National Geographic: Untold Stories of World War II Page #4

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for glasses!

But instead,

you dropped what you were doing

and you searched all around

the room and you found

you found the-the holster for

his glasses and gave him and he said,

thank you very much,

and so we went on with taping the fuses.

So far, they had beaten the odds.

Now the commandos had only seconds

to make their escape.

And after a few minutes one minute,

maybe two minutes they were there,

with us on the railway line.

And we ran the same way back

as we had come in.

The road conditions and

the snow condition were excellent...

because on the railway,

quite a lot of the snow had blown

away on the other side,

and that was frozen solid ground,

and we didn't put a mark.

So everything was actually on our side

With determination, skill, and daring,

the saboteurs had dealt a

crippling blow to their enemy

without losing a man.

But heavy water had become

a German priority,

and within six months,

the factory was back in operation.

The Allies had to assume the worst:

Nazi scientists were close than ever

to building a bomb.

Another attack on the factory

was set in motion

this time, from the air.

In a bold noonday raid,

hurled destruction at the plant.

The raid damaged factory buildings and

killed civilians in a nearby shelter.

But the heavy water, secured in

the basement, went untouched.

With production halted,

the Germans decided to move

the operation to the safety

of the Fatherland,

and inadvertently gave the commandos

one last chance to destroy it forever.

We had got information

from London that the Germans.

had planned to take down

the remaining heavy water.

Team members secretly scouted

the route.

The heavy water would be loaded

onto railway cars

and taken by train to Lake Tinnsjo.

Here, the cars would go aboard a

passenger ferry

for the two-hour trip across the lake.

A well-placed charge could sink the

ferry, and with it all the heavy water

But sinking a public ferry

meant paying a terrible price.

Our conclusion was that the sinking

of the ferry

was about the only possible solution.

It would have to be civilian sabotage,

which was naturally a

very serious thing to deal with.

There was no doubt in our mind

that there were going to be

human lives taken,

and furthermore, it could be anybody.

And Rjukan was a small town,

and it was really

almost like all family.

Fearing neighbors and

friends might die,

the Norwegians sent

an urgent message to London.

The British reply was immediate

and uncompromising.

It has been talked over

and the conclusion is they heavy water

has to be-to be destroyed.

Good luck and when you get such a

message from London, you have to do it

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