Bomb (10 page)

The men dragged the equipment crates to a nearby hunting cabin, chopped open the locked door with an axe, and slept in their clothes on the floor.

The next day they set out on skis to find Poulsson's team. As snow began falling and the temperature dropped, the men labored up and down icy slopes. After months in the comparatively warm and flat English countryside, they just weren't in shape for this kind of work. “We felt disoriented and feverish,” said Ronneberg. “Meanwhile the snowfall was thickening and the wind increasing.” After covering just four miles, the growing storm forced them to turn back toward the cabin.

They dove inside, lit a fire, and started scraping the ice off their faces. Then they searched the cabin and got lucky—in a drawer they found a log-book with the location of the cabin written inside. Now, at least, they knew where they were. They could set out with confidence when the blizzard let up.

It lasted five days. The temperature fell to ten below zero, and fifty-mile-per-hour winds rocked the thin walls. “The cabin seemed about to be lifted,” said Ronneberg. Then, suddenly, the wind fell and sky turned bright blue. The men stepped out into a world of blinding white.

*   *   *

T
HEY QUICKLY GATHERED
their supplies and set out in the direction Poulsson and his team should be. That afternoon they spotted, in the distance, two men on skis.

The Gunnerside men ducked behind boulders and drew their guns. Ronneberg peered through his binoculars. Then he handed them to Haukelid, saying, “Do you recognize them?”

Haukelid took a look. The two figures were 300 yards away and bundled in thick winter coats. The men could be their Norwegian comrades—or they could be Germans on patrol.

Deciding he needed to get closer, Haukelid tucked his pistol into his belt. He let the two men pass by his hiding spot, then skied toward them from behind. The wind blew the sound of his skis away from the men ahead of him.

Haukelid got within fifteen yards, still unnoticed. At this distance there was no doubt—they were skinny from a hungry winter, but these were Claus Helberg and Arne Kjelstrup, two of Poulsson's team.

Haukelid stopped. He coughed loudly. Helberg and Kjelstrup spun around, pulling out pistols, and were about to fire when they recognized their old International Gangster School mate. All three men shouted with joy.

“There was back-slapping,” Haukelid said of the happy moment, “and much strong hearty cursing.”

*   *   *

T
HE TEN YOUNG
Norwegians gathered in a nearby cabin to review the job ahead. Their target was the Vemork plant, built into the side of a steep, 3,000-foot gorge. At the bottom of the gorge was the now-frozen Mann River.

“As you all know,” Ronneberg said, “our main problem is the approach itself. We have all the necessary equipment and explosives to do the job, but we must reach the target to get the job done.”

Claus Helberg had grown up in Rjukan, right near the plant, and knew the area as only a native could. There were two ways to get at the place, he said. First, the way everyone went: across a suspension bridge over the gorge. The bridge led right to the plant, but it was patrolled by German soldiers. “Shooting the guards will create too much noise before we get inside the building,” said Helberg.

Option two was to climb down the gorge, cross the river, and come up at the plant from below. “We know the Germans don't expect anyone to try that route,” Helberg said, “because the gorge itself is not patrolled.”

“It's the one weak point in the defense system around the plant,” Ronneberg agreed.

He divided the men into a five-man demolition party, led by himself, and a five-man covering party, led by Haukelid. Drawing diagrams of the plant buildings, he showed each man where to position himself during the attack. If the factory doors were bolted, he explained, rather than make noise blasting them open, they'd go in through an air duct that led into the main building. “There is just enough space for one man at a time to crawl through,” he said.

“If anything should happen to me, or anything should upset the plan, everyone must act on his own with the goal in mind to complete the operation,” Ronneberg insisted. “In short, if fighting breaks out, everyone must act on his own initiative in order to complete the operation.”

All were in agreement.

“Finally, to repeat what we were all told in Britain,” added Ronneberg, “if any man is wounded, or about to be taken prisoner, he ends his own life.”

All agreed.

HIGH CONCENTRATION

AT ABOUT EIGHT
on the night of February 27, 1943, the Norwegians pulled on white camouflage suits, shouldered their fifty-pound packs, put on skis, and started for Vemork. “The weather was overcast,” Ronneberg later reported, “mild, with much wind.”

They glided down a mountain and into a forest, thick with bushes and low branches. They had to take off their skis and trudge on foot through the wet snow. “We sank in the snow up to our waists,” Ronneberg said.

Claus Helberg led the way out of the trees and back into the faint moonlight. They put their skis back on and continued. Soon they could hear the low, steady hum of machinery—the Vemork plant. When they came near the edge of the gorge, they could see it.

“The great seven-story factory building bulked large on the landscape,” Haukelid later said. “The colossus lay like a medieval castle, built in the most inaccessible place, protected by precipices and rivers.”

They slid downhill toward a road running along the top of the gorge. They were about to cross, when the flash of headlights suddenly lit the snow at their feet. The men dove away from the road as two buses rounded a curve and sped past, carrying night-shift workers to Vemork.

At about ten o'clock they reached the spot from which they would descend into the gorge. In silence, they took off their skis and hid them under pine trees. They removed their white camouflage suits, revealing British military uniforms. They wanted the Germans to know they were soldiers on an official Allied mission—that way, hopefully, the Germans wouldn't retaliate against Norwegian civilians in nearby towns.

Then they started down the gorge.

*   *   *

H
ANGING FROM THE BRANCHES
of trees growing out of the rocky gorge face, the men slid and tumbled down toward the river. As they got closer they saw big cracks in the melting river ice and areas of free-flowing water. They stepped lightly across, splashing through three inches of water sitting atop the slushy surface.

When they reached the far side, each man lifted an arm and grabbed a rock on the steep gorge wall. With his hand, Ronneberg gave the “Go” signal.

The men pulled themselves up the 600-foot rock face, inch by inch. With hands and feet, they felt for tree branches or cracks in the rock. When the fiery pain in their muscles became unbearable, they clung to the side of the cliff and rested, thinking of what their trainers in Britain had taught them: Never look down.

A few minutes before midnight, all ten men reached a ledge just below the plant. They gathered, panting and sweating, and waited a few minutes for their hearts to stop pounding.

“All right, men,” said Ronneberg. “Let's get closer.”

*   *   *

T
HE COVERING PARTY,
commanded by Knut Haukelid, led the way to a storage shed 500 yards from the plant. The roar of machines covered the slap of their boots on the wet snow.

From behind the shed, the men looked out at the suspension bridge leading across the gorge. Two German guards, holding rifles, paced the narrow bridge. They never looked toward the gorge, assuming no one could come in that way.

The team dashed toward an iron fence surrounding the plant. There was a gate, locked with a chain and padlock. Haukelid and Arne Kjelstrup ran ahead with heavy wire cutters, cut through the chain, and swung the gate open. Haukelid, Kjelstrup, and the rest of the covering party went in first, taking assigned positions around the outside of the plant. Then the demolition team raced in.

“The hum of the machinery was steady and normal,” said Ronneberg. “There was a good light from the moon, with no one in sight except our own men.”

*   *   *

R
ONNEBERG LED THE TEAM
to the door of the plant nearest to their target—the “high concentration room,” in which the heavy water equipment did its work. He tried the door. “Locked,” he whispered.

The plant's windows were covered with black paint, blocking light from escaping and making the building nearly invisible to enemy bombers. Ronneberg put his face to the glass. Through thin scratches in the paint, he could see down to the high concentration room. A single Norwegian worker sat at a desk, writing in a book.

Ronneberg sent three team members to try other doors while he and Fredrik Kayser started looking for the air duct.

“Here it is,” he whispered.

Ronneberg climbed in first. The space was too narrow for him to turn and look back, but he knew Kayser was behind him—he could hear the man's breathing.

Flashlight in hand, Ronneberg crawled through the duct. From studying technical drawings of the plant, he knew he had about thirty yards to go. Suddenly he was startled by a loud metallic crack—a pistol had dropped from Kayser's belt and smacked the duct floor. Both men froze.

Through seams in the duct they could see the Norwegian worker at his desk. He never looked up from his book.

Reaching an inner hallway, Ronneberg removed a grate covering an opening in the duct. He and Kayser lowered themselves to the floor. Drawing their pistols, they tiptoed to the door of the high concentration room.

A sign on the door read NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS.

Ronneberg smiled. He reached for the doorknob. The door was unlocked.

*   *   *

T
HE
N
ORWEGIAN WORKMAN LOOKED
up from his notebook as Ronneberg and Kayser opened the door.

“On your feet. Hands up!” shouted Kayser, pointing his gun. “Nothing will happen to you if you do as you are told.”

Ronneberg set down his pack and began pulling out snake-shaped explosive charges, each about a foot long. He put on rubber gloves, to prevent static electricity from jumping from his skin to the fuses. Then he looked over the eighteen heavy water machines—they looked exactly like the ones he'd trained on back in Britain.

Ronneberg had wrapped charges around half the machines when the sound of shattering glass broke his focus. He turned toward a window high up on the wall.

Peering down through the window frame was the face of Birger Stromsheim, part of the demolition party. Stromsheim had been unable to find the air duct.

Knowing the smashing sound could have alerted the German guards, Ronneberg quickly pulled pieces of broken glass from the frame, slicing open his hand. He wrapped a handkerchief around the gash as Stromsheim climbed down into the room. Together, the two set the remaining charges and connected them to a single 30-second fuse.

“All right,” Ronneberg said, blood dripping from his hand as he pointed to the night worker, “let's get that door to the yard unlocked.”

The night worker put a key in the lock and turned it. Kayser reached forward and opened the door a crack, just to make sure.

“It's not that I don't trust you,” he said. “I'm just not allowed to trust anybody.”

“I understand,” said the worker.

Ronneberg struck a match and held it to the fuse.

“Wait, please!” cried the night worker. “My eyeglasses. They're on the table. I need them for my job. They're almost impossible to replace these days.”

Cringing, Ronneberg blew out the match. He hurried to the desk, picked up the man's glasses case, and threw it to him.

He lit another match and bent toward the fuse.

“I beg you, wait!” shouted the worker. “My glasses! They are not in the case.”

Biting back fury, Ronneberg blew out the second match. “Where
are
your damn glasses?”

The worker pointed to the desk. Ronneberg ran back over, shuffled through the papers, found them, and handed them to the man.

“A thousand thanks,” said the worker.

Ronneberg lit a third match and held it to the fuse.

“Go!” he shouted, “Run! Run as fast as you can!”

*   *   *

“T
HE TIME SEEMED LONG
to us who stood waiting outside,” remembered Knut Haukelid. “We knew that the blowing-up party was inside to carry out its part of the task, but we did not know how things were going.”

Haukelid held a pistol and grenades. Next to him stood Jens Poulsson with his finger on the trigger of a machine gun.

“What could be holding them up?” Poulsson whispered.

“I wish I knew.”

Then it came: the sound of an explosion. The windows around the high concentration room blew out. They felt a rush of air race past them.

The door of the German soldiers' barracks opened and a soldier stepped out with a rifle in one hand a flashlight in the other.

“Shall I fire?” asked Poulsson.

“Not yet,” said Haukelid.

The soldier swung his light across the snowy ground around the plant. Haukelid and Poulsson stood with their backs flat against a shed, just out of view.

The soldier turned back toward the barracks.

Ronneberg and the demolition team came racing toward Haukelid. Together, they ran out the open gate, and gathered about 300 yards from the fence.

“The Germans still don't seem to know what's happened,” Haukelid said.

*   *   *

A
LL TEN MEN
scrambled down the gorge. They slid from one wet icy rock to another, resting briefly on thin ledges, then continuing the slippery descent.

At the bottom of the gorge, the ice on the river had continued melting. Big chunks were now spinning in the rushing black water. The men were leaping from chunk to chunk when the scream of Vemork's sirens ripped through the air.