ABSTRACT
On the evening of 27 February 1943, six Norwegian saboteurs infiltrated the Norsk Hydro plant near the town of Vemork and demolished the only equipment in Europe capable of producing heavy water in quantity. Originally utilized in the plant as a more efficient means of producing fertilizer, heavy water was also essential for atomic fission research. The action against the Norsk Hydro plant, better known to history as “the Telemark raid,” has all the hallmarks of a quintessential special operation. It prevailed where conventional force could not be applied, in the case of the Royal Air Force (RAF), or had failed previously. The raid also was approved at the highest policy or strategic decision-making levels. In addition, using minimal force and guile, the saboteurs efficiently and economically succeeded in denying German access to resources central to atomic bomb research. The strategic effects of the raid have been couched in unequivocal counterfactual terms: had the plant not been so severely damaged during the raid, the Nazi atomic bomb program might have unlocked the secrets to nuclear fission before the Allies. According to at least one author “the very course of history depended on whether or not the mission succeeded.”2
