War Hero Thwarted Nazi Heavy Water Production

Freshly Exhumed writes "Its doubtful you know the name of Einar Skinnarland, but his sabotage over several years repeatedly thwarted Nazi plans to exploit Norway's heavy water production capabilities for their atomic bomb research plans. Skinnerland recently passed away in Canada and his daring exploits are recounted here. Details of some of the raids on the production facilities can be found on pafko and Stephen's Study Room. So many 'what if?'s and suspicions have swirled around the Nazi atomic bomb program that this man's efforts seem crystal clear for a change."

Comments

Hitler's anti-semitism did him the most harm

[asmithmd1]

Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb shows clearly and ironically that Hitler drove many Jewish physicists out of Germany in the '30s including Einstein. If he would have let them keep there posts he almost certainly would have had the bomb before the US.

Re:Hitler's anti-semitism did him the most harm

[knobmaker]

Sometimes I think there are no more Einar Skinnarlands, at least not in America. On my cynical days, I think that if another Hitler came to power, no one would even attempt to stop him.

Let's examine the evidence. Since Vietnam, our inconclusive proxy war with World Communism, we haven't exactly made a habit of fighting Good Wars. Take the last Gulf War, for example. We mobilized the troops to throw Saddam out of our Kuwaiti friends' oil fields. Bush Sr. liked to call it a battle for freedom and democracy, somehow failing to mention that Kuwaiti was the personal property of a few aristocratic Arabs and that there was no more democracy in Kuwait than in, say, General Motors. Sure Saddam is a monster, but he's a small-time monster. Mao was a bigtime monster, and his regime is still in power. They have weapons of mass destruction and it's doubtful they'd hesitate to use them if pressed. Why aren't we worried about the "Chinese threat," and their various crimes against humanity?

Other actions during this time? Panama, Grenada, Haiti? Not serious. There are still thousands of drug-corrupted generals in Central and South America, there's still no democracy in Haiti, and Grenada is a bad joke. And consider Somalia, Bush Sr.'s lovely parting gift to Clinton. There we had a clearcut (if pointless) humanitarian mission, but when we took a few casualties it was Sayonara Somalia.

Bosnia really wasn't our finest hour. We did bomb the Chinese, something we've never dared to do to them in China.

What really disturbs me are the true horrors we neglected during the dying days of the Soviet. There were genocides in Uganda and Rwanda, and we didn't do anything. Millions died. It was far worse than anything Saddam has ever done.

So I don't know. If The Ashcrofts and Poindexters have their way and we end up living in a nation where the trains run on time, will there be any Skinnermans or Schindlers among us? Or are those days, and those kinds of men gone forever?

Re:What matters is not who was going to get the bo

[Henry V .009]

Maybe it matters a slight amount that the thing was used by a democratic nation to end a dreadful war launched against them rather than by the Nazis to achieve world domination in a war of their own making?