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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."
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.
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The japanese decided it was a bad idea to persue the atomic bomb (heavily) because of the shortage of deuterium. The germans and the french had the nice little plant, Norsk Hydro in Norway, to make enough of the stuff to have a burgeoning atomic program, fortunately there was enough sabotage that Hitler didn't get the bomb. Especially since he already had an excellent delivery system.
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?
Mr. Skinnarland was mentioned several times in Leo Marks book "Between Silk and Cyanide". One of the many heroes just recently getting their due.
He trained in England with the SOE, crossing paths with Mr Marks who trained operatives in the use of codes.
Marks died in the last year or two also.
http://www.pafko.com/trips/norway/n10/ - about the sabotage
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/heavy.htm - about heavy water and it's use
http://www.lawzone.com/half-nor/haukelid.htm - about Knut Haukelid; another of the heroes from Telemark
http://www.390th.org/warstories/Rjukan.htm - about how the USAF tried and failed to knock out the heavy water plant
I know, I gotta learn proper html
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Not strictly true. The Nazis had a significant nuclear-weapons research program, using the intellectual powers of such notable physicists as Werner Heisenberg (of "Uncertainty Principle" fame). However, they were convinced that an exploding nuclear bomb was impractical, because Dr. Heisenberg had grossly mis-estimated the critical mass of uranium. Because of this, the most likely form of Nazi nuclear weapon was a subcritcal reactor-bomb which would "detonate" through a mechanism more like the Chornobyl meltdown than a runaway complete fission reaction.
That said, the commando raids on the various plants supporting this reasearch definitely helped guarantee that Nazi Germany never attained nuclear weapons. We can be fairly grateful for that, I think.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The ferry incident was merely an extension of this first effort. The ferry was carrying parts from the reactor and the remaining supply of heavy water back to germany to be used in further atomic research. He blew it up to stop that, and he was greatly saddened by the fact that there were several norweigans on board at the time.
As well, Norway wasn't neutral, it was occupied by germany and as such was part of the Nazi war effort.