The Winter Fortress Read online

  Haugland was the most occupied, constantly coding and decoding messages to and from London. Some of his scheduled daily broadcasts took place after midnight, and he emerged from the shell of his sleeping bag only as far as he needed to tap out his Morse. Mostly he sent word about the weather: the direction and strength of the wind, the height of the clouds, and the visibility. Weather was everything now, and right up to the time of the operation it had been very unpredictable. One day it was clear. The next, there were high clouds, and the next they were low, blanketing the valley. Some nights it snowed lightly; others were merely freezing cold. Only the winds were constant. They came in squalls from shifting directions, and time and again knocked over the antenna mast, meaning that one of them had to climb up on top of the cabin to set it back in place.

  November 17 was the third fine day in a row, and Haugland transmitted as much in his afternoon broadcast: “Larger lakes like Møs ice-free. Last three nights light and the sky absolutely clear. Temperature about minus five Celsius [23 degrees Fahrenheit]. Strong wind from the north has quieted down tonight. Beautiful weather.”

  That same day in Scotland was dreary and gray. At STS 26, Knut Haukelid knew nothing of Grouse’s mission, nor of the fate of his friends. In early October, his doctor had finally cleared him for training and hard duty. Still, there was no word yet on the plans for him to drop into Norway to set up additional resistance cells, nor was he tapped for any other missions. Instead he was ordered to travel down to the south of England for an armored-fighting-vehicle course. If he could not be a commando operating secretly behind enemy lines, then perhaps he might go the opposite route in the Army, bringing the fight to the Germans in a roaring twenty-seven-ton hunk of steel. They would see him coming, but given that he would be commanding a tank crew armed with a heavy machine gun and an antitank pounder, let them.

  Sardined inside the domed dorsal gun turret of a Halifax bomber barreling through the darkness over the North Sea, Mark Henniker was praying the crew could save them from disaster. Through his headset, he listened to their heated exchange.

  “Which is it, Wilkie?”

  “The one by the main spar,” the pilot, Squad Leader Wilkinson, yelled to his rookie flight engineer, who was hesitating over which fuel valves to shut on and off. “For Christ’s sake, be quick or we’ll have an engine die on us.”

  “Is it the right-hand or left-hand?”

  “The right-hand one, just behind the main spar. No, you bloody fool, not that one.”

  “Can’t get it to budge, sir.”

  “Turn the thing the other bloody way. Christ! What happened?”

  Henniker saw a bank of clouds course past. One of the port-side engines was dead, and the aircraft pitched from side to side. They were losing altitude quickly. Minutes before, he had been enjoying the exhilarating rush of streaking across the sky with the purr of the Halifax’s engines in his ears. Clouds billowed under him, while above his head the stars looked altogether like diamonds on a velvet cloth. It was November 18, the start of the new lunar phase, and he had decided to accompany one of the two Halifaxes on a test run to the landing site in Norway to acquaint the plane and glider crews with the terrain.

  In the panicked exchange, Henniker heard the navigator tell the pilot what to expect once they broke through the cloud base: “We should either see the Norwegian coastline at once, or we might charge into a mountain almost immediately.”

  “We shall turn for base,” Wilkinson said. “I hope to God we get there!”

  The Halifax banked sharply, and Henniker feared they would not make it the four hundred miles back to Scotland. If this “great monster” ditched into the sea, it would sink within ten minutes, faster if the petrol tanks were still full.

  Two hours later, they landed at Skitten, a remote RAF airfield on the northeastern tip of Scotland. Group Captain Tom Cooper, who was piloting the other Halifax, returned soon after. Even with the clear night over the Vidda, nobody on his plane had spotted the landing site. He told Henniker that the mountains and valleys, lined up in indistinguishable bands of “dark and light,” reminded him of tiger’s stripes. Short of perfect weather and a keen eye to locate the Skoland marshes, the mission depended on the Eureka/Rebecca signals bringing the gliders to their spot.

  Under a tight schedule, Cooper had done everything possible to ready his side of the operation. His 38 Wing pilots underwent tens of hours of Halifax training and had perfected homing in on landing sites by radio beacon. In their final nighttime practice, they had missed a direct flyover by only forty yards. The glider pilots had trained hard as well. Still, Cooper knew that even in daylight, a smooth, on-target landing was always a bit of a trick.

  He had also tested in a freezer the communication link woven into the towline that connected the glider to the Halifax. It was critical that the link worked in the frigid air over Norway. He stressed to his superiors that his aircrews could have used more training and the Halifaxes more maintenance work. They must, as one of his commanders wrote, make do, as “it is too late to stop, and we must hope for the best.” Churchill had already been notified that Operation Freshman was set to go.

  The Skitten cooks managed to rustle up some bacon and eggs for the returning crews, then Henniker fell into bed for a few hours’ rest. At 10:30 a.m. the next day, November 19, he received a weather report from the Grouse team: another cloudless day with light northwest winds. He met with Cooper to decide if the operation would go ahead. By evening, the men and planes would be ready. The only question now: Would the weather hold? Cooper had his own meteorologists at Skitten, but Combined Operations had also sent him a Norwegian one, Lieutenant Colonel Sverre Petterssen, to advise. Petterssen, a former MIT professor, spent the whole morning studying charts and the latest weather reports. Despite the message from Grouse, he was worried about the strong westerly currents over Scotland and the upper reaches of the North Sea. They might bring tough conditions by late evening. Petterssen advised waiting a couple of days, when an “outbreak of Arctic air” would bring ideal conditions. Henniker and Cooper considered the Norwegian meteorologist’s forecast, but because Skitten’s own forecast did not ring any alarm bells, decided that the operation would proceed at 6:30 p.m. Norwegian time.

  Wallis Jackson, Bill Bray, and the twenty-eight other Royal Engineers were well primed for their operation. They ate sandwiches and smoked cigarettes outside the Nissen huts on the barren seaside Scottish moor that made up Skitten airfield. There was some banter, the false bravado of men about to head into action. Others handled their nerves in silence. There would be a final briefing, but they already knew what they needed to know: they were heading to Norway to blow up a power station and hydrogen plant.

  One did not have to be an Oxford don to deduce the location and nature of their target. After they had returned to their Bulford base from Brickendonbury Hall, they were given Norwegian-labeled clothing and lessons in how to walk in snowshoes (practiced in tall grass), sure clues they were headed to the land of ice and snow. Other giveaways were a visit to a power station and lessons from a Norwegian scientist (Tronstad) about how an electrolysis cell worked. The sappers still had no idea what purpose was served by the “very expensive liquid” produced at Vemork. However, given the blanket of security everywhere they traveled, and the orders to strip off their uniform’s badges and insignia, they knew it must be important.

  In their final week at Bulford before traveling up to Scotland, they had rehearsed their attack and hiked for miles every day. When one of their team twisted his ankle, their lieutenant said to the medical officer, “I need 250 miles out of this man. Will he make 100 percent recovery to take this task on? I don’t want his blood on my hands.” The sapper was bounced from the mission, and every single one of his mates knew then that they had a hard road ahead of them. It was a tough choice between which was the most intimidating: a three-and-a-half-hour night flight over the North Sea in a wooden glider or a long escape by foot through occupied territory to Swede
n.

  Still, none backed out.

  At Skitten, most of the sappers wrote home, some betraying their worry. To his mother, Wallis Jackson simply wrote, “Mamie, if you send my laundry and letters here it will be okay. Looking forward to my next leave. Bags of love, Wallie. P.S. Writing this in bed where it’s warm.” Bill Bray, who was suffering a cold and sore throat, wrote a quick letter to his wife, hours before they were to leave. “A few lines in haste to let you know I am just off on a raid. I can’t say where but don’t worry too much darling if you don’t hear for a couple of weeks or so. But I shall be back for Christmas so get that chicken ordered up . . . Darling, remember I love you and adore you. Don’t worry too much dear because I shall be back so bye bye and God bless you. From your ever loving hubby, Billy.”

  After the sappers finished their tea, Henniker and his two lieutenants, Alexander Allen and David Mehtven, gave them a short briefing. “Whatever happens,” Henniker concluded, “someone must arrive at the objective to do the job. Detection is no excuse for halting.” He wished them good luck and Godspeed. Then the men finished kitting up. They wore steel helmets and British Army uniforms with blue rollneck sweaters underneath. They each had a Sten gun, a rucksack filled with ten days of rations, a sleeping bag, explosives, and other equipment. Some of them carried silk maps with the target circled in blue and a false escape route to the west coast of Norway. After the operation, these would be dropped to throw off their pursuers.

  Under a slight drizzle, the sappers strode out onto the runway where two black Horsa gliders stood behind their Halifaxes. Wilkinson was flying Halifax A, with Cooper onboard to supervise the overall flight. Arthur Parkinson, a twenty-six-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force pilot, was captaining Halifax B. While the Halifax crews went through their checks, the sappers boarded the gliders. Jackson was in Glider A, Bray in B. Most of them were in their early twenties, and one observer noted that they looked like schoolboys. The men took their positions in the fuselage and strapped on their safety harnesses. The floor beneath their boots was corrugated metal, its long channels designed to prevent slipping on the vomit that was a regular companion on glider flights. Henniker wished them good fortune one more time, then the ground crew closed the hinged tail of the glider. As their pilots readied for the tow, the sappers were left to look at one another and wonder how the mission would unfold.

  After a slight delay, the Halifaxes powered up. Wilkinson steered his onto the runway first, pulling Glider A along behind by a taut, 350-foot-long hemp rope. At 6:45 p.m., with a wave from the crews, the Halifax roared down the runway. The glider followed behind, and at roughly seventy miles per hour, the two aircraft ascended into the sky. Fifteen minutes later, Halifax B and its glider took off. Including air crews and sappers, there were forty-eight men on the mission. Henniker watched from the ground. Early in the operation’s planning, he had volunteered to personally lead his men, but his superiors had forbidden it.

  Skitten’s radio operators messaged Combined Operations and SOE HQs that the two planes had departed. In his diary that night, Leif Tronstad jotted down, “Two small birds following two large ones, off toward an uncertain fate tonight.”

  “Girl”—the coded message came in to Haugland at the Lake Sand cabin. The sappers were on their way. After Haugland acknowledged reception of the code word, Poulsson led his three men on skis to the seven-hundred-yard-long landing zone they had picked out on the Skoland marshes. When they arrived, it was after dusk and the weather was changing. A moderate wind blew in from the west, and scattered clouds hung in the sky. Visibility was still good, but knowing the Vidda, this might alter at a moment’s notice.

  Leaving Haugland and Kjelstrup on a hillside to set up the aerials and batteries for the Eureka beacon, Poulsson and Helberg moved down into the snow-covered marsh to mark out the landing zone. Using the length of their strides to measure the distance, they placed six red-beamed flashlights, each 150 yards from the last, in an L shape in the snow. They would be switched on as the planes approached, and Poulsson would stand at the corner of the L, flashing a white-beamed flashlight, to bring in the gliders. Haugland would be the first to know the Halifaxes were coming: When a plane approached, its Rebecca device would send a short-range radio signal to his Eureka. A tone would sound in his headset, and his Eureka would retransmit this signal back to the Rebecca at a different frequency, giving the plane’s navigator a bead on the distance and direction to the landing zone.

  Everything ready, the Grouse team gathered around the Eureka in the dark and in a cold wind, certain that they could lead the sappers undetected to the target and that the defenses at Vemork would be overcome. The gliders needed only to land safely. Even just one needed to land. But with each passing minute, the scattered clouds lowered, obscuring the moon, and the northwest wind rose into a scream.

  10

  The Lost

  * * *

  HAUGLAND WAS KNEELING in the snow beside the Eureka when a distinct tone sounded in his headset. It was 9:40 p.m. Through the rising winds, he shouted to Poulsson, “I hear the Rebecca. They’re coming now.” Poulsson skied down toward the landing site. As he went, he waved to Helberg and Kjelstrup, who were already in position, awaiting the arrival of the Halifaxes. “Up with the lights,” Poulsson called out. “Up with the lights.” Quickly, they lit the red L in the snow.

  Poulsson stood at the corner of the L, covering and uncovering the white beam of his flashlight. The wind whipped around him. He stared skyward, the low clouds breaking occasionally to reveal the moon. Although he worried the flashlight beams were too weak for the pilots to see through the cloud cover, he knew that the Eureka radio beacon would bring them in close nonetheless. A few minutes passed before they heard the low grumble of a Halifax approaching from the southwest.

  “I can hear it!” Haugland cried out, though he knew his voice was lost to the others.

  The engines grew louder—the Halifax was surely flying right above them. Spirits high, they waited for the glider to appear out of the darkness. Gradually, though, the roar of the engines faded, and Haugland’s headset went silent. Poulsson continued to flash his signal, and the red lights continued to shine upward into the empty night. No glider. Nothing. If the Halifax had not released, would it come around for another pass? Would the second Halifax come soon? Had the navigator been unable to zero in on their location with his Rebecca device? Had the glider pilots hesitated to release because they lacked visual confirmation of the landing site? They waited several more minutes, no answers to their questions. At last, another tone sounded in Haugland’s headset.

  “Number two is coming!” Haugland called out.

  As before, the drone of engines cut through the night, this time from the east. But the sound never grew any louder, nor did any gliders appear. Over the next hour, the Eureka toned a few more times, and they heard engines from several different directions. The Eureka continued to drain life from its battery, and they did not have a way to recharge it quickly. Then there was only silence. Poulsson, Helberg, and Kjelstrup eventually shut off their flashlights and made their way back to Haugland. Even with the poor weather, they could not understand how the planes could have come so close and yet remained unseen.

  Flying with the moon behind them, their visibility diminished, the crew of Halifax A found it impossible to make out where they were on their map. Every valley, mountain, and lake looked alike. They might have had as much luck tracking a wave in an endless sea. By the navigator’s calculations, they should have been within twenty to thirty miles of the landing zone. But they never saw any red L on the ground, and their Rebecca was not working. In sum, they were wandering in the dark, and their fuel gauges were running low. Cooper, who was in the cockpit, decided that they should turn back to Scotland. It was approaching midnight, and after almost five hours of flying, the plane would just about make it home.

  When they had first taken off, Wilkinson had steered the Halifax southeast from Skitten. He threaded through holes
in the cloud layer until they were in open, clear sky at ten thousand feet. The intercom between the plane and the glider was not working, so they could only communicate by Morse with lights. Otherwise, the journey across the North Sea was a calm ride. Because of the high ceiling of clouds on Norway’s west coast, the navigator charted a course around the southern tip. But before they reached landfall, the power to the Rebecca failed, and no matter what they did they could not fix it. They would have to find the Skoland marshes by sight alone.

  East of Kristiansand they pinpointed their location, and Wilkinson turned north, the idea being to follow a path of lakes toward Vemork. For the first half of the journey, they kept a good bead on their position. There was only a scattering of clouds, the moon shone brilliantly, and the valleys were clear of fog. However, the farther they went, the harder it was to mark where they were on their maps. They maintained course, but at roughly 11:00 p.m., the time they’d estimated they’d be over the target, they were unable to identify any landmarks between the clouds. Wilkinson turned to the east; Cooper hoped they would cross over some lakes from which he could navigate. When this failed, they veered southeast for twenty minutes until they spotted the coast. Then they reversed direction back toward Vemork. It was then that Cooper decided to head back to Scotland.

  Having set a new course, they found themselves enveloped in clouds at nine thousand feet. When Wilkinson adjusted the controls to ascend, the glider in tow behind, the aircraft failed to respond. Ice was beginning to form on the wings of both the plane and the glider. At full throttle, engines roaring, the plane finally rose. They reached twelve thousand feet, but the Halifax could not maintain its altitude nor its speed. It dropped back down into the clouds. The four propellers flung off ice in shards that crashed into the fuselage with the same terrifying sound as antiaircraft fire. Cooper knew there was no choice. They needed to get to a lower altitude to clear the ice, or they would not make it. Wilkinson dipped down to seven thousand feet, but turbulence was even worse at the lower altitude. In thickening clouds, the plane shook violently.