Bomb (7 page)

Haukelid and his class were then transferred to Scotland, where they began parachute school. To get back into Norway, they'd have to be dropped by plane—in the dark. They practiced by jumping out of hot air balloons at night.

“It was not at all like jumping from a plane,” explained Claus Helberg, one of Haukelid's fellow students. “It takes about five seconds for the chute to open, and since you can't see how close you are to earth, you keep wondering, ‘Will I hit before it opens?' Everything is quiet, it's dark, and as you fall you get this terrifying sense of the increasing velocity of your descent from the sound of the air rushing through your clothing.”

When the parachutes finally opened, the men floated toward the ground, still unable to see anything around them. But they could hear the instructors below, joking about which of the “poor bastards” would be the first to break his legs.

The S.O.E. picked five of the best men for a special mission. Haukelid was part of the team, until an accident put him out of action. “During a field exercise,” he remembered, “I stumbled with a loaded pistol in my hand, and put a bullet through the sole of my foot.”

Haukelid lay in the hospital, cursing his stupid mistake. The other four men were taken to London to prepare for the job.

*   *   *

O
NLY
J
ENS
P
OULSSON,
the leader of this small Norwegian team, was given a full briefing. At S.O.E. offices in London, the twenty-four-year-old Poulsson puffed on his pipe while a British colonel named John Wilson announced the target of the secret mission: the Vemork power plant, built into the side of a mountain near the town of Rjukan, Norway.

Poulsson tapped ashes from his pipe into the palm of his hand. “Interesting,” he said.

Rjukan was Poulsson's hometown. He'd spent his childhood climbing and skiing in the nearby mountains.

Vemork was a vital target, Wilson explained, because it was the only plant in the world capable of producing large quantities of “heavy water.” He gave Poulsson the basic chemistry: a molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. A normal hydrogen atom has a nucleus with just one proton and no neutrons. But some hydrogen atoms have one proton
and
one neutron. The neutron makes the hydrogen atom heavier. When these heavier hydrogen atoms join with oxygen to form water, the result is heavy water—it's about 10 percent heavier than regular water. Heavy water occurs naturally in very small quantities, and it's perfectly harmless.

Except for one thing: It was a key ingredient in the German atomic bomb program.

Wilson didn't explain to Poulsson
why
German physicists needed heavy water. All Poulsson needed to know was that the Germans had rapidly increased production of heavy water at Vemork since taking over Norway. This had to be stopped.

“The Germans could destroy all of London if they succeed,” Wilson said.

“I didn't really believe him,” Poulsson later admitted. “In those days, no one thought in terms of one bomb destroying a whole city.”

But the young Norwegian had his orders.

*   *   *

T
HE PLAN WAS FOR
P
OULSSON'S TEAM
to parachute onto Norway's Hardanger Plateau, a 3,500-square-mile wilderness of mountains, marshes, and lakes. On the plateau, the team would set up camp, scout routes to the target, radio weather reports back to Britain, and light up a landing strip on the edge of a frozen lake. When everything was ready, thirty-four British commandos would fly in on gliders, land, and set out for the plant. The Norwegians would lead the way and do everything possible to help the British soldiers demolish key parts of Vemork.

The S.O.E. gave Poulsson's team cash, and the men went from store to store in London buying winter clothing, warm sleeping bags, tents, and compasses. Unable to find Norwegian-made skis and boots, they special-ordered them from Iceland.

On a clear, cold night in late October 1942, the men climbed into a British bomber. The plane flew over the North Sea to Norway. When the pilot reached the Hardanger Plateau, the Norwegians heard the engines slowing as the plane's altitude dropped quickly from 10,000 to 1,000 feet. In the bright moonlight, Poulsson and his men could just make out the shapes of dark rocks sticking up from the snowy ground.

“Action stations!” the British dispatcher shouted.

The Norwegians lined up near the hatch in the bottom of the plane. They'd been taught to jump in quick succession, no more than one second between men—any longer than that and they'd land too far apart to find each other in the dark.

Poulsson sat over the hole, his legs dangling in the icy air.

The dispatcher shouted, “Number one, go!”

GLIDERS DOWN

POULSSON JUMPED,
followed quickly by Knut Haugland, Arne Kjelstrup, and Claus Helberg.

“The wind tore and pulled at me as I fell,” remembered Helberg. “Suddenly the parachute filled with air and stiffened; there was a violent jerk as it opened wide above me.”

In the sky around him, Helberg could see the other men, along with the supply crates the British crew had tossed out of the plane behind them. “I found myself floating slowly down toward the ground,” Helberg recalled, “with all our equipment, twelve huge containers, floating down through the moonlight behind us, and the plane disappearing westwards.”

Helberg hit the ground hard, but safely. He sat in the deep snow, thinking, “And here we are, in Norway, cold and inhospitable, but marvelous all the same.”

The men gathered and unrolled their sleeping bags. At sunrise they could begin looking for the supply crates. For now, nothing more could be done.

Poulsson took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco. “It's time I told you the truth,” he said.

He lit a match and looked at the men. To prevent word of the secret mission from leaking out, he explained, they'd been told they were coming to Norway to train other resistance fighters.

“That was just a cover story,” Poulsson now informed them, touching the match flame to his pipe. “We're here on a far more vital assignment—to help destroy the heavy water factory at Vemork.”

He gave them the details and told them about the British commandos who'd be coming in by plane. The operation would take place during the next full moon. “We have four weeks to reconnoiter the plant, get information on the German guards, and check on the landing site.”

None of the team members made any objection to what—for them—was a radical change in plans.

“Goodnight,” Poulsson said.

*   *   *

I
N THE MORNING
the men took out their maps and compasses, checked nearby landmarks … and realized the British plane had badly missed the intended drop target. They were at least 65 mountainous miles from the glider landing site. All expert skiers, they weren't worried about the distance. But they would be carrying more than six hundred pounds of weapons and supplies, and they could expect no help along the way. “We had been told to make no outside contacts except in the gravest emergency,” Poulsson said. “It was important that we avoid being seen by anyone.”

The twelve equipment crates were scattered in the deep snow, and it took the men two days to find them. They divided the stuff into eight loads of about seventy pounds each, figuring it would be foolish to try to carry more over the rough terrain ahead. Finally, they put on their boots and skis and set off.

Progress was slow, since they each had to handle two seventy-pound loads. They would ski a set distance with one load, put it down, return to the starting point, pick up the second load, and make the trip again. Making things worse, it had been a relatively mild autumn on the Hardanger Plateau. The snow was wet and sticky, the ice on the lakes still thin—forcing them to take the long way around the water. The men reminded each other of an old Norwegian saying: “A man who is a man goes on until he can go no further—and then goes twice as far.”

The team had enough food for thirty days, but they were burning calories so quickly, they were constantly ravenous. What saved them was that along the way they found several summer cabins, abandoned for the winter. Inside they scrounged a few cans of food, a few handfuls of flour. In one cabin they found, sitting on the table, a frozen lump of unidentified meat. They chopped it up with an axe, dropped the pieces into a pot with snow, and set the pot over a fire.

“We ate our fill for the first time since our arrival,” Poulsson said.

On November 9, after three grueling weeks on the plateau, Poulsson and the team finally reached their assigned base near the glider landing site. The men found a thin-walled cabin nearby, stumbled inside, built a fire, and felt lucky to find some food. “We made fish soup,” Poulsson said, “good soup, too—out of dog's food.”

The next step was to contact London. With wind whipping snow crystals into his face, Knut Haugland set up his radio antenna on the roof of the cabin. He climbed down, slammed the door behind him, dove into his sleeping bag on the floor, and pulled the radio close. As snow blew in through cracks in the wall, Haugland tapped out a coded message: the team was intact and healthy, and would now begin scouting the target area and preparing the landing site.

The message was received in London, but it didn't sound right. Telegraph messages were sent using Morse code, in which each letter of the alphabet is represented by a certain combination of long and short sounds. Every telegraph operator has what's known as an “operator's fingerprint”—each person taps out the sounds slightly differently. British intelligence had Haugland's fingerprints on file. This new message was not a match. What they didn't take into account was that Haugland's fingers were frozen stiff when he sent the most recent message.

Concerned they might actually be in contact with German agents, the British sent Haugland a prearranged security question—something only he could answer: “What did you see walking down the Strand in the early hours of January 1, 1941?”

Haugland's blue fingers tapped back, “Three pink elephants.”

Poulsson's team was all right, the British knew. The plan could proceed.

*   *   *

O
N A DRIZZLY AFTERNOON TEN DAYS LATER,
thirty-four British commandos gathered on an airfield in Scotland. They divided into groups of seventeen, and each group climbed into a glider. These were super-light wooden planes, specially made for Britain's Royal Air Force. They had no engines, which meant they could fly silently. Perfect for making an unnoticed approach into enemy territory.

Of course, the gliders couldn't take off by themselves. Each was attached by a rope to a Halifax bomber—the bombers took off, towing the gliders behind them. The planes headed east across the water as the sun set.

On the ground in Norway, Poulsson and his team found the best possible landing spot and set up lights along a strip of land. “It was overcast,” Poulsson said, “but the moon was full.”

At 11:00 p.m., the Norwegians heard the hum of engines in the thick clouds above. But they couldn't see the planes, and the pilots couldn't see the landing lights.

As one of the bomber pilots was turning around to make another run over the target area, the rope pulling the glider snapped. The glider pilot felt his plane descending. He couldn't see even a few feet in any direction, and—with no engines—had no way to keep the plane in the air for long. The glider slammed into a snowy hillside. Eight men were killed instantly. Of the survivors, four had broken bones; the other five just minor injuries.

Two of the men who were able to walk made it to a nearby farmhouse and convinced the owner to call a doctor. The doctor agreed to come, but, before leaving, alerted the Gestapo of the crash. The Germans arrived to search the plane and crash site. They found weapons, snowshoes, Norwegian currency, radio transmitters, and a map with Vemork circled in blue ink.

The Germans loaded the four badly injured men into a truck. By the accepted rules of war, the British soldiers should have been treated as prisoners of war. Instead, the Germans poisoned them and dropped their bodies into the sea. The other five were taken to a concentration camp and interrogated by the Gestapo. They refused to give more than their name, rank, and service number. German soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed the prisoners and shot them in the head.

The second glider's story was similar. It lost its way in the fog and crash-landed, killing several of the crew. The Germans quickly found the wreck, questioned survivors, then shot them and dumped them in a ditch.

The next night Poulsson's team got the news from London. “The glider disaster was a hard blow,” he later said. “It was sad and bitter.”

Thirty-four British soldiers were dead, and nothing had been accomplished. Worse than nothing, because now the Germans knew that the Allies considered Vemork a high-priority target. British intelligence soon learned that German commanders had assigned extra soldiers to guard Vemork, night and day. They had begun placing land mines around the plant.

Meanwhile, the plant continued pumping out heavy water, which was piped into barrels and shipped to Germany. This had to be stopped, no matter the risks. Colonel Wilson contacted the Norwegian volunteers who were still training in Scotland.

He told them: “Stand by for a particularly dangerous enterprise.”

QUIET FELLOW

ONE AFTERNOON IN LATE 1942,
a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties rode a bicycle along a country lane near the English town of Banbury. She pulled to the side of the path, got off the bicycle, and leaned it against a tree.

She had not been waiting long when she saw a tall man in a suit approaching. He was about thirty, pale and thin, with glasses. The man and woman exchanged a few words and began walking arm in arm down the lane. “It was pleasant just to have a conversation with so sensitive and intelligent a comrade and scientist,” the woman later said. “We spoke of books, films, and current affairs.”