National Geographic: Untold Stories of World War II

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In a century riddled with unrest,

World War Two remains the epic tale...

an event of unparalleled impact.

Even now,

we are uncovering new information.

about secret weapons...

and villainous tactics,

about extraordinary heroism...

and boundless shame;

about a time when one life

or one bullet, or one bomb

separated infamy and glory...

defeat and victory...

tyranny and freedom...

untold stories of World War II.

On the 16th of July, 1945...

a bomb exploded in the American desert

a very different kind of bomb.

The furious energy of

the atom had been unleashed.

That power might have landed

in the wrong hands,

had a few brave men not waged a secret

war against Germany's atomic program.

At the height of the Second World War,

Germany's Nazi Party

marched toward global domination,

led by its ambitious,

remorseless leader.

Adolph Hitler had the will

to conquer the world.

All he needed was the weapon.

And he had found the means to make one

in the most unlikely place.

It was here,

in the snow-packed mountains of Norway,

that a handful of soldiers on

skis fought to stop Hitler's dream

of possessing the ultimate weapon.

Old men now,

they remember how they risked their

young lives for the cause of liberty.

They would stop at nothing

in order to conquer the world.

So the feeling that they had to be

stopped became very, very strong.

We were quite certain that

if we are caught by Germans,

we would all have been executed.

It would take three daring attempts

before they succeeded.

April 9, 1940.

German warships penetrated Oslo Fjord.

The blitzkrieg had come to Norway.

Within two months, the besieged nation

was forced to surrender.

Well, it took some time to realize it,

actually.

But when Autumn 1940 came,

and the darkness came in over Norway,

you certainly realized that it was not

the same Norway you had the year before

To understand it, you need to have

the experience of being occupied.

To live in an occupied country is

the most distressing thing you can do.

A vast occupying army flooded

the country.

The Nazis now controlled all aspects

of Norwegian life.

No actually war between each Norwegian

and each German.

We had to do the best out of it.

I think that was the common opinion.

Inside, of course,

most Norwegians hated them.

They introduced Gestapo in Norway,

when they understood that

resistance was coming

started arresting people,

torturing people,

killing people, et cetera et cetera.

And then we certainly understood

what an occupation meant to people.

Hitler's grasp extended

into every corner of the country.

In this remote Norwegian valley,

the Germans seized

a very special prize

the Norsk Hydro factory.

Surrounded by mountains,

the factory had been built on the face

of a cliff overlooking a deep

and impassable gorge.

For the Nazis,

it was an ideal location

for a wartime project difficult

to bomb and easy to defend.

But, to the generals in Berlin,

Norsk Hydro offered even more.

In 1940, it was the only

hydroelectric plant in the world

producing large amounts

of an extremely rare substance:

deuterium oxide,

also known as heavy water.

As soon as they took control

of the plant,

production went into high gear.

When word reached Great Britain,

a powerful sense of foreboding swept

through the allies.

As the most likely target

for a German A-bomb,

Britain faced the greatest peril.

Is it possible they do not realize

that we shall never cease

to persevere against them until

they have been taught a lesson

which they and

the world will never forget?

Winston Churchill's spirited defiance

of the Nazis became a rallying point

for resistance fighters from

all over conquered Europe.

Young Norwegians eager

for combat joined the army

of exiles gathering in Britain.

There was no sacrifice that was

too big to try to get the Germans out.

The British created

a secret organization

the Special Operations Executive

to fan the fires of resistance.

You volunteered and you were trained

by the British to go back to Norway

and work behind the lines

on sabotage instruction,

reporting radio information,

wireless operating,

and that sort of thing.

A few young resistance fighters would

return to Norway undercover,

armed with a plan to destroy

the heavy-water factory.

They were country boys and city kids,

engineers and outdoorsmen,

university students

and career soldiers.

Shock troops in a clandestine

war against Hitler's a-bomb,

they would become legends

in their homeland.

And some of them would even star

in this 1948 movie

chronicling their real-life exploits.

Scenes from this film give a revealing

glimpse of the daring mission.

October, 18, 1942

Four of the men returned home

in dangerous night parachute jump.

Their mission:

to guide a British explosives team

to the heavy-water plant.

When we were leaving

for the dropping zone,

you felt that some

of the people sending you

didn't expect to see you once more,

so we had to more or

less cheer them up and say,

It's not that this easy

to get rid of us.

We'll be back. Just wait and see.

Our target is

the heavy-water production.

That was all. They said it's important

and we have to destroy it.

I knew that the heavy water

was important

for the Germans' weapon production,

but in which way I had no idea.

The commandos' first objective was to

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