by Neal Bascomb
In the morning, they buried everything that marked them as soldiers, including their guns. Wearing civilian clothes, they had to hike twelve miles over the border before they found a patrol to surrender to. Their cover story was that they had escaped from a German prison where they had been held for underground activity. If the Swedes believed their story, the five would be brought to a refugee camp, from where they could reach out to Norwegian officials connected to SOE.
When Knut Haukelid was a little boy, he believed that there were trolls living in the Norwegian countryside, far from prying eyes. Now, barely a day’s journey from the mountains and lakes where he’d spent so much of his youth, he and Kjelstrup were just like those trolls, hiding high above the treeline in a thin-walled hut.
But it was not a carefree life. In truth, they were starving. It was not just hunger pangs they suffered but the kind of deprivation that left the body weak and the mind empty of purpose. They knew that they needed to hunt but also that the attempt, if unsuccessful, would sap what little strength they had left. Scraping his plate of crumbs after another paltry meal one night, Kjelstrup said, “When this war is over, I’ll spend all my money on food.” Haukelid looked at his friend’s cheeks sunken under his red beard. Badly weakened after months on the Vidda, Kjelstrup was in a bad way.
Over two weeks had passed since they left Skårbu. They had trudged west across fifty miles, hauling a sled laden with weapons, radio equipment, and other gear, until they arrived at a lakeside cabin on the grounds that encompassed the Haukeliseter mountain lodge. Haukelid’s cousins lived three hours away in the small farming village of Vågslid, and they had stocked the place with canned food and oats. From it, Haukelid and Kjelstrup planned on launching an underground resistance cell in the area.
Soon after their arrival, they heard that the local magistrate was on the lookout for the Vemork saboteurs, aided by several German patrols, so they headed southwest to a mountain hut in the neighboring district to lie low. They ran through their rations quickly, and their early hunts for reindeer were unsuccessful. With his ski pole, Haukelid had skewered a scrawny squirrel stuck in a snowdrift, but it took almost as much effort to skin and cook as it provided in nourishment. They took to eating raw any small animals they trapped or shot. When they were not dreaming of food, they were dreaming of firewood. The best they could find were juniper bushes buried in the snow or small birch trees, which took half the day to collect and get back to their hut.
By the last week of March, Haukelid and Kjelstrup were in parlous shape and knew they had to get back to Vågslid for food. Then they would travel onward to Lake Møs. After leaving Skårbu, Skinnarland and Haugland had intended to move on to Nilsbu. There, Haugland planned on teaching Skinnarland how to code and transmit wireless messages so he could operate his own radio station in the area.
Haukelid and Kjelstrup left for Vågslid on a gray, foggy morning. They skied down from their hut, then headed east through the mountains until they reached Haukeli Road, which had been hewn out of the rough rock with pickaxes some decades before.
In the late afternoon they reached Haukelid’s uncle’s farm outside Vågslid. Haukelid waited by the side of the road while Kjelstrup went up to get bread and other provisions. Haukelid was too well known in the area to risk exposure. As he waited, an ominous feeling came over him. Trusting his instincts, he retreated behind a mountain birch. Moments later, two German soldiers carrying rifles came around the hill and walked toward his position. Crouched low, Haukelid gripped the handle of the pistol tucked into his belt. The soldiers passed within five feet of him, but did not detect his presence. Nor did they notice his ski tracks on the road.
At the farm, Kjelstrup did not receive a warm welcome. Haukelid’s cousin passed him four loaves of bread and urged him to get away. A huge sweep of troops had descended on the district. “It’s not safe in the village,” the cousin said. “It’s forbidden to go between farms, and the Germans are patrolling the road every hour.” Kjelstrup left and descended toward the road on his skis. As he rounded the bend, he spotted several soldiers on patrol. He braked abruptly and ducked down in the snow, hoping that Haukelid was out of sight. They had unwittingly entered a trap.
After reports pointed to the Hardangervidda as the base for the Vemork saboteurs, a manhunt was launched on March 24, and Fehlis himself established temporary headquarters south of Rjukan. No effort was to be spared in rounding up those responsible for the attack and anyone who supported them. Fehlis sent an army to accomplish the task: thousands of Wehrmacht infantry, hundreds of German and Norwegian police, Gestapo investigators, and SS shock troops, and, finally, dozens of Jagdkommando platoons. These were elite soldiers who specialized in destroying guerrilla groups where they lived and operated. Numbering close to eight thousand men in total, Fehlis’s army was aided by locals who knew the countryside and was supported by roving patrols of Fi-156 Storch spotter planes.
A Norwegian hunter named Kristiansen had, after an outing on the plateau, returned to his village with English chocolate and a tale about the well-armed soldiers who had taken him hostage on the Vidda. The police chief had arrested him and passed him on to the Gestapo for interrogation. Patrols had uncovered evidence to corroborate his account. According to their interviews, “Seven men were seen on skis on the Hardangervidda, going toward Rjukan. Two were in civilian clothes; five in uniform; and carrying, among other things, submachine guns. All had white camouflage clothing on.” Reports stated that a cabin on Lake Skrykken had been broken into, and that “tracks of five pairs of skis and a sled were seen running from Rjukan and avoiding inhabited areas” after the attack.
If enemy commandos and the Norwegian resistance were persuaded that the Vidda was an ideal base for their operations, then Fehlis intended to prove otherwise. His troops circled the barren plateau like a noose, then he launched his raid. Troops scoured the countryside, searching every farmhouse and cabin for the fugitives or their supporters. They were also on the lookout for illegal weapons, explosives, radios, newspapers, and other contraband. Travel within the Vidda was banned, and anyone found wandering in the region would be arrested immediately. Any dwellings used for resistance purposes would be immediately burned. In his operational orders, Fehlis warned his men that the agents were heavily armed and would use any means to escape. They should search buildings in force and be prepared for ambushes. Every effort should be made to bring them in alive so they could be interrogated, but if they refused to surrender then they should be shot.
Although the Vidda was his key target, Fehlis knew that he could not limit his search to the plateau. In Rjukan and surrounding towns, roadblocks were established. Travel, even on foot, was restricted to those with passes. Curfews were imposed, and posters informed residents that anyone who violated the new restrictions would be “shot without warning.” Further, Fehlis ordered intensive searches in the neighboring regions to the south and west of Lake Møs. Intelligence had revealed that these areas were hotbeds of resistance. He ordered his troops to flush out those hiding in the mountains so that they would be snared on the roads, which were easily patrolled. Another force was sent to the Swedish border, in case the fugitives were headed in that direction.
It took weeks to assemble his army, but Fehlis used the men to full effect. The Vemork sabotage and the burgeoning resistance movement must be dealt with, and he was the one to deal with them. Terboven and Falkenhorst were paying attention, and Berlin surely awaited news of his success.
21
Phantoms of the Vidda
* * *
AS SOON AS the German soldiers passed out of sight, Kjelstrup swept down the slope, his skis leaving a telltale trail in the snow. When he reached Haukelid, he told him, “The whole district is lousy with Huns.”
“Two of them went by just now. They’re really asking for it.”
Haukelid knew that they should get rid of the bread—a sure sign that someone in the village had helped them—but they desperately needed the food. T
hey raced down to Lake Vågslid, then across its still-frozen surface. There were more Germans on the road north, but the two men spotted them first. They hid in some brush until the threat passed.
They could either rejoin Haugland and Skinnarland at Nilsbu, a long journey to the east, or go back the roughly twenty miles they had come and hope that the German action did not extend that far. They decided to head back into the mountains, hoping that the rising winds would erase all trace of their movements before they were noticed by a patrol. A good tracker could tell if a ski track was a minute, a day, or a week old. Whenever they could, they maneuvered onto trails and summits that had been blown clear of snow to reduce the chance of leaving a mark.
They continued their flight into the next day, until the winds picked up such force that they had to stop. They bedded down under a slight overhang of rock on a hillside, certain now that the gales were strong enough to obliterate their tracks. Overnight, a storm hit, leaving them two snowbound dimples in the landscape. For the next few days, they remained in the hideout, their sleeping bags soaked through. They ate their loaves of bread, melted snow with a candle for drinking water, and saved their last sliver of pemmican until they could bear waiting no longer.
When the storm abated, they headed west. As they journeyed farther away from the ongoing manhunt, another of the saboteurs was heading straight into the heart of the danger.
In the late afternoon of March 25, Claus Helberg was skiing across Lake Skrykken to Jansbu. He needed to fetch some weapons and explosives, which were buried in a depot near the cabin. Then he planned to head down to Notodden, southeast of Rjukan, to connect with the underground cell there. When he reached Jansbu, he saw that the door was ajar, yet there were no skis outside or trails leading up to the cabin. He unfastened his skis, stuck his pistol in his pocket, and entered, his rucksack in his hand.
The place had been ransacked, the furniture upended, mattresses ripped open, cupboards broken. The thought of the enemy intruding so far into the Vidda—territory Helberg considered his own—left him deeply unsettled. Then the fear struck that the Germans might still be close at hand, perhaps even hiding in wait. He moved to the window to scan the surrounding area.
After separating from his Gunnerside and Swallow team members, Helberg had headed back to Fjøsbudalen to retrieve his civilian clothes and his papers. These were in the name of a clerk from Oslo. He left to meet up with the others, but when the storm had hit, he’d lost his map to the wind. His choice was stark: retreat back to the cabin or get lost in the storm. When the blizzard calmed, he set out again, but by then his compatriots had already scattered in different directions on the Vidda.
He finally made it to Oslo. On March 8, he went to the Majorstua Café, the prearranged spot for a meeting with Poulsson. Being in the capital was a dizzying experience, the shuffle of the crowds, the trams screeching past, the German soldiers milling around. In the café, Helberg drank his coffee, trying to act like he did not have a care in the world.
Minutes later, Poulsson arrived. They were overjoyed to see one another but masked their emotions with a casual hello. Poulsson told Helberg that he would soon leave for Stockholm. There was too much of an uproar going on around Rjukan for them to risk working together. Helberg was determined to stay, and his first order of business was to move the Skrykken depot. The two men said their goodbyes and departed in opposite directions.
On March 22, after spending a couple of weeks in a safe house, Helberg received a note from Rolf Sørlie informing him that things had quieted down in Rjukan and it was safe to return to the area. What Sørlie did not know, and could not have known, was that trains and buses filled with soldiers were streaming into the area from Oslo that very day. Helberg returned to the Vidda at the worst possible moment.
Peering out through the window at Jansbu, Helberg spotted not a soul. Still uneasy, he ventured outside. Then, from the direction of the lake, he saw three Wehrmacht soldiers skiing toward the cabin. They were roughly four hundred yards away and coming fast. All Helberg had on him was his Colt .32 pistol. Outnumbered and almost certainly outgunned, he knew that he had no choice but to run. He raced inside, grabbed his rucksack, returned to his skis, and then dashed away.
A soldier shouted out to him in German to halt; the crack of gunfire followed. All around him, the snow mushroomed up as the shots missed their mark. Looking over his shoulder, he gauged his pursuers to be skilled skiers. He would have to be a better one. He veered west, straight into the setting sun—its piercing light was sure to make him a harder target to hit.
For the next hour, Helberg cut around hills, down into ravines, up short valleys, and past rocky outcroppings. He hoped to find some way to mask a change in direction, but the Germans were too close on his tail. He knew the terrain better than they did, but he had already skied many miles that day. Ten miles, maybe more, from Lake Skrykken, he finally began to distance himself from all but one of his pursuers, a giant of a man. No matter how hard Helberg pushed, the soldier maintained a distance of about a hundred yards behind him. For another hour, Helberg kept at it, glancing over his shoulder now and again to see if he had finally broken free. The hound stuck on his trail, his job made easier by the tracks Helberg was plowing through the unbroken snow.
On the uphill slopes, Helberg managed to outpace him. On the downhills, his pursuer closed the gap again. Eventually, probably soon, he would catch up. Either Helberg’s legs would give out or his skis, with their poor wax and cumbersome metal-lined sides, would disadvantage him. In a Trojan effort, he aimed for every hill within reach, climbing higher and higher, gathering distance from his pursuer until he had nowhere to go but down. But every time the terrain flattened, the soldier drew close again. And then he was almost in range.
“Halt! Arms up!” the German shouted.
In that instant, Helberg made his decision. Pulling the Colt from his pocket, he stopped and turned. The soldier came to a sharp halt as Helberg fired a single shot from forty yards.
He missed.
The soldier drew a Luger. If it had been a submachine gun, it would be all over. Now Helberg knew how this would play out: whoever emptied his magazine first would lose unless he managed to kill the other.
Helberg calculated that the soldier was not in the best position to aim true. The setting sun was in his face, he would have sweat in his eyes, and his muscles would be burning. Helberg stood his ground.
The soldier fired his shots in quick succession, eight in total. They all missed. Knowing that he would not have time to reload, the soldier spun around and skied off. His poles struck the snow fast and forcefully as he speeded up the hill.
Helberg followed him, Colt in one hand, both poles in the other. He could not allow the soldier to get clear, reload, and come after him again. As the man approached the top of the hill, Helberg slowed. He was within twenty-five yards. It was close enough. He leveled his Colt and fired. The soldier stumbled forward slightly, then hung over his poles in the snow. It looked like he was taking a much-needed rest.
Helberg turned straightaway and raced downhill. It would be dark within the hour, but he knew that the next day his pursuers would try to follow his tracks. He needed to get as far away as possible and cut across some lakes with bare ice to throw them off his trail.
For at least two more hours, he journeyed south. He could see little, but the terrain was mostly flat, and his instincts guided him well. Then, suddenly, he felt himself falling. He had skied straight off a cliff.
He crash-landed in a hard-packed bank of snow. Once he caught his breath and realized he was still alive, a rush of pain enveloped him. He rolled over, his left shoulder and arm useless. Looking up at the precipice outlined by the starry sky, he figured that he had fallen a hundred feet or more. He inspected his upper left arm and felt sure that it was broken and his shoulder mangled too. He knew that he could not remain long in the mountains in such a state. He brought himself to his feet. At least his skis were intact. With one pole, he
pushed off.
Since that morning, he had already journeyed some sixty or seventy miles. He had still farther to go, now crippled, exhausted, and hungry. At a slow, steady pace, his left arm hugging his side, he continued down to the tail end of Lake Møs. If he could reach the farm of Jon and Birgit Hamaren, he knew that they would help. At 8:00 a.m. he finally staggered to their door. Birgit answered. She gave him some food but warned that some fifty Hirdsmen and Gestapo were billeted at a neighboring farm—a five-minute walk away. Her brother was there too, conscripted by the Germans as a guide. “You have to get out of here,” she told him.
Leaving quickly, Helberg skied along the shoreline of Lake Møs, then toward Rauland, a village twenty miles to the south, where he had another contact. Thirty-six hours had passed since he last slept. Given his exhaustion and injuries, he knew that if he met any Germans, he would have little fight left in him.
A mile outside Rauland, he ran straight into a patrol. The German soldiers asked for his papers, and he presented them: “Sverre Haugen.” They told him that nobody was meant to be traveling about the area. Concealing his wounded arm, Helberg pleaded ignorance, saying that he was only a postal clerk out to visit a friend. The soldiers allowed him to pass.
At 9:00 p.m. he reached the house of his contact. When the door opened, it was to a pair of Germans flanking the owner. Helberg knew there was only one course open to him: to talk his way out of the situation. He smiled and lied, explaining that he had been injured while guiding the Germans in the mountains and now needed medical treatment. When one of them offered to put his arm in a sling, Helberg took off his coat, revealing his pistol. Coolly, he explained that the company he was with had allowed him to carry a gun in case of trouble. The soldiers accepted his story. They played cards with him, and even offered to take him in a medical truck to the neighboring town from where he could go on to an Oslo hospital. Helberg smiled and thanked them. True to their word, the next day they drove Helberg twenty-two miles south, past one checkpoint after the next, to Dalen. “Auf Wiedersehen,” he said, waving to the soldiers before they drove off.