Vemork raid

Vemork raid, British operation (FRESHMAN) mounted in November 1942 to try to sabotage a Norwegian hydro-electric plant at Rjukan that was producing the only heavy water available for Germany's atomic bomb programme. It was undertaken by 34 British engineers who were to be flown into the area in two gliders where they were to be met by local SOE agents. It was the first time the British had used gliders operationally; one of the towing aircraft and both gliders crashed, and the 20 survivors were, under Hitler'sCommando Order, executed by the local Gestapo. In February 1943 six Norwegian SOE agents under Lt Joachim Rönneberg parachuted into Norway and, in what the C-in-C of German forces there thought the best coup he had ever seen, sabotaged the plant. This, plus an air raid, prompted the Germans to try to transfer the heavy water and equipment to Germany in February 1944, but a ferry transporting it across Lake Tinnsjoe was sabotaged by SOE and sunk. By this time the Germans had abandoned the search for an atomic bomb.

Bibliography

Haukelid, K. , Skis against the Atom (London, 1954).
Wiggan, R. , Operation Freshman (London, 1986).