you've come tonight to what i think is going to be a wonderful program that we are putting on in cooperation with the norwegian embassy. because this is, the story we're going to be hearing tonight is about a world war ii, very important and famous and dramatic as you will hear world war ii raid into norway conducted primarily by norwegians. it was an obvious thing to partner up with the norwegian embassy. so i'd just like to say a few words by way of introduction to our friends here from the norwegian embassy. specifically, jon oyslebo who's minister counselor at the royal norwegian embassy. he's been here serving in washington for about ten months on this particular tour. he served here previously a decade or so ago, i believe. his immediately preceding tour was in oslo at the foreign ministry where he's been a number of times, but he's also served in good diplomatic fashion in countries as varied as mozambique, poland, switzerland and morocco. jon and, indeed, the entire norwegian embassy are good friends of the bear national spy museum -- international spy museum. we're delighted to work with them again tonight and to have them here, so perhaps a few words from our norwegian friends? [applause] >> good evening, everyone. we are certainly delighted to work with the spy museum. thank you for hosting this interesting program. we're going to hear about an event that is certainly part of the history of my own country, and i'm quite happy that it's not -- it does not take a bigger part in shaping the world's history. because that might have been devastating. so the embassy's pleased to be a partner. just a few days ago norway celebrated the 71st anniversary of the surrender of the nazi occupying forces of the second world war. now 71 years is a long time. it's long must have for people to forget -- long enough for people to forget. it's long enough for new generations never to learn what happened and not to speak of reflecting on the significance of what happened. historians, historians know that they should never ask hypothetical questions; what would have happened if. they're supposed to focus on facts and explain, you know, what led to is a certain outcome. but in the case of the heavy water operation in norway, it is a little bit tempting to speculate. what would our societies have looked like if the nazis had succeeded in their ambitions to produce an atomic bomb? in the interior of the county in norway the germans were producing a key ingredient to such a bomb, and some of the production is here in the room. i'm sure you will hear about that later. two initial attempts to stop the production failed, and 41 young commandos lost their lives as a result. the third attempt, however, was successful. and we all look forward to hearing neal bascomb talk about it. in particular i know that there is a young man sitting right here who is 7 years old, and he's here because his grandmother's brother was the last of the commandos to leave the plant after they planted the bomb. frederick kaiser. he was one of the commandos. and he is no longer alive, i understand, but is part of their family history. so thank you, and i look forward to listening to neal bascomb's presentation. [applause] >> so a few words about neal before we get started. neal is a new york times best selling and award-winning author of quite a number of books, all nonfiction which tend to focus on inspiring stories of adventure or achievement. neal studied economics and english literature, an interesting combination, at miami university in ohio and then worked as a journalist in europe for a number of years and then later as an editor at the st. martins press in new york. and he now makes his living writing books which makes him a rare individual. and he has been very successful in this endeavor. his first book was "higher: a historic race to the sky in the making of a city," and that was selected for the barnes & noble discover great new writers a' ward and was features on a history channel documentary. he then wrote "the perfect mile" about roger banister and the ultimately successful effort to break the four minute mile. his third book was "red mutiny" about the 1905 mutiny on the battleship in the late days of tsarist russia. his fourth book, which i believe you can buy back there alongside "the winter fortress," was "hunting eichmann" about israeli intelligence's mission to find adolf eichmann and bring him to israel. it's a story about a rendition in modern terms. and that's what it was. and this story -- [laughter] this book was so successful that a young adult edition called "nazi hunters" was also put out and won a number of awards as well. neal's work has been translated into something like 15 languages, featured in several documentaries and optioned film and -- for film and television projects. neal is one of the fortunate few who also gets to live in seattle, washington. as you might imagine from somebody who lives in seattle, he is an avid hiker, skier and coffee drinker. he is a good guy, and we're glad to have him. neal bascomb. [applause] >> i have to lower this. jon is taller than i am. one second. just trying to the find my note, which you might have taken. >> he probably grabbed yours. [laughter] i will -- >> i will be saying that speech again. i want to thank the international spy museum and the norwegian embassy for co-sponsoring this event, and thank you all for coming this evening. now, last week i was driving in seattle, and i was listening to npr, and i was listening to this interview of chris anderson who runs the ted talks. and be over the course of the interview, i was listening affidavitly because i was about -- avidly because i was about to go on book tour, and chris said the longest you can possibly maintain an audience's attention is 18 minutes. you guys will be here for roughly two and a half hours. [laughter] so hold tight. now, as mark introduced, identify written quite a few -- i've written quite a few different kinds of books. skyscrapers and four-minute miles and tsarist russia, high school kids building robots. and people often ask me, you know, what's going on here? what's the theme? why all this, the disparate kinds of books? now, my wife says -- i think ungenerously -- that i choose my books based on where i want to travel next. laugh.-- [laughter] now, norway's a lovely place to travel, so that may be slightly accurate. but i choose my books, i focus on stories -- and this may be somewhat of a cliche, but it's the kind of stories that grab me, the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. and this story of the atomic sabotage by norwegians definitely classifies within that. now, this is the story about atomic sabotage, about atomic physics, about heavy water. it has some heavy stuff in it. but i don't want to lose sight and i don't want you to lose sight of what is important in this story. and i'd like to read a letter that -- [inaudible] a scientist, a norwegian scientist, chemist who basically orchestrated all of these sabotages and devoted the rest of his life towards it. he was in london can k escaped norway -- escaped norway, went to london, worked with the british. and he wrote this series of letters to his family who was still back in norway. many of them to his young daughter. his son was too young to read. but in one of these written in 1943, he tried to explain to his daughter why he was away, because she was very upset. and i'd like to read it here, or part of it here tonightment we have -- tonight. we have to do everything more our land to make it free again. when we say our fatherland, we don't just mean the land which is beautiful and we also love are, but also everything else we love at home; mother, little boy and you and all the other fathers and mothers and children. i also mean all the wonderful memories from the time we ourselves were small and from later when we had children of our own. our home villages with the hills and mountains and forests, the lakes and ponds and rivers and streams and waterfalls and fjords. the smell of new hay in is the summer, of birches in spring, of the sea and the big forest. and even the biting winter cold. everything. norwegianing songs and music and still much, much more. that's our fatherland. that's what we have to struggle to get back. that's why i'm here. now, let's turn to atomic fizz bics. you guys are all very excited, i can see. but i think it's important to describe what heavy water, why it is important. and i'll do this in a very basic way because that's how my hundredsing of it is -- understanding of it is. you have regular h2, 0, you have water, okay, which you can drink. it has hydrogen. hydrogen has a single electron and a single proton. heavy water, c2o is what's called an isotope of hydrogen. it actually has a neutron within the nucleus, makes it heavier. you can see it here. now, why that's important is in the course of the war the germans and the americans were attempting to build heavy water reactors, self-sustaining nuclear reactors x. they needed a moderator, okay? a heavy water or graphite where you have these neutrons flinging around within this reactor, and you need to slow them down to foster the fission. and the thing that h2o does if you have these neutrons flipping around, it might slow them down, but it absorbs those flinging-around neutrons, peeling them away from a potential chain reaction. c2o, heavy water, doesn't absorb them. they bombard, they flow, and the neutrons move on. this fosters the chain reaction. now, these heavy water reactors, the idea -- and the germans knew this and the americans knew this by 1942 is if you have a heavy water reactor, it will breed plutonium. and if you have plutonium, you have the basics for an atomic bomb. this is the atomic bomb explosion over nagasaki. it was a blew plutonium bomb. now, when many people talk about the german atomic bomb program, they talk about this e gentleman on far left. at the start of the war, the americans and germans were basically at the same place. they both knew after the first splitting of the atom that the potential for atomic power or an atomic weapon was very viable. so they both moved forward on programs. horizon berg was part of that program. he was a genius. he was a theoretical physicist. e e physicist -- he had won the nobel prize in his early 30s, but he wasn't the key man. the gentleman on your far right was. he worked in the army ordinance department, and for years through the mid '30s he was telling his bosses we should focus on atomic physics. it's the future. and his bosses kept coming back to him and saying, stop with this, quote-unquote, atomic malarkey. and so he didn't move forward. and then the splitting of the atom happened, and suddenly he was elevated into the role as the head of the german uranium club. he starts basic research, he is the one in charge. he's part of the nazi party. he very much wants an atomic bomb. now, one of the key things he needs -- and the reason we're here tonight -- is heavy water. and there was a single plant in all world that produced it in any quantity, a place called vermok. located about 100 miles west of oslo, it's set on the edge of this icebound precipice. it's on edge of a place of about 3500 square miles which is this la foe of ice and rock -- plateau of ice and rock and most often snow. now, it's very hard to make heavy water. they were doing it with electrolysis, is so you need a lot of free or cheap hydroelectric power, and it was a hydroelectric hydroelectric plant that also produces hydrogen for fertilizer. it was the perfect or place to build a heavy water factory. the norwegian industrial concern was the one who financed it, built it. and in 1940 the germans came calling. we want all your heavy water. as much as you can give us. and the head of the company said, well, what do you need that for in and the -- that for? and the germans said, well, we can't tell you. no heavy water for the germans. million the spring of 1940 when the -- until the spring of 1940 when the germans occupied norway rather quickly. they went to vermok. scientists were told to ramp up production, first twofold, then fivefold, then tenfold, as much heavy water as could be produced, they wanted. now, the problem for dr. deibner and his plans on building out the heavy water plant and getting as much as possible, he needed what he said was five tons for his self-sustaining reactors. i will introduce tronset now. he was raised by a single mother, several siblings. he was very smart. they didn't have much money. he tried -- he pulled himself up in the american way, by his bootstraps, studied in germany, studied in england, was very well regarded as a student. came back and was ready to start his life with his childhood sweetheart whose name was bassa. now, he asked her at this point in time, in his early 30s, i can do one of two things, and you need to help me decide. i can be a teacher, which is what i love to do, or i can make as much money as you want me to make. i can work for industry, and we can be quite wealthy. and bassa said, i want you to be a teacher. and he became an exceptional teacher. but as you'll get to know over the course of this talk, he was a very vigorous man. he couldn't sit still. he was constantly work, constantly doing, so he turns out tough made a lot of money too, and he did that by consulting with these industrial firms. in the mid '30s he decided heavy water had recently been discovered, he had this hydroelectric plant and this hydrogen factory, wouldn't it be great if we see if we can build something that produces it in great quantity? and he does it. and it is a financial and utter economic disaster for him. nobody wants it, nobody's interested. of course, until the splitting of the atom, until people realize what its worth is. now, his ambition with it was just as a pure science, just to see if it could be done. as he said, first experiment, practical application later. i'm not sure how he felt about that. they used to joke that heavy water was, its most useful property would be to make skating rinks because it froze at a slightly higher temperature. the germans invade, and tronstat goes underground, and he starts spying on the germans, what they're doing. in particular, he starts spying on vermok and the increase in production and why they're doing it. the gestapo discovers what he's doing. he hears they're coming for him. he escapes by train to oslo, puts his family up at his childhood home. he's across the border to sweden, goes to london and quite quickly, although the british scientific community said what we want you to do is develop scientific technology for us, and what he said was i want to the fight. i want to fight for my country. now, the reason i know this is because i was able, thanks to his son, to assemble the diaries that he wrote from the time he got on that train -- first entry is on that train when he's going down to oslo -- to the moment of his death. daily entries on what he was thinking, feeling, doing. and he wanted to fight. and he quickly became and found himself at the nexus of the norwegian high command which was now exiled, the norwegian government was exiled in britain. here he is in his uniform. he said the nexus of the high command and the british soe, the special operations executive. as many of you -- some of you may know it's called i think most famously the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare. they are the commandos. they're the ones who go behind enemy lines and perform operations. so that is tronstat's role. and high on his list is attacking vermok. he partners up with a man named colonel wilson. he was the head of the british soe in norway. and they start hashing up plans to the go after vermok. now, this is by about april of 1942. and by april of 1942, the allies are advancing in their atomic research. they're realizing, of course, that this is possible, this can happen. and they also realize that with the german science they will also be in the same place. and they know now that a heavy water is critical, and they also know it will be used in a breeder reaction and potentially for plutonium. and this is one of my favorite letters or in this story, because it's so bland, but it really is the impetus for all that happens afterward. it was written april 23, 1942, by the scientists of the two alloys committee, the british atomic program. and they write to churchill: since experiments have confirmed that element 94 -- that's plutonium -- would be good for military purposes and since this element is best prepared in systems involving the use of heavy water, the committee recommends that attempts should, if possible, be made to stop no, norse kedro production. summer 1942. churchill and roosevelt, rather cheery here, sit down in hyde park and discuss two things. one, the invasion of mainland europe. and, two, what to do about the atomic bomb program. it is here where the first discussions move forward, that the americans will take over and the british will advise. but this is the beginning of the manhattan project. now, at this very meeting they discuss the heavy water, and they discuss what was happening at vermok. and churchill writes in his memoirs of this eerie, sinister term named heavy water s. and what is decided by the summer of 1942 by churchill is we need to hit it, we need to do whatever we want -- we can to hit it. and the mission is on. if the british had a secret weapon in tronstat, tronstat had a secret weapon in einer. he was born behind the dam at lake moss which provided the water to the hydroelectric plant. this is a place where it's snowbound about six months of the year. it's a place where being self-reliant is a necessity. if something is broken, you fix it. einer boasts that he was born with skis on his feet. he was an expert skier with, an expert hunter. he was a winter survivalist. and he was an engineer that worked for no, sirkeb -- norse kedro. this is the your yous picture i could find of him -- curious picture i could find of him. he looks very happy. and i love this picture because if i identify one thing with him, it's toughness. something very different from the face you see here. but he was probably the toughest person i read about, researches over the course of this story. -- researched over the course of this story. he wanted to fight when germans came and occupied his village. and so one day he goes to his mother and says, well, i'm going to go on a skiing trip. i'm going to go up into the mountains. i have my rifle, i'm going to go hunting reindeer. i will see you in three weeks. inthe ted of going -- instead of going north, he goes southwest to the coast. on his way he crashes while skiing, i don't know how that happened. he didn't record it. and he hurts his knee badly. but he reaches the coast, he joins together with a couple other guys, and they have this ambition to hijack a steamer by gun boat and steam it across the north sea and reach scotland. decent plan. the problem is einer's knee is worse and worse and worse. he's injured terribly, and so he goes to the doctor, he goes to a hospital and says i need surgery on this knee. will you perform it today? and they say, we will. he -- they say, well, you'll need a week or two to recover, anesthesia, and einer says today, now. no anesthetic. and so einer writes of this experience of the pain, of holding sides of the hospital bed, the worst pain he had experienced. but he had the surgery. not 24 hours later, he was on that steamer in command of the ship with another couple of other gentlemen. they steamed it across, they reached scotland, and einer's thinking this whole time, well, you know, i'm going to be trained to fight over the course of three months or six months, and i'm going to become a trained soldier, and then i'll be able to fight. well, like trontronhears that there's this young man from the area who's in town. and so tronstat sends the man to get einer on a train directly to london, brings him into his office and says you're leaving in a week. you are going to be my spy on ground. you are going to provide information to me on the plan. and einer, of course, says yes. he gets one week of training. one week of parachute training mixed with wireless radio training. and then einer is on a halifax bomber cruising across the north sea, then over norway. there's a hole in the bottom of the plane that he's going to jump through. now, the trouble is that einer is afraid of heights. [laughter] and tough as he is, you know, i love history because there's some books written on, and in every book there's einer in the plane and he, like, hurls himself through that hole. well, the reports -- the british keep everything, i love the british. the british keep dispatch reports of drop operations. and the dispatcher writes of, basically, having to, you know, shove einer through the hole. [laughter] to get him down. but einer jumps down, lands on that bum knee. he's home. hello, mother. back from my skiing vacation. [laughter] and he begins to spy on vermok. he begins to live this double life. and i can't say this with 100 percent accuracy, but einer was a spy on ground for the soe for over three years. probably one of the longest standing soe spies. and and he provided an absolute wealth of information. he provided guard rotation, he provided production quotas, he provided what locks were on the door, where the stairwells were, everything you would need to know. in fact, they would joke that they had so much information on vermok, they could build it themselves in britain. that's when einer and the people who helped him produce for tronstat. but what to do about it? what operation? how do we destroy vermok? how do we perform what churchill and roosevelt want us to do? now, the allies, particularly the americans -- maybe this is an american thing d they want to go the fast course. they wont to bomb it. -- they want to bomb it. just destroy it. from the air. troning stat hears this plan, and he says, no. and he says no for two reasons. one, there are a lot of civilians that live around that area. there's over 5,000 people living there. any bombing operation is going to kill a number of civilians. and, two, this plant is tens and tens of thousands of pounds of concrete, stone, steel, and the heavy water facility is in the basement. .. they send two teams to go into this area by glueder plane. halifax would tow two glider planes across the north sea, release them over the drop site, and go down and land in this countryside. >> he is informing them that we should talk about this and the hard place to land and the hard place to be. i'll give you an idea how little the british knew of this area. this operation was scheduled to happen in likely november of 1942. there's a series of corporations talking correspondence how to provide the royal engineers with bicycles. the idea would there would be bicycles on the plane, they would bake down to the plant in late november. this is probably pretty good idea given it's likely snow bopped. snow bound. this is crags prognosis freshman because the gliders had never been used by the allies in combat operations. operation freshman. he managed to have four-man team led by hawsen at the top. four men, norwegian team, young norwegians much like -- who itched to fight, took whatever fishing vessel -- some went around the world to be trained, the select of the select, chosen to be part of the norwegian independent company, which was an soe run group of norwegians who they trained. basic training and ultimately spy training. the idea was this operation would land, land in october 19, 1942. they landed in the area. they skied -- i say the skied -- they had so much equipment that to go the number of miles they needed to go they would ski a distance of six or seven miles, stop, drag their bags go back sex or seven miles, pick up the rest of the equipment and back again over the course of ten days. reef the landing site on the group, preparing -- they were set up what was called the rebecca beacon because -- long story short -- a homing device for the planes to spot the landing site. now, i don't want to forget the royal engineers. these were very brave young men who were told very little of what they were getting into. they were told simply this was an important operation. they were note told they were going to norway but told it was important enough it could decide the fate of the war. they were asked, who wants to participate? every man in the company stepped forward. in november, 1942, operation freshman begins. this is of course, the gliders you see there. glider pilots nicknamed it the wooden coffin. being inside of it was, as they describe, like being inside of a -- being on top of a bucking bronco, or riding a rollercoaster. it's made of wood, and of course it had a steel floor because there was so much -- they had harnesses that did very little. they were on a mission across the north sea, the furthest any gliders had if been towed and the idea again was to land. did no go as planned. the radio operator for the operation sends a transmission that morning saying, all the weather is clear. by the evening, when these planes finally arrive in the dark, the cloud cover has lowered, the winds picked up. and it was a very different police. we do know that the first glider tow rope snapped. the glide, glider a., crashed into a mountainside. the second halifax glider -- we're not exactly sure what happened. we do know that they separated the other glider crashed into a hillside. we suspect the halifax circled around, where the glider had landed, it, too, crashed. those who were not killed on impact were captured by the germans, some of them tortured, interrogated, and. germans now know the allies are coming. if they suspected it before, they knew now. already natural forces in this very deep valley. now it became even more so. they doubled the security, doubled the number of guards, increased the mine fields, fortified the single-lane suspension bridge. any scent operation would be the german's loss. within 24 hours of the hoe catastrophe of precision freshman. colonel will son went to the charge of operation freshman and said we would like to take over this mission. they in many ways, sort of washed their hands of it. they said, please, it had been such a disaster. and so they decide, this is what we're going to do with wilson. you're going to send a six-man team, operation gunner side, to spot. we'll send a six-man team. they will drop into the area, into the vita, connect up with the operation, together they will move towards the plant and destroy it. now while operation freshman the idea was to both hilt the heavywater facility and eliminate a portions of the plant. this operation was supposed to destroy the heavy water mant. it was led by the young runnenberg on the bottom, your right. young man no combat experience. the second in command was -- his nickname -- tells everything you need to know -- his nickname was bonzo. born in brooklyn, return to norway, bit of a rascal. germans invaded. fought the battle of norway, went underground, and then, like many others, he retrained. the six-man team ledly greenenberg, who although he didn't have combat experience, all his reports -- again, i had all the reports the british have during the training of these men -- he was, as they said, natural leader, cunning. men followed him without question. he became so good at the training operations they were do to scotland that he then became in charge of them, and led the norwegians, men of them, moe of them, older than he was, on these missions. so now operation gunner side is moving forward, that training on the mock plant, preparing sleeping bags and rations and guns and everything they need for the operation. very intense about preparation. there's a number of reasons why things delayed for over the course of two months, mostly the weather. the weather over the north sea and norway in december, january, not so nice. and so a dropping of rations way delayed. they finally at one point are on a plane, they're going across the norwegian coast and hit by antiaircraft artillery. the planes barely stumbled home. the trouble with that delay is that operation grouse is still there. like a cozy place to spend your winter, doesn't it? after freshman, prognosis grouse -- there's a manhunt for anyone who was involved in helping the british so these gentlemen escaped into the vita, police that legend has it, it goes so close and fast the flames freeze. go up to a cabin, one can room cabin, four men, they have very little food, very little assistance. now they need to survive the winter. alone. survive basically off of reindeer. they hunt and eat only rip deer. such connoisseurs of reindeer they would write about their favorite parts of the reindeer. anyone want to know the favorite part? anybody? yeah. you know? no. okay. this may be a little gruesome bus there's fat behind the eyelids that is quite delectable. they survived but they're getting weaker and weaker. thankfully, mid-february, gunnersides finally lands. a lot of things aren't going well. that another factor. they land in what the men call the worst blizzard they had ever seen, so strong they were literally lifted off their feet and on the back wedders by the gusts of wind. they house in the cabin and luckily find to wait it out five days. emerge to this landscape that looks like they said fully transformed. they finally meet together, operation gunnerside. operation grouse, ten men. i won't forget shinerland here. he was providing them batteries for their wireless transmissions. he was skiing constantly back and forth, continuing to provide intelligence. but he is not on this mission. he in some ways is too important, much like haugland, the other rateow operator. so they're going to participate. together they go to a cabin that overlooked the area and decide how they're going to attack the plant. now, the germans, as i said, now suspect that the attack is coming across the lone suspension bridge. heavily guarded, two gates. they managed to eliminate the guards. most certainly be an alert so they discount that. secondly, they can come down from the mountains that you see above. the pipelines, actually, where the water is coming down. come down there, the problem is there's minefields littered all over the place. they decide not to do that. transstad looked at aerial photographs and noticed there's a valley and maybe you can go down the valley and climb um and make your way down the railline. the local boys, this operation grouse, the local boys said, no. these were boys host parents would say at 10 or 11 years old, go out on the vita and have three great days camping. but the parents told them never climb those cliffs. at one point a car crashes over in their youth, and men have to repel down with ropes. that's how steep they were. groenstead says maybe you should do that. haugland there is and says that's a great idea. bonzo is all for it. grownenberg is not sure. but they have this idea. they go down and climb up and good the railway line. this is the only way to get in without alerting anybody. groen enberg takes a vote and want the men to participate on the decision, and they vote to climb this. so on the night of february 27, 28th, they ski down from their cabin, they take off their skis at some point because it's too steep. they hike down, almost get mowed over by soldiers coming up to the plant. down into the valley, and now they're at the base, 500-foot cliff that they need to claim. and groenenberg later said, it look like being on the streets and looking up at a skyscraper, and that's what he needs to climb. but of course, these norwegians do it. they manage to scale, scramble up the cliffside, reach the railway line, move down, wait for the guards to -- they snap the locks, on the gates, slid into two teams, the covering party, they reach the plant and have everything they need to know. they know the door is going to be open. they reach the door, and the door is shut. thankfully they had everything they needed to know, as i said earlier, about this plant. they knew there was this little tunnel that carried pipes into the plant so they decide to shimmy through this rough concrete tunnel, drop into the basement level of the plant and there's nobody there. the germans never thought that anyone could possibly get inside so they left it unguarded. there was a single forman watching over the heavywater plant. he, although scared, was not putting up any resistance to these men who were coming in in british uniforms, saying they were british-speaking norwegians. very well. and they set the explosives perfectly for the explosion, running out, throwing themselves down the side and on the run. now, in some of these presentations like to say that's half the story. there is much more -- literallyes the halfway point of the book because what they did not expect is that the germanned needed this have requestwater so badly that although they destroyed the supply, they destroyed the machinery, within the span of roughly fine months they reconstituted the plant and it was producing heavywater again, and down in rucon were there two hydrogen facilities now that are being converted to heavywater as well. but i will leave you to read the book -- your figured that out -- but what i do want to sort of end with are some themes that come out of this story that i think are important to highlight. the first, as mentioned, what haunt. and i'll give you one example. hellberg. claus was part of operation grouse. after the gunnerside operation there was this even more massive manhunt. the germans avoided on the occupation of norway entering the vita. they went around it. now, the head of the ss in norway, so upset at this, he decides to send an army into the vita. many of them not very good skiers but some of them. klaus wade waits this out. he is sent a letter, it's safe to return. it was wrong. he found the cabin where the found explosives, is warming himself when the cabin when he sees three skiers. now, to reach this cabin he had already skied roughly 25 miles. seems like a long distance to me. and he sees them, and the throws on his cross-country ski and is off. he's thinking pretty good about himself. it's his terrain and he distances himself from two of them but there's one austrian skier. and they ski for hours. but hellberg notices when he goes uphill he gains dips stance and when he goes down, he loses. so klaus decides he's going climb every hill, every mountain, every little bump he can find to get away. and this goes on and on and on and the sauce strandown give up. finally he has had enough. stops, turns, levels his gun, and waits for the german to shoot. the sunnies his hi others, tired, nervous, not very good aim, and klaus is tired. pop, pop, pop, pop. germans. klaus levels the gunshot, shoots and wounds the austrian falls over his skis. he knows more men are coming. klaus skis off a cliff in the middle of the night, 60 feet. lands, breaks his arm, dislocated his shoulder, gets up, skis another -- interest the morning, one pole to a village. we'll leave out the story where he lands himself into a hotel that the gestapo -- the second thing i would raise is the theme of sacrifice. how much these men sacrificed for what they were doing. two brothers were taken by the gestapo and imprisoned outside of oslo for almost a year. interrogated. tortured over the span of months, trying to find out information what einer was doing. but the person i'll bring out here is mostly hauk. he is going to stay in nor we were, build resistance cells and there would need be another last-minute sabotage. so one point he is in oslo, correcting forged documents. he had been living underground now, invasion of norway now going on over three years, had not seen his wife or his sister, his family. he is in this apartment and there's a knock on the door, and someone comes and he hears his father's voice. there's nothing that he wants to do more than to push open that door and embrace his father, see him, but he can't. it was last time he would have a chance. his father was taken by the gestapo soon afterwards, imprisoned, and by the time he left prison he was broken. he wrote in his norwegian memoir -- for some reason the english edition died not have this -- wrote a dedication to his father in his memoir. the dedication read, he died not knowing. the last thing i would say is the theme would be teamwork. now, again, much like that story about einer jumping through the hole wasn't the case. to hear and read about the story and these gentlemen -- they're gung ho, they're gonzo the whole way. hawseand recount after being in this cabin in the vita for over two months -- remember, this is the winter in norway, light on a few hours a day, very cold. they're verifying awful only reindeer, only have each oomph they're in the cabin. don't have electricity, it's dark. and they're going slightly mad. and hawse writes of losing hope, wondering is any of this worth it? why are we putting up with this. skied down into rucon where our families are. and experience in real life the dreams they withhave ought platters of food being brought to the table. haws knew if he didn't do something about it, if he didn't make change they would not make it through the winter. and the fact is that they did not make it through that winter if operation grass -- grass did not survive. gunner side would never have happened. there's a wonderful scene where these four men began telling each other stories to entertain each other, to keep the time going, to sort of build this teamwork. they were in this together. and klaus recounts telling terrible poetry. apparently he was a terrible poet. hausen who was a really good hunter, had a family and on his family wall that head the ten rules of hunting. they knew those well by the end of the winter. there was a plumber. he dissected plumbing for these guys. by the end of the war they could fix any toilet, anyplace with a plumbing problem. but as much as it's kind of funny, it brings the sort of light this idea of teamwork, how important it was, what sustained these guys. what sustained grouse at critical moments. i'll conclude with two short things. one, there's a lot of at least historically was this operation important? we know at the end of 1942 the germans decided in a meeting that they are not going to move forward with the manhattan projection and all the money and resources the americans threw the problem, the germans are not going through with it. so many say that this mission was brave because these gentleman didn't know what the allies d. what the germans were doing and that is definitely the case. what we do also know is at this meeting that we will continue with atomic research. einer is told if you manage to produce self-sustaining reactor we'll shower you with resources. what was the critical difference the fact he didn't have heavy water for that? i would say it's part of the reason germans never obtained the heavy reactor and never moved forward with t program. gives himself credit at the end hoff the war the norwegian established -- stopped the bomb making. i'll conclude withtron staid who finally got his wish, not just in lop don -- london but to go to his country, parachute into this country and lead a small army in resistance to repel the germans. he was killed early 1945 by a collaborator. he never got to see freedom of norway but i want to bring back the reason these guys were fighting, again, because as much as it was about atomics, about stopping hitler's bomb, they were doing it for the towns towd villages, and tron staid wrote a letter to his life that he gave his secretary in the event of my death, give this to my wife. and his son gave this letter, read it. it's in norwegian. i do not speak norwegian. but read it to me and translated it for me. i promised him i would read it and talk about it. i have the honor to lead an important expedition home which will be of great importance to norway's future. it is in line with the course i chose on april 9, 1940, for all my effort and able toward our country's welfare, the war is singing its last verse, and it requires every effort from all who would call themselves men. you will understand that, won't you? we have had so many magical happy years and my highest wish is to continue that happy life together. but should the almighty have another course for me, know that my last thought was of you. time is short. but if all does not go well, don't feel sorry. i am completely happy and thankful for what i have had in life, even though i very much would like to live to help norway back. to wish the best for -- in life and look forward to seeing them all again. and then the letter was signed, your beloved. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> we have time for a few questions. if anybody has questions for neil. i'm sure there must be one or two out there. while you're pondering your questions i'm going to ask the first one. these norwegian commandos were remarkable individuals who did something amazing. after the war did they -- they would become plumbers again? i imagine men who are capable of doing this sort of thing and who quit. imagine them becoming war correspondents or michigan like -- or something like that. do you know anything about their post war life? >> some of them stayed in the military. groen enberg became a broadcaster. hellberg was for many seasons in the vita. they all took different courses but what i would say about their post war lives are two things. one, these episodes in this life they lived there sort of imprinted itself on them. systems in haunting ways. einer's daughter told me that you would never approach einer from behind. as he was always -- he lived underground, lived in a cabin where at any moment the germans could come and never lost that. some of them went to sort of heal their wounds by going into the woods for weeks at a time. i thing night haugman was the most extraordinary story bus he himself felt wounded psychologically, and decided to join the kon tiki division. the was the radio operator. so he lived another extraordinary life, and i think they all did in their open ways. the other thing i would say is they were very tightknit, most o -- most of them over the course of their lives. many gathered every year at a hunting cabin, and talked war stories and also just in some ways nobody else understood them. >> right here in the front row. we have microphone coming for c-span. >> thank you so much for your interesting some and thoughtful presentation. i happened to serve if the american embassy in oslo and recall the underground museum. and i recall there was a mention of this episode of the grounding of the heavy water facility and this museum documented the resistance which was the sinking of german would enter the fjord was not able to capture the city. they were able to escape. so that museum is a major source of inspiration about the resistance to the nazi occupation. >> i absolutely agree with you. norwegian resistance museum was both an absolute resource for me. i mean, their archives are tremendous. and i focus on this story and i talk about the norwegian independent company, but i think post war to a man these individuals say their most important job what not this. it was other operations they were on. there will quite a number of companyies, norwegian independent men, many lost their lives. if you read diaries, this is in there it's in there every month or so there's a little mention of it. but there's a litany of other operations. they all were named after -- many of them named after -- there's -- it's fascinating. the whole story. >> as a young gentleman in the third row in from the aisle. well, -- all right. we'll take both of them. they both had their hands up. go ahead. >> what is a minefield? >> if we want to get the one from here as well. >> if the germans -- why didn't they continue? >> so, the minefield, first of all, minefield is basically the germans and other countries, they put these explosives underneath the ground, okay? and they have a setting that can explode them, and many of them -- most of them were taken away after the war, so they're totally safe now. the question about the -- >> how does it react? like, explode? >> how does it explode? in many circumstances it's the weight that lets you -- let's say, an animal is going through a minefield. if a hoof steps on it that weight would trigger it so go off. the question of what did they continue to do because the germans reconstituted the plant. the allies in some ways got their way. there was major bombing mission with hundreds of b-17s and -- 24 bomb -- b-24 bombers. the plant was not touched. a number of civilians were killed. but the consequence of that, although the heavy water facility was not stopped, the germans decided at that point -- i read a report that one german official sent from rucon to berlin saying, the norwegians have made a national sport, quote, of sabotaging the plant. we need to move it. and so you find that in february of 1944, they in fact begin to disassemble the plant, begin to bring the heavy water into barrels, and as i mentioned briefly, that sets the stage for the last sabotage, and once and for all the germans use of heavy water. >> other questions. that gentleman in the back. >> was there any connection or contact between these people and their efforts and mo berg, the american baseball player who was told to survey? >> so, i love the story of moberg. the baseball player turns spy. there's a wonderful book called "the catcher is a spy," and his mission -- one of the reason i turned on to this topic because i found that so fascinating that mo would go to germany and his plan was -- it was clear that highsenberg -- they would kill him but he had no contact at all. this was the american oss handling these operations, and there was a clear demark indication between the oss in terms of norway and the operations. >> one more question. >> what does heavy water look like? >> ooh. good question. fantastic question. it looks exactly like regular water. you can't tell the difference. looks just like -- in fact some could argue there's heavy water in a very small quantity in here, but some say it tastes the same but i don't think drinking it. it does -- scientists have shown if you drink it in large quantities it changes some biological processes. one of the reasons they built the plan is because they thought -- one of the heads thought that heavy water could cure cancer. it was not proven to do that. but it looks just week water. >> on that note let me just mention for those of you who didn't see it when we came in, we have back down there -- yes, the young lady waving her hand has a vial of heavy water which you can look at. nearby is also some drink and refreshments which as far as i me to do not contain heavy water, to which are we can thank the norwegian embassy. hope you'll join us at the reception and place all -- and the become-signing, thank you, get your book signed down the and have a drink and that would be able to chat with our friends from the norwegian embassy. thank you for coming and have a good evening. >> thank you, everybody. [applause] >> this is booktv on c-span2 weapon want to know what is on your summer reading list. end us your twices,@booktv is our twitter handle and you can also post it on our facebook page. or you can send an e-mail to booktv@c-span2.org what's on your summer reading list in booktv wants to know. >> if you look up the definition of the word "liberal" it means many different things. the word "broad-minded" comes up. open minded. a liberal is supposed to be somebody according to the definition that is tolerant of different points of view. the idea being that, while you may disagree with me but you have every right to your opinion. above all no one has the right to deny you or me our free domes of expression and freedom of cop sunday in a majorplace of ideas, competition must be kept open. there's no settled science. the ends of history are open-ended. we are not sure where we're going. checks and balances must be maintained in the government tone slur that no one single party or even one partisan point of view prevails forever. the rule of law is sacrosanct and the same rule shoots apply to everybody. that is the general idea of what a liberal-minded person should be. by to the standards liberals have a problem. codes and safe spaces are used to stifle dissent and shut down debate. progressive attorneys general are issuing subpoenas against so-called climate change die nears. the irs is targeted the president's political opponents and the president himes as abuse upped his executive authority. religious people who question same-sex marriages are called big got -- bigoted and worth, some threatened with boycotts and imprisonment. universities where progressivism reigns supreme and all across merry, in our neighborhoods or schools our local governments, there's a zero tolerance of anything that may offend or disturb whatever the orthodoxy happens to be in that particular institution at that particular time. now, it's plain to see that aggressive liberals today have become the opposite of the liberal minded person, as i've described them here. they've become intolerant in the name of tolerance. they become close-minded and even, jess, liberal, close-minded, intolerant, trying to control dissent. and too onthey use public shaming rituals, particularly in the universities and even coercion, increasingly through the law, stifle dissent and shut down debate. i wrote this book because i wanted to tell the story of how this happened, and it's a long story. it's actually an historical story. not just what has happened in the last eight years. it's been going on for a very long time, and so unfortunately also there are lot of misunderstandings and myths i wanted to tackle. and i must say at the outset it will not do if you're a conservative to simply argue that progressives have always been this way. this is a response i've gotten on twitter as i've been trying to promote the book. a lot of people come back, what's new under the sun they've awful been intolerant. i don't think that progre

Related Keywords

New York , United States , Norway , Germany , Austria , Mozambique , Washington , Russia , Michigan , Miami University , Ohio , Seattle , London , City Of , United Kingdom , Israel , Morocco , Sweden , Oslo , Brooklyn , Hyde Park , United Kingdom General , South Korea , Poland , Switzerland , Berlin , North Sea , Oceans General , Oceans , Americans , Norwegian , Chosen , Germans , Scotland , Britain , German , British , Norwegians , Israeli , Austrian , American , Chris Anderson , Adolf Eichmann , Klaus Wade , Vince Houghton , Frederick Kaiser , Mo Berg ,