The Winter Fortress Read online

  Terboven intensified efforts to prevent any future raids and to break the will of the Norwegian people. New border regulations, ration cards, and travel permits were instituted. The list of violations punishable by death now included providing shelter to enemies of the state and attempting to leave the country. Across Norway, thousands were arrested, often indiscriminately. Prison transports to Germany increased. Informants were pressed for names of those in the resistance. Torture intensified. If a known resistance member couldn’t be found, the Gestapo took his or her parents or siblings instead.

  In mid-October Hitler delivered a secret order, the Kommandobefehl, to his generals across Europe, including Falkenhorst, to further punish the Allies for their commando attacks: “Henceforth all enemy troops encountered in so-called commando raids in Europe or in Africa, are to be annihilated to the last man. This is to be carried out whether they be soldiers in uniform, or demolition groups, armed or unarmed; and whether in combat or seeking to escape . . . If such men appear to be about to surrender, no quarter should be given to them—on general principle.” The order clearly violated the written and unwritten codes of war.

  7

  Make a Good Job

  * * *

  WHEN COLONEL WILSON summoned Poulsson and his radio operator Haugland to London on October 12, the Grouse team members could not help but fear that their mission was going to be postponed yet again—or canceled altogether. Their pilot had called off the first flight attempt because of dense fog. On the second, their Halifax airplane was already over Norway when one of its engines burned up and they were forced to turn back. They had almost needed to parachute out over Scotland, but the pilot dropped their heavy gear, sufficiently lightening the plane for an emergency landing. By the time they were ready to try again, the narrow window each month, where there was enough moonlight, had passed. “Finally”—as many Kompani Linge members said when their planes were about to go wheels up on an operation—might now be “Never.”

  At Chiltern Court, the colonel got straight to the point. Rather than fomenting resistance in Rjukan, Grouse would now be the advance operation on a British Army action against Vemork. First, they would recon a landing area for either a parachute drop or Horsa glider. Second, they were to act as a reception committee, putting out lights to direct the aircraft as well as operating a homing radio beacon. Third, on the night of attack, they would guide between twenty-five and thirty Royal Engineers to the target. As for facilitating their escape, or the specific purpose of blowing up Vemork and its heavy water plant, Wilson told them nothing. They knew better than to ask.

  Underscoring the top-secret nature of the mission, Wilson informed Poulsson and Haugland that Helberg and Kjelstrup were not to be told of the mission change until the team arrived in Norway. Further, they were to blind drop into the Vidda. For security reasons, Einar Skinnarland would no longer receive them, nor were they to have any contact with him or his family. If their paths never crossed, the Germans would not be able to tie the two together. The Grouse team was to leave at the first available date of the next moon phase, October 18 at best, and the operation would take place the following month, giving them time to prepare. Then Wilson led them into a room full of maps and reconnaissance photos. He wanted them to pick out a safe spot within the vicinity of Vemork for the sappers to land. Some suggestion was made about a mountain clearing, but Poulsson worried that the British soldiers would have trouble navigating through the snow and harsh terrain. In November, an early snowstorm would demand practiced skiers.

  Come back with an answer, Wilson told them.

  The two Rjukan men didn’t need a map, as they had traversed every inch of the surrounding area on skis and by foot. Together, Poulsson and Haugland came to the same conclusion: the Skoland marshes. The marshes were a wedge of unpopulated land at the eastern point of Lake Møs. They were southwest of the dam and next to a mountain road connecting Rjukan to Rauland that was closed during the winter months. The British Royal Engineers would have a clear run down the road to Vemork, only eight miles away.

  The spot was particularly well known to Haugland. As a boy, he had hiked with his family along the pass toward Rauland, fishing for trout and picking cloudberries along the way. One time while they were camping there, his eldest brother, Ottar, came down with scarlet fever. Their father fitted a rucksack across his chest and hoisted his big, fourteen-year-old son onto his back, bringing him over the mountains to medical attention. It was then that young Knut understood the meaning of strength.

  Poulsson and Haugland presented their selection to Wilson, and he took it to Combined Operations. Over the next few days, the two were briefed on what they were to communicate—and when—for the entirety of the operation, down to the codes and passwords. All their instructions were given verbally and memorized. “This is Piccadilly,” Poulsson was to say on receiving the commandos. “I wanted Leicester Square,” they should respond. It was unlikely that there would be any other British troops arriving by glider in November in the marshes, but Poulsson and Haugland did not question the need for passwords.

  On the day of their departure for Scotland, Wilson brought them in for one final meeting. “This mission is exceedingly important,” he said. “The Germans must be prevented from getting their hands on large quantities of heavy water. They use it for experiments, which, if they succeed, could result in an explosive that could wipe London off the map.” The colonel must be a little overexcited, Poulsson and Haugland thought; no explosive could do such a thing. Perhaps he simply wanted to inspire them to the task at hand. Nevertheless, they assured him that they would do everything they could to see the operation was a success.

  “Make a good job out of it,” Wilson replied.

  At STS 26’s Drumintoul Lodge, in a side room with a small fireplace, Joachim Rønneberg set up his headquarters for Operation Fieldfare. The young second lieutenant pasted scaled maps of Norway on the walls and inventoried a list of winter survival equipment he would need, all to prepare for his recently approved mission to establish a resistance cell in the Romsdal Valley. From there, he and his fellow Kompani Linge member Birger Strømsheim would sabotage critical German supply rail lines.

  For almost a year and a half, since first meeting Martin Linge at Norway House, Rønneberg had been waiting, like most of his compatriots, for an operation. Linge had convinced him that his first choice, the Navy, could do without him and that there was “valuable work” for him with the Norwegian Independent Company. Months of training followed. Some nights, Rønneberg had trouble sleeping, profoundly disturbed that he was essentially in a “vocational school for butchers.” It was a life so different from the peaceful, quiet one in which he had been raised.

  Rønneberg was from the prominent harbor town of Ålesund, on Norway’s northwestern coast. For generations, his family had owned a collection of businesses centered around the fishing industry—everything from ships, barges, and wharf sheds to a rope factory and export business.

  Growing up, Rønneberg felt most at home in the outdoors. He loved Alpine skiing and raced whenever he could. He often ventured into the mountains for days at a time. He especially liked orienteering. By the time he was a teenager, he was confident enough to head out on his own, finding his way with only a map and a compass. “If you were alone in the wild you never felt alone,” he said. “You were not afraid. You knew within yourself what to do.”

  At twenty, Rønneberg intended to join the family business. When called up for national service, he volunteered to be a land surveyor’s assistant instead of joining the military; thus, when war broke out, he was not mobilized. While he remained in Ålesund, plagued with guilt, his friends went into battle. Some died, including his closest friend, who was killed by German soldiers waving the white flag of surrender as a ruse to draw him near. Although Rønneberg did not join the underground, he detested the Nazis’ presence in Ålesund, soldiers marching and singing in his streets, acting like they were a law unto themselves. He burned
to do something. In March 1941 he arranged for ship transport to Britain.

  Fearing his parents might try to stop him, he wrote a note to them that was delivered only after he had left: “If you only knew what it has cost me to put a good face on things. You will wonder why I did not come to dinner, why my bed is empty . . . You can seek solace in the fact that you are now sharing the same sacrifice as many families in our beloved country and also that I will never feel more free than on the day we cast off from Norwegian soil and plow the sea, bound for freedom’s last hope. Live well then dear mother and father and brothers . . . We will meet again before too long. You will always be with me wherever I go in the world.” He crossed the roiling North Sea in a forty-five-foot fishing boat, often manning the helm when the others in the crew were seasick.

  When he joined the Norwegian company, Rønneberg was twenty-one years old. He had no military training and no experience in war or resistance work. Nonetheless, he excelled at the SOE’s training schools, particularly with explosives and raid exercises. He also made peace with the brutality he was being taught, as he knew it would allow him to survive in any situation.

  After finishing training, Rønneberg was sure he would be sent on a mission, but Linge called him to London and told him, “We’re off to the tailor.” There, he was suited up in a fresh uniform for his new role as an instructor of recruits. At first, this meant that he was primarily involved in translation and liaison activities (mastering his English by reading detective novels), but with each new squad that came through, he led more of the instruction. From Stodham Park he was sent to Meoble, then finally to Aviemore. He became an expert in demolitions and devised many of the sabotage schemes against bridges, railway stations, and military barracks that his students executed. At first he felt ill fitted for the role. He thought he should be on real missions, doing real work. But every time an operation leader asked for Rønneberg to be on his team, he was told by the SOE, “No, we need him here.” Eventually he embraced his role, taking his trainees on practice marauding raids through Scotland. Instead of using explosives, they tagged intended targets with white chalk. If what the trainees learned under his direction helped make their missions successful, then he was making a difference. Meanwhile, he developed and pitched his own operations to his superiors, but none had yet been set in motion.

  In fall 1942 the SOE signed off on Operation Fieldfare. Once Rønneberg’s preparations were finished, and the moon phase was right, he and Strømsheim expected to be dropped into Norway to make a start.

  “Number one, go!” the dispatcher yelled through the cold wind whipping into the Halifax. It was 11:36 p.m., October 18, 1942. With a surge of excitement and fear, Poulsson edged himself out of the open hatch on the plane’s belly. He tipped forward, careful to keep his head clear of the opposite side of the hatch. And then in an instant he was falling, falling fast. The sixteen-foot line connected to his parachute pack and a steel cable in the Halifax went taut. The chute emerged from its pack like a butterfly from its cocoon. He continued to free-fall until the air swept into the silk chute and he was yanked sharply upwards by the straps tight over his shoulders. The sound of the plane’s engines faded, and he was floating downward from a thousand feet.

  The Vidda spread out beneath him in the clear moonlight: its snow-peaked mountains, isolated hills, lakes, rivers, and narrow ravines. It was a place both beautiful and terrible, and Poulsson knew it must be respected. At three thousand feet above sea level, it was exposed to unpredictable weather and high winds that could hurl a man off his feet. In the winter, a skier could be sunning himself on a rock one moment only to find a storm sweeping through the next, bringing blinding slivers of ice and snow and temperatures below minus-thirty degrees Celsius. Norwegian legend had it that it could grow cold enough, quickly enough, to freeze flames in a fire. According to simple fact, it could kill the unprepared in two hours.

  The Germans had steered around the thirty-five-hundred-square-mile plateau when they attacked Norway, and even now the country’s occupiers dared venture only far enough into it that they could get out by sunset. There were no roads, no permanent habitations in the huge expanse of land. Only skilled skiers and hikers could reach its scattering of hunting cabins. In the valleys, one could find birch trees, but many areas were simply frozen, lifeless hillsides of broken scree, one mile indistinguishable from the next.

  As he scanned the landscape in preparation for landing, Poulsson found himself unable to identify the flat Løkkjes marshes, twenty miles west of Vemork, where they were expected to drop. Instead, there was only snow-patched hillsides of boulder and rocks—ideal for snapping one’s neck.

  He landed hard, but luckily without injury, and quickly got loose from his parachute before a gust of wind took him for a limb-breaking ride across the rough terrain. He called out to the other members of the Grouse team, who had followed him out of the plane. Kjelstrup and Haugland were in good shape, but Helberg walked gingerly, having come down against the edge of a boulder. On examination, the back of his thigh was swelling, but there was no fracture. He did not complain.

  For the next few hours, they searched the hillsides for their eight containers of gear, most importantly their stove, tent, and sleeping bags. If a storm hit without those essential supplies, they would be in trouble. Though they located this equipment, it was too late to do anything more than take shelter from the wind and settle in for the night. They made camp, huddling together beside a boulder. It was cold, but bearable. They all wore long underwear and two pairs of wool socks. Then gabardine trousers, buttoned shirts, and thick sweaters. Over these went parkas and windproof pants. They also had wool caps and two pairs of gloves, as well as balaclavas and goggles, but there was no need for those now.

  Poulsson dug into his pouch of tobacco and prepared his pipe, a ritual that somehow eased the nerves of the others. He lit the pipe, puffed a couple of times, and then addressed the Grouse team members who were as yet uninformed of the mission change. “There’s a new order of the day,” he told Helberg and Kjelstrup. No longer were they there to build up a network of resistance cells; instead, they were the advance team for a sabotage operation. On hearing the plan, Helberg thought it was a suicide mission for the British troops: How would they escape Norway? All four Norwegian commandos, however, were happy they would be in on a bigger job. As Haugland thought: You don’t jump out of a plane over your occupied country to contribute a little something.

  Divided into a pair of tents, using their parachutes as ground sheets, the four slept wrapped in their sleeping bags. They woke to a stunningly clear blue sky, the rugged hills surrounding them cast in sharp relief. They were home now, far from soggy Scotland; the air was crisp and dry. Examining the terrain, Poulsson determined they had landed on the edge of the Songa Valley, more than ten miles west of their intended drop point.

  The men spent two backbreaking days collecting the rest of their supply containers, scattered about the area. On inspection, they found some serious problems. First, their British suppliers had neglected to pack enough kerosene for their small Primus stoves. These stoves would have allowed them to hike a straight course over the barren mountains to the Skoland marshes, where they would meet the Royal Engineers. But crossing this type of countryside was too great a risk without some source of heat, so they would have to travel through the valley, where there would be cabins for shelter and birch trees for firewood. That added a lot of distance and at least several days to their journey.

  Second, their suppliers had made some critical mistakes with the radio equipment Haugland ordered. They had failed to include bamboo poles for rigging the antenna. They had also replaced the standard-issue Ford car batteries, used to power the wireless set and their homing beacon, with batteries weighing twice as much. Worse, these batteries were stamped MADE IN ENGLAND. The British connection would put anyone involved in recharging the batteries in serious danger if they were caught. They tried lashing together ski poles with parachute cord to for
m an antenna, but they failed to reach London by wireless. Now they faced a forty-five-mile trek across the Vidda, uncertain if they would be able to make radio contact with their handlers or arrive at the drop location in time to meet the British sappers.

  8

  Keen as Mustard

  * * *

  ON OCTOBER 20, Einar Skinnarland was working in the dark. On the edge of the frozen, dagger-shaped expanse of Lake Langesjå, he waited through yet another night for Grouse’s arrival. The cold bit at his face, and from the winds that swept across the treeless, boulder-strewn terrain, he could tell a storm was coming. He had received news of the team’s intended drop from a BBC evening broadcast that stated, “This is the latest news from London,” instead of the usual, “This is the news from London.” As with the two previous mornings, he returned home empty-handed, his face raw from the wind and the bitter temperatures.

  Over the six months Skinnarland had spent living a double life, the fear of discovery had been constant. During the day, he worked for Norsk Hydro. At night, he continued to operate his intelligence network. He had several informants at Vemork, and he learned that one, who had been asking questions at the plant for him, had been brought in by Rjukan’s police chief. Nothing came of it, but a loose word, a single mistake, by any of a number of people, including Skinnarland himself, and he would be lost. Despite these risks, he was too often, frustratingly, given less information than he needed from his handlers in London, whether because of communication breakdowns or because of need-to-know secrecy.

  This was the job he had volunteered for, but how long could he keep inviting disaster for men who never showed up? He would head to Oslo in a few days, deliver his latest intelligence, and find out what he was to do next. Until then, he would continue to spend his nights at Lake Langesjå, and wait.