Sabotage (Excerpt)

8/17/2019 Sabotage (Excerpt)

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ARTHUR A. LEVINE BOOKS

AN IMPRINT OF SCHOLASTIC INC.


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Copyright © 2016 by Neal Bascomb

All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic

Inc., Publishers since 1920. scholastic and the lantern logo are trademarks and/

or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibilityfor author or third-party websites or their content.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information

regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department,

557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bascomb, Neal, author.

Title: Sabotage : the mission to destroy Hitler’s atomic bomb / Neal Bascomb.

Description: First edition. | New York : Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint

of Scholastic Inc., 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015043455 | ISBN 9780545732437 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939-1945—Commando operations—Norway—

Juvenile literature. | World War, 1939-1945—Underground

movements—Norway—Juvenile literature. | Sabotage—Norway—History—20th

century—Juvenile literature. | Atomic bomb—Germany—History—Juvenile

literature. | World War, 1939-1945—Germany—Technology—Juvenile

literature.

Classification: LCC D794.5 .B37 2016 | DDC 940.54/864109481--dc23 LC record

available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043455

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 17 18 19 20

Printed in the U.S.A. 23

First edition, June 2016


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INVASIONCHAPTER 01

In the dark early hours of April 9, 1940, a fierce wind swept

across the decks of the German cruiser Hipper and the four

destroyers at its stern as they cut into the fjord toward

Trondheim, Norway. The ships approached the three fortsguarding the entrance to the city, all crews at the ready. A

Norwegian patrol signaled for the boats to identify themselves.

In English, the Hipper ’s captain returned that they were

a British ship with orders to “go towards Trondheim. No

unfriendly intentions.” As the patrol shone a spotlight across

the water, it was blinded by searchlights from the Hipper , whichsuddenly sped up and blew smoke to hide its whereabouts.

Signals and warning rockets lit up the night. Inside the

Norwegian forts, alarms rang and orders were given to fire on

the invading ships. But the inexperienced Norwegian soldiers

struggled to shoot their guns. By the time they were prepared,

the Hipper was already steaming past the first fort. At the

second fort, the bugler who should have sounded the alarm had

fallen asleep at his post. The moment the gunners there opened

fire, their searchlights malfunctioned, so they could not see

their targets.

At 4:25 a.m., the German force set anchor in Trondheim’s

harbor. Cutters began bringing hundreds of soldiers from the

warships to the shore. The soldiers spread out from the port into

the defenseless streets. The Nazi invasion of Norway had begun.


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• • •

In a large hall at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH),

twenty minutes away from Trondheim’s harbor, Leif Tronstadgathered his fellow teachers, their students, and a handful of oth-

ers. Word of the invasion had reached him before the break of day,

and while his wife and children slept, he had rushed to the Institute.

From the few reports he and others had received, all of Norway

looked to be under attack. Most major cities had fallen alongside

Trondheim, but the capital, Oslo, was rumored to be holding out.The group debated what they should do. One among them, a

firebrand named Knut Haukelid, who was visiting friends in the

city, wanted to fight with whatever weapons they could find.

The Germans were invading their country, and they must resist.

Others preached caution. They did not know exactly what Hitler

intended for Norway, and their small country, with its limitedmilitary, stood little chance against German might.

When Tronstad spoke, he held everyone’s attention. At

thirty-seven years of age, he was the university’s youngest full

professor, and a favorite in its classrooms. Of medium height, he

had blue eyes and ash-blond hair parted neatly on the side, with

a light dance of crow’s feet around his eyes.

He told those assembled that he would travel to Oslo, where,

as a reserve officer in the Army, he had standing orders to go

once war broke out. He suggested those with military experi-

ence should do the same. As for the others, he said, each man

needed to follow his own conscience on what action he should

take, but all must remember their country was in desperate need.

“Whatever you do,” he said, “your actions will be history in a

hundred years.” With that, he said his goodbyes.


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Tronstad had feared this would happen — that Norway

would be attacked and its “sleeping government” would leave the

country unprepared to mount a defense. Since the day Adolf

Hitler had invaded Poland in September 1939, and Britain’ssoon-to-be prime minister Winston Churchill had announced,

“We are fighting to save the whole world from the pestilence of

Nazi tyranny,” it was clear to Tronstad that Norway would not

be allowed to maintain the neutral stand it had held in the First

World War. The fight between the Allies and the Nazis in main-

land Europe had stalled, and the two sides had circled aroundNorway for months. With its rich natural resources and strategic

position in the North Sea, Tronstad’s homeland was too good a

prize to leave unclaimed.

As Tronstad hurried home, German soldiers occupied the

city around him, marching in columns through the streets. They

established machine-gun nests and mortar positions at key spotsthroughout the city, and called out warnings in German not to

resist. Tronstad ignored them. When he reached his two-story

house on the city’s outskirts, he told his wife, Bassa, that they

were not safe in Trondheim. He would take her and the children

to a mountain tourist lodge 100 miles to the south, then he would

go to Oslo to join the Army.

Together, they woke up their young children, Sidsel and Leif,

and helped them dress and pack. Fifteen minutes later, they piled

into their car. As they headed south over a river bridge, two ash-

colored bombers flew overhead.

“What kind of plane is that?” Sidsel asked.

“It is a German plane,” Tronstad said, his first explanation

of their hurried departure. “I’m afraid the war’s come to our

country.”


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8German police troops march into Oslo in May 1940.


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• • •

Twenty-eight-year-old Knut Haukelid chose a different path out

of Trondheim. He and a few NTH students took control of afreight train in the city and drove it almost halfway to Oslo,

until they found the tracks closed. They abandoned the train and

took a bus to the nearest Army headquarters. There, they learned

the heartbreaking news that the Nazis had taken Oslo, and King

Haakon VII and the Norwegian government had fled the capital.

In fighting to free his country, Haukelid found his purpose.He tracked down a regiment battling the Germans and received

a Krag rifle and thirty rounds of ammunition. At first glance,

Haukelid probably looked similar to all the other soldiers the

commander was sending into war, with nothing particularly

notable about him. He had fair hair, blue eyes, and a medium

build that hunched slightly at the shoulders, and at five foot ten,he was just above average height.

Yet over the next three weeks, despite having no military

experience, Haukelid fought ferociously for his country and

king, refusing to surrender as their invaders demanded. His bat-

talion ambushed a line of German tanks at a mountain pass,

wiping them out with homemade bombs and a single cannon,

but apart from that one success, they were pushed back again

and again. The German Blitzkrieg, with its armored vehicles,

fast bombers, and well-trained troops, were simply too over-

whelming a force to resist.

His regiment surrendered, but Haukelid did not. He tried to

reach the fighting in the two strategic valleys that ran between

Oslo and Trondheim, but his countrymen were already in retreat.

Finally, he traveled into the capital and went to his parents’


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home, a spacious apartment in

the city center. His father was

away, so only his mother was

there to welcome him. Haukelidwent into the room where he

still kept a few possessions and

closed the door. “What are you

doing?” his mother asked.

“Getting some things,”

Haukelid said, grabbing hiscross-country skis and boots

from the closet.

“You need to get out and

fight,” she told him.

That was exactly his plan.

Before the war came, KnutHaukelid was a bit of a lost soul.

He was born in Brooklyn,

New York, to Norwegian immi-

grants, but his family returned

to Oslo when he and his twin

sister, Sigrid, were only toddlers.

Dyslexic and restless, he hated

school. Sitting still in those hard

chairs all day, listening to the

drone of teachers, was torture

for him. Talking in class only

turned the screws, thanks to a

slight stutter. He entertained

himself by pulling pranks. Once,

Knut Haukelid.


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he released a snake in the middle of class, earning one of his

many suspensions.

The lone place Haukelid was able to run free was the family’s

country lodge. On weekends and in summertime, he skied,fished, camped, and hunted with his grandfather in the moun-

tains and lakes of Telemark, west of Oslo. Haukelid was told the

old tales of trolls inhabiting and protecting the lands of Norway,

and he believed them. His faith in these creatures lent even more

magic to the woods he loved.

After high school, Haukelid left for the United States to attendcollege. He traveled the country, working at farms for spare

cash. A few years later, he came back to Norway. His father found

him a well-paid job at Oslo’s biggest bank, but Haukelid turned

it down. He could earn more money, he told his father, fishing

for trout — and off he went. After several months of fishing, he

moved again, this time to Berlin. (His sister, Sigrid, left the coun-try as well; she went to Hollywood and became a movie star

known as the “siren of the fjords.”) Haukelid studied engineer-

ing, learned German, and questioned his future. In 1936, he saw

Hitler’s propaganda parade at the Olympics. One night, when he

ran into a drunk Nazi Party member who was spouting one nasty

statement after another, he dropped him with a punch.

At last, he returned again to Oslo, and finally gave in to his

father’s wish for him to get serious with his career and his life.

He took a job with his father’s firm, importing engineering

equipment from the United States, and he fell in love with a

young woman named Bodil, a physical therapist who treated

him for some back pain from all his outdoor adventures. Still,

Haukelid was restless, not quite at peace with himself, until he

found his purpose in defending his country.


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• • •

Despite the heroic efforts of many Norwegians like Haukelid,

by early June 1940, Hitler controlled the entire country. KingHaakon and the government fled to England by ship, and the

nation’s top general pleaded to his former soldiers, “Remain true

and prepared” for the future fight.

Haukelid got straight to it. In Oslo, he and a friend who had

received wireless training in Britain launched their own spy net-

work for the Allies. For months, the two moved from hut to hutin the woods outside Oslo, sending radio signals to Allied forces

but hearing nothing in return. Through a range of contacts in

the city, they collected intelligence on the German command

in the capital — everyone from Reichskommissar Josef Terboven,

who served as Hitler’s right hand in Norway, to General

Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, who oversaw the German militaryforces, to SS Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Fehlis, who ran the

security services. Unable to make contact with British or

Norwegian allies in London, they continued their efforts never-

theless, and even hatched a plot to kidnap Vidkun Quisling, the

Norwegian fascist whose political party served as a puppet gov-

ernment for Terboven. Haukelid and his friend were daring and

brave; they were also amateurish and terribly ineffective. But

they had joined a growing resistance movement that hoped to

drive the Nazis from their land. They all felt they had to do

something.

Reichskommissar Terboven moved quickly to consolidate

Nazi rule. He removed any Norwegians not loyal to the “New

Order” from positions of influence: judges, clergy, journalists,

business heads, policemen, mayors, and teachers alike. The


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Norwegian parliament was closed permanently, its members

sent home. The main government buildings in the heart of Oslo

flew Nazi flags.

The Nazis’ presence extended well beyond Oslo. Travel after

curfew or beyond a certain place without an identity card or pass

was made illegal. Radios were banned. Anyone breaking the

rules was subject to arrest — or whatever punishment the Nazis

chose, since it was the Nazis, not the police, who enforced the

law. Nothing was published in Norway without the censor’s

stamp of approval. New schoolbooks were printed to teach stu-

dents that Hitler was Norway’s savior. Strict rationing of coal,

gas, food, milk, and clothing left families scraping by. People

found themselves making shoes from fish skins and clothes from

old newspaper. All the while, the Germans took whatever they

SS Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Fehlis and Reichskommissar Josef Terboven.


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wanted for themselves, from the finest cuts of meat to the besthouses.

Some Norwegians supported the new German order. Many

others merely did what they were told. But there were others still

who pushed back against the Nazis. In September 1941, workers

throughout Oslo went on strike against the strict rationing of

milk. Terboven put martial law into effect. Hundreds were

arrested, and the security chief, Fehlis, ordered the execution of

the two strike leaders. Following this, the Nazi secret police, the

Gestapo, intensified their hunt for underground resistance cells.

Soon they came for Haukelid, storming his family’s apart-

ment. He was not home, but the Gestapo arrested his mother,

Sigrid, and his new wife, Bodil. When asked where her son

was, Sigrid slapped the Gestapo officer in the face and said, “He’s

in the mountains.”

Nazi flags hang in the central Oslo train station.


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“No,” the Nazi said. “He’s in England. Our contact tells us

he’s already been taken across the North Sea. And what do you

think he is doing there?”

“You will find out when he comes back!” she promised.

• • •

Leif Tronstad would not stand for the Nazis living in his coun-

try and lording power over its people. Their presence was a

violation of everything he held dear, and their occupation robbed

him of the life he’d built from nothing.Three months before Tronstad was born, his father died of a

heart attack. His mother supported her four sons by serving as

a maid at private dinner parties hosted by the wealthier families

in their neighborhood outside Oslo. Growing up, Leif was either

studying, running, or working. He excelled at all three activities,

setting new track records and making the highest marks atschool. His favorite subject was always science. He simply liked

to understand how the world worked. He graduated college with

top honors, married his childhood sweetheart, Bassa, and won

scholarships to focus on chemistry at some of the best institutes

in the world, including Cambridge University in England and

the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry in Berlin.

Talented not just in the lab but also in theoretical work,

Tronstad found many opportunities open to him. Since his first

student days, he had wondered whether he should work in indus-

try or teach. In the end, he told Bassa that, while he wanted to be

a professor, he would leave the decision to her. “If you like, I can

make as much money as you want,” he said. She gave him her

blessing to teach. He was soon a professor at NTH. He bought a

nice house a ten-minute walk from the university and a car to


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drive out to his mountain cabin, where he, Bassa, and their two

children skied and hiked. During these prewar years, Tronstad

also worked as a consultant to several Norwegian companies,

advising them on the manufacture of steel, rubber, nitrogen, alu-minum, and other industrial products.

After his government surrendered to the Germans, Tronstad

returned to Trondheim with his family. He kept his job, but

NTH was now under German control. Professors who pledged

their allegiance to the Nazis quickly gained power within the

university, not to mention board seats on many of the companieswhere Tronstad consulted. The Nazis intended to use every sec-

tor of Norwegian industry to supply its war machine.

Tronstad wanted nothing to do with such efforts. Instead,

like Haukelid, he became deeply involved in the underground —

Leif Tronstad.


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the homegrown military resistance called Milorg. Through his

rich trove of contacts (and by maintaining some of his consult-

ing jobs), he helped supply industrial intelligence to the British.

With most of Europe quickly falling under German rule, and theUnited States not yet in the war, free Britain was the lone beacon

of hope for those who wanted to fight the Germans.

In early September 1941, as the Gestapo was breaking up

resistance networks across Norway, Tronstad decided to inform

the British of a very disturbing development at a place called

Vemork. What was happening there could well give the Nazisthe power to win the war.

Sabotage (Excerpt)

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