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Initially a Combined Operations Headquarters project that went badly wrong on the 19/20th November 1942. The cloud cover was heavy so the pilots decided to turn back thirty miles from the drop zone. The tow rope to one of the gliders snapped and the gliders dropped to the ground. One of the Halifax's crashed into a hill. Of the Seventeen men in the first glider nine survived. Four of the injured were taken to Scavenger where a German Doctor injected air into their blood stream and watched them die. The remaining five were taken to a concentration camp and executed, there hands were tied behind their backs with barbed wire. Only fourteen men survived in the other crash, they were rounded up and they shot the injured leant against a wall. |
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It was taken over by SOE.
Four Norwegians code name 'Grouse' including Claus Helberg later to be
joined by a further six code named 'Gunnerside' Joachim Ronneberg, Birger Stromsheim,
Fredrik Kayser, Knut Haukelid, Hans Storhaus and Kasper Idland, attacked
the plant on the night of the 27/28 February 1943.
Claus Helberg, a 24-year-old former Norwegian POW, was sent to destroy the plant. The target was protected by a minefield, machine gun posts and 30 German guards. Nearby there were a further 300 enemy troops. The only way was to negotiate the treacherous ravine to get to the plant. It seemed impossible "We crossed the gorge with our weapons and demolition equipment then followed the railway line, because we knew it wouldn't be mined," |
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