

  “Yes, I admit you’re skilled,” Wilson agreed. “From this point on, though, your training will become a bit more … technical.”

  Sent back. The words surged through Nordstrum just as surely as if he’d swallowed a shot of aged Scotch. Each man looked around with anticipation. These were the precise words they all longed to hear.

  In addition to him and Jens, there was Claus Helberg; Knut Haugland; Joachim Ronneberg; Arne Kjelstrup; a fellow Rjukan native, Joaquim Poulsson; and an American everyone was curious about.

  Poulsson was a man that commanded all their respect. He was tall and gaunt with sharp blue eyes, as experienced an outdoorsman as Nordstrum had ever met, as at home in the wilds of the vidda as in his own family yard. His journey from Norway to England alone told the story of his determination and character: north through Finland to the Soviet Union, then down the Dnieper to Turkey, on to Syria, Lebanon, then Palestine and Egypt, where he boarded a cargo ship to India that took him across the Atlantic to the isle of Trinidad, where
he hopped a flight to Canada, and finally rode on one of the supply convoys back across the Atlantic to England.

  And all only for the chance to continue the fight against the Nazis.

  Claus Helberg was a member of the Norwegian Mountaineering Club, and had been captured by the Germans north of Oslo and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. Escaping, he fled to Stockholm. At a time when there was no wireless transmission setup, it became Helberg’s job to smuggle messages back across the border to Sweden so they could be passed on to London.

  Knut Haugland had been a radio operator on a merchant marine ship before the war, and was as skilled at W/T transmission as anyone in the group. Quickly transferring messages into code and ensuring timely transmission under stressful conditions was a vital skill in the field. Communications had to be quick and concise; the German W/T units monitoring them were a constant threat. The longer one transmitted, the greater the chance of being fixed upon and caught. Even the act of changing batteries in the frozen wild was no easy task: both hands and batteries froze quickly, not to mention the need to always lug around thirty pounds of weight. The job took nerves, dexterity, and a knack for quick thinking—qualities Haugland possessed abundantly.

  Joachim Ronneberg was tall and thin and as unflappable under pressure as they came. He’d been training with the Linge Company since ’41, after he’d commandeered a small fishing vessel and crossed the North Sea.

  Rounding out the group was Eric Gutterson, the American, assigned to them from the U.S. Army’s Tenth Mountain Division. He was tall, blond, leanly built, from Vail, Colorado, with a boyish shyness and an easy smile. The smile was deceptive, however, as Gutterson could telemark down a ridge with the best of them and was also the most accomplished at climbing in the group. And he spoke the language a bit, as his father, a lift operator at a Vail resort, was of Norwegian descent. But it was generally the simplest phrases: Kaldt I dag? “Cold today, huh?” Or For meg lutefisk. “Pass the lutefisk.” And with an accent that made him sound more Finnish than Norwegian. Certainly no one would want to rely on his language skills to get out of a jam.