The Winter Fortress Read online

  “Are you married?” Linge asked.

  Haukelid answered yes. Most recruits answered no, which Linge tended to follow up with the riposte, “That’s good. Then we won’t have to send flowers to your widow.” Liking what he saw in Haukelid, Linge welcomed him to Norwegian Independent Company No. 1. Within a week, he was issued his boots and British uniform.

  After a long train ride, then a ferry across Loch Morar on the cold, windswept coastline of western Scotland, Haukelid arrived at the next stage of his training. Some instructors at Meoble, an old hunting lodge, were Norwegians who had undergone the course already and now led the way, translating directions from their British commanders when needed.

  Marches through Stodham Park were replaced with scrambles through thick brush, fording ice-cold rivers, and rappelling down steep ravines—or crossing them on ropes. With both British and foreign weapons, the men practiced instinctive shooting (shooting without the use of sights) and learned close-quarter firing. They stalked the shadowed pine woods, firing at pop-up targets. They moved through building mockups, clearing the rooms. In demolitions, they graduated from blowing up logs to destroying railroad cars and factories. They crafted charges and incendiary devices of all sizes. Haukelid was amazed at what a small charge placed in the perfect spot at the perfect time could do: it could stop an army, render a weapons plant useless.

  They became faster at sending and receiving messages in Morse. They practiced how to kill silently with a knife, making sure the blade slipped into flesh, avoiding bone. They were taught how to break into safes, how to use poison, how to incapacitate someone with chloroform. They learned how to follow a route to a target by memory alone, without maps or compass. They studied how to camouflage themselves in the field, how to crawl through a marsh and reach their enemy undetected, how to take them down without a sound—without even a weapon.

  “This is war, not sport,” their instructors reminded them. “So forget the Queensberry rules; forget the term ‘foul methods’ . . . these methods help you to kill quickly.” Haukelid learned that a sharp blow with the side of his hand could paralyze, break bones, or kill. Weak points on the human body included the back of the neck, just to the left or right of the spine; between the Adam’s apple and the bridge of the nose; the temple; and the kidneys. He practiced these blows on mannequins, over and over, until his hand felt like it would break.

  Even the occasional night off, like Christmas or New Year’s Eve, was instructive. Their teachers brought Haukelid and the others in his squad to a pub, where they plied their charges with strong ales and whiskey. At first it seemed like a good time, but they learned later that they were observed all evening to see who drank too much, who made a spectacle of himself, or, worst of all, who spoke out of turn. One had always to be on one’s guard.

  All the lessons were then woven together in staged raids, both in the light of day and in darkness. At Meoble, the instructors called these “schemes.” The men were given a target—a railway line, military barracks, airport, or factory. They devised an attack plan: the route, whose responsibility it was to scout, to do recon, to provide cover, and to hit the target. Then they executed the plan, carrying real weapons and anything else they would need. When possible, they placed live charges. Some of these raids took hours. Others took them away from Meoble for several days. The instructors and some of the other recruits played the role of the Ge-stapo, eager to thwart the raid, ready to be as rough as they needed to be.

  It was a merciless regime and, like before, Haukelid was asked regularly if he wanted out. He refused. They may not have been learning traditional warfare, with fixed lines and flanking maneuvers, but David was fighting Goliath, and Haukelid knew that “gangster school” (what they were told the Germans called places like Meoble) was exactly where he needed to be. The chief of Meoble thought the same, informing his bosses in London that Haukelid was “a really sound man and cunning. Has done well. Has no fear. Another excellent student who would do well in almost any special job.”

  Before leaving Meoble, Haukelid discovered that the Norwegian company was not unique. Rather, it was part of an expansive organization called the Special Operations Executive (SOE), with country sections across Europe and beyond.

  Founded soon after Winston Churchill was elected prime minister, its directive was to “set Europe ablaze” with commando missions against the Nazis. Hugh Dalton, head of the Ministry of Economic Warfare and the SOE’s first leader, formulated the basis of its purpose. “We must organize movements in enemy-occupied territory comparable to the Sinn Féin movement in Ireland, to the Chinese guerillas now operating against Japan, to the Spanish Irregulars who played a notable part in Wellington’s campaign . . . We must use many different methods, including industrial and military sabotage, labor agitation and strikes, continuous propaganda, terrorist acts against traitors and German leaders, boycotts and riot.” Culling staff and methods from SIS’s D section (D for destruction) and the Army’s similar MI (Military Intelligence) unit, its masterminds, who started the organization from three rooms at St. Ermin’s Hotel, referred to themselves as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

  On January 14, 1942, Haukelid arrived at Special Training School (STS) 26, in the Scottish Highlands near Aviemore, the home of Norwegian Independent Company No. 1. He was eager to be sent into action. Roughly 150 Norwegians lived in three hunting lodges (Glenmore, Forest Lodge, and Drumintoul) amid cragged granite mountain peaks, steep pine-forested valleys, and endless stretches of moors. The place, nicknamed simply Twenty-Six, reminded Haukelid almost too much of his homeland, but that meant it was ideal terrain to prepare for missions. He was soon to realize that there were none in the offing.

  While Haukelid was training at Meoble, the British had launched two major combined air, land, and sea operations: one against the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway, the other on a pair of coastal towns, Måløy and Vågsøy, in western Norway. Taken together, the attacks aimed to weaken the German hold on the coastline and stop production of fish oil, used to make TNT. On December 27, 1941, British destroyers bombarded Måløy, silencing its coastal batteries and leveling the German troop barracks. The Royal Air Force dropped smoke bombs to blind German defenders to a beachhead assault by six hundred British forces. They were joined by Captain Linge and twenty of his men. The Måløy garrison surrendered soon after the attack began, and Vågsøy was taken with similar ease. Tragically, Linge was killed in the assault, hit by a sniper as he rushed the German headquarters.

  In the Lofotens, seventy-seven Norwegian Independent Company men had accompanied the British landing force. They made a swift advance. By nightfall, several German garrisons and Nazi officials had been captured. The people of the island chain, who had come out in support when they were made to understand that the British were there to stay, aided the assault. The next day, the threat of a furious German counterassault by air and sea spooked the operation’s commander. He called for an immediate retreat. When the Allied force, including the Norwegian commandos, withdrew from the archipelago, the local population spat at them, knowing the reprisals they would face at the hands of the Nazis.

  When Haukelid first came to STS 26, he found a company in despair. The Lofoten debacle and the subsequent realization that the British had not even informed the exiled Norwegian government of the operation caused a furor. The death of Captain Linge broke their hearts. Many threatened to join the regular army unless their missions were aligned with the aims of their country’s leadership. The men whispered that they were considered by the exiled Norwegian government nothing more than “false beards” and a “half-trained bandit gang” who caused more trouble than they did good. A dozen members openly mutinied; they were disciplined and sent away.

  There was nothing for Haukelid to do but wait and see how the situation unfolded. He was happy to at least be surrounded by Norwegians like himself who had risked everything to come to Britain and train to fight. Though Haukelid had arrived by plane, most of the other
s had come via the so-called Shetland Bus, an armada of Norwegian fishing boats that traveled across the stormy, unpredictable North Sea to the Shetland Islands. One in his company had even made the journey alone, in a rowing boat. Others, like Jens-Anton Poulsson, a lanky twenty-three-year-old soldier from Rjukan, whose tobacco pipe was never far from his mouth, had traveled for over six months around the world—from Norway, to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, India, South Africa, and Canada—to finally arrive on Britain’s shores.

  For two weeks Haukelid trained with his new company and roamed the snowbound countryside. There was never enough food at STS 26, and though hunting was technically against the rules, bagging a stag for extra nourishment was not exactly discouraged. Haukelid, who had taken the nickname Bonzo, after his childhood teddy bear, loved the sport it provided.

  But the pall over his company remained. Then, on January 31, several visitors came up from London by night train. The company showed off their shooting and raid techniques, and then hosted a dinner at one of the lodges. Oscar Torp, the Norwegian defense minister in exile, and Major General Colin Gubbins, second in command of the SOE, were the guests of honor. Torp gave a rousing speech, promising a new era of cooperation between the exiled Norwegian government and the British. Their aim in Norway was twofold: the long-term goal of building up Milorg, which was now under Army command, in the anticipation of a future Allied invasion of Norway; and the short-term goal of performing sabotage operations and assisting in raids to weaken German military and economic strength. The Independent Company would be the tip of that spear, and no operation would occur without Norwegian consent. When he finished, the men cheered and pounded on the tables.

  Then Torp and Gubbins introduced the two officers who would command them. The first was Lieutenant Colonel John Wilson, the new chief of the SOE Norwegian section. Wilson told them that he had “Viking blood” in his veins but that over the generations it had thinned, like his graying crown of hair. He had a short but upright bearing, a quiet, stern voice, and determined manner. Wilson, who was leader of the International Scouting Movement prior to the war, had helped design and run the SOE’s training schools. Next to him, dressed in uniform and cap, stood Leif Tronstad, whom Haukelid had briefly met on the fateful morning of the German invasion. Coordinating closely with Wilson, Captain Tronstad would oversee the company’s training, planning, and execution of operations.

  The next day, the guests toured the camp and met with the men. That evening, Torp led a memorial service for Captain Linge. They sang, and read from Scripture, and a Norwegian chaplain recited a poem written in 1895, before their country’s independence from Sweden:

  We want a country that is saved and free,

  and which does not have to answer for its freedom.

  We want a country, which is mine and yours . . .

  If we do not have this country yet,

  We will win it, you and I.

  In time, the Norwegian company assembled and led by the man they eulogized would be unofficially renamed in his honor: Kompani Linge. Captain Leif Tronstad would now help direct the Norwegian soldiers in their fight for freedom.

  4

  The Dam-Keeper’s Son

  * * *

  ON THURSDAY, March 12, 1942, Einar Skinnarland found himself sitting on an operating table at a hospital in Kristiansand, a port town in southern Norway. The doctor was insisting that he be anesthetized for the surgery on his left leg. A week before, he had fallen and dislocated his kneecap. He had forced it back into place, but blood pooling behind his knee had caused dangerous swelling. No anesthesia, Skinnarland said. He was leaving Kristiansand soon, and he feared the drugs would hamper his recovery. The doctor warned yet again that the operation would be exceedingly painful. “No,” came the answer. The doctor shook his head, no doubt thinking his patient must be insane.

  Skinnarland rested back on the table as the nurses secured his leg. Then the doctor cut into it with a scalpel. Skinnarland—red-haired, all broad shoulders and wiry muscle—did his best to steel himself. His face, usually set with an easy, bright smile, seized up. He gritted his teeth, and his narrowly set eyes seemed to narrow further still. As the doctor probed into his open flesh, Skinnarland endured the procedure with barely more than a murmur. After draining the blood and fluid from behind the kneecap, the doctor made sure the bone was set properly and then stitched his patient up. He would need a few nights to recover in the hospital. Again, Skinnarland refused. A tightly bound bandage would have to do. A couple of hours later, walking stick in hand, he hobbled down the stairs and into a taxi.

  Over at the port, across from the seamen’s hostel, he entered the ship chandlery. The proprietor, a cheery bachelor who always had a good story to tell, brought Skinnarland into the back room. There he tried to rest, but the pain radiating from his leg was too intense. Instead, he focused on oiling his revolvers. He planned to persuade the crew of the Galtesund, a 620-ton coastal steamer that was shortly due into port, to change their course and bring him and his friends across the North Sea to Aberdeen. Until then, he would endure, as members of his family had always done.

  For centuries, Skinnarlands had lived along the banks of the serpentine Lake Møs. It was unforgiving backcountry, impenetrable for six months of the year on anything but skis. Running east from Lake Møs in a fast current, the Måna River followed a course through the Vestfjord Valley, its waters dropping almost seven hundred meters along the way—several times precipitously over falls.

  In the sixteenth century, a small village of wooden houses developed on the banks of the Måna. Its few hundred inhabitants lived in the shadows, the sun hidden behind the high valley walls for most of the year. Visitors were unwelcome; indeed, the locals were rumored to be “shameless bodies of the Devil whose chief delight is to kill bishops, priests, bailiffs and superiors—and who possess a large share of all original sin.” Hyperbole notwithstanding, it was a forbidding place, but the beauty of the area and of its falls, particularly the thunderous Rjukanfossen, which dropped 340 feet, brought sightseers from great distances away. Painters would stand just out of reach of its spray and try to capture its magnificence, their landscapes often including the 5,600-foot-tall peak of Mount Gausta towering in the background.

  At the turn of the twentieth century, the painters and tourists had to make way for the bustle of industrialists. In 1905 Norwegian engineer Sam Eyde and physicist Kristian Birkeland invented a way to take the nitrogen occurring naturally in air and use it to manufacture fertilizer. Their process required large amounts of electricity. The rumbling Rjukanfossen was ideal. Norsk Hydro was formed, and soon the Vestfjord Valley was attracting engineers and construction workers. They dammed Lake Møs, blasted tunnels into the hillsides for pipelines, and built a series of power stations and factories. Near the site of the old village, they also built a new town: Rjukan. There were hundreds of houses and worker dormitories, a grid of lighted streets, a railway and station, a church, firehouse, police force, schools, hospital, and even a community garden and a dance hall.

  Civilization may have come to the Vestfjord Valley, but in 1918, when Einar Skinnarland was born, the eighth child of the dam-keeper Hans Skinnarland and his wife, Elen, life up at Lake Møs remained much the same as it had always been. The Skinnarlands lived thirteen miles west of Rjukan, in a large wood-planked cabin beside the dam. Despite the developments below, from November through the early summer months, the area remained reachable only on skis. The family planned for the long winters, storing whatever food, clothes, and household items they might need. If something broke, it was up to them to see it fixed.

  Growing up, Einar spent as much time on skis as he did on his feet. He skied to haul wood and perform other chores around the dam. He skied to the neighboring farms to play with friends. He skied over the frozen lake to the boarding school on Hovden Island, ten miles from his house, where he attended elementary school, and then he skied to middle school in Rjukan. More than that, he skied for fun. His old
er brothers were championship racers and ski jumpers, as evidenced by the line of small but prized silver trophies on the shelf in the room he shared with them. For them, it was pure enjoyment to ski a marathon’s distance to Mount Gausta, climb for three hours to reach the summit, race down at breakneck speed in five minutes, and then return home for supper.

  Although they lived on the edge of civilization, the Skinnarlands had their share of ambition. Hans and Elen bought parcels of land around Lake Møs and had opened a general store by the dam. Among their children, there was a nurse, a hotel owner, an assistant dam-keeper, and a pair of engineers. Considered the brightest of the bunch and the “golden boy” in his mother’s eyes, Einar earned high marks in school and went on to study general engineering at a local technical college. From there he headed to Oslo to do his military service at the esteemed Engineering Corp Officers School. He wanted to build big things, dams and the like. Then war broke out.

  On April 9, 1940, Elen Skinnarland put down the phone and wept. The Germans were invading, and she knew that her sons would soon be off to war. In Oslo, Einar was already in the thick of it, witnessing Luftwaffe bombers screaming overhead, toward the airport. He mobilized, but like many soldiers in the Norwegian Army experienced only a month of retreat and defeat, marked with sporadic fighting. His brothers Torstein and Olav saw more action, participating in the heated resistance around Rjukan that made it one of the last towns in southern Norway to surrender. They came home wearied and traumatized.