During World War II, there was much concern about the German work into developing an atomic bomb. The Allies knew that it would only be a matter of time before Hitler had this weapon available to him. They knew that once he had it, that he would use it. They knew that if he used it, then the war would, for all practical purposes, be over and the Nazis would win. To this extent of what they knew, they knew that Hitler's nefarious plans had to be stopped and one way to do that was to eliminate his ability to produce fissonable materials and so it was planned to destroy his ability to produce heavy water (H3O) and put all efforts into getting the bomb first.

Unfortunately for the Allies, they had no way of knowing that Hitler had put atomic research on the bottom of his 'things to do' listing. According to Albert Speer, Hitler had no plans of developing the bomb as he thought the entire thing was a waste of time and effort. He thought that such a thing could not be developed and so this threat was only in the minds of the Allies, who expended considerable resources to develop something that the 'other side' was never going to have.

Nonetheless, if someone believes something hard enough, even though it isn't true, they will act upon it. So it was in this case. The only place where heavy water was being developed was in a power production facility in south central Norway called Vemork. Here, there was abundant water resources for producing the energy required to make heavy water. It was here that the Germans would need to produce this material and it was here that the Allies, in late 1942, decided to break the chain of production for fissionable materials. At its source, so to speak.

Thus was developed the unsuccessful plan Operation Freshman and the later successful Operation Gunnerside.

Each of these operations has been thoroughly researched by the author and is told in the greatest detail. We learn of all the things that can and did go wrong with the earlier attempt at destroying the Vemork facility and everything that happened to go just right in the second attempt. This story has been made famous over time and spawned a number of other books and movies based on these events.

Made even more interesting by a goodly number of photos and illustrations, this tells the complete story of the two operations, the aftermath of the events, what happened to the participants on both sides and what remains today.

It is a book that I found most enjoyable and informative. I know you will as well.

April 2008

Review book courtesy of  Casemate Publishing, where you can order your copy of this and many other superb books.

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