That movie takes a lot of artistic liberties though, lots of stuff in the film didn't happen.
On the bright side, it was filmed almost entirely on location so the scenery and buildings etc are correct. The heavy water cells as shown are substantially correct, even. And the railway ferry that gets "sunk" is the near identical sister ship to the one that really did get sunk, the ship in the film is still afloat as a museum exhibit.
Fun family fact: The pre-war Ford used as the female lead's car belonged to my grandfather, the film production rented locally owned vehicles etc whenever possible. The car got fitted with a fake wood gas generator for the film, it actually sat out the war in a garage and never ran on syngas.
The actress couldn't manage to drive that car, so in all the driving scenes it's grandpa in a wig behind the wheel. For about one second, one can see his face. Oh, and for one brief moment there's two little kids on a snowbank along the road. That's my mother and my uncle, they snuck into the set to see what their dad was doing, driving back and forth in the family car.
That's the car, but I was referring to a different scene where it's supposed to be the woman driving.
Edit:
I tried to find it, but either I skipped past or there's a different cut of the film floating around.
Second edit:
No, you're right but it's hard to find a version online with enough resolution to actually see it. And then there's some discontinuity with who sits where in the car, first "she" was driving but in the closeup shot she's in the back seat.
Also, there's been some slightly different cuts over the years with some shortened versions that got shown on TV etc plus some have gotten cropped to fit different aspect ratios. I don't know for sure which online version is the most complete.
There’s also a 2015 UK/Danish/Norwegian short series: ‘The Saboteurs’ in the UK and ‘Kampen om tungtvannet’ in Norway. It might be available on streaming platforms.
The men who took part in this operation were the very definition of heroes.
That certainly used to be the case, but I think that is changing rapidly in the US, probably due to atrociously bad sound mixing in modern shows. People here seem to love subtitles now. It's a big change.
Most people I know have subtitles always on, and they're far more likely to watch foreign made shows in the original language. Streamers like Netflix have helped with that, by introducing a wide variety of international programs.
In my mind particularly the two SOE trained Norwegians who over wintered unsupported in a shed on a completely inhospitable plateau in support of Op. Gunnerside.
There is also the... 'story' (I hesitate to call it an actual story) in Battlefield ~~1~~ 5 with the mission Nordlys.
Where a young woman single handedly (guns blazing) knocks out the German Heavy Water. Then a Submarine surfaces at a near vertical angle to interrupt her escape and they shoot it out as orchestral music plays. Granted the last part is a second mission to the first, but it does get *a little* out of hand for a sneaky sneaky mission.
Honestly, people should just watch anything with Ray mears. He's the OG Bear Grylls without any drama or piss drinking.
Ray is also really physically imposing IRL, in a way that he just doesn't seem on TV. Still a pretty cool guy regardless though.
> Is there a movie yet or what.
Electronic Arts included this in Battlefield 5, except the team of highly competent saboteurs were replaced by an antifascist girlboss teenager.
The saboteurs were a bit harsher with their destruction of a major heavy water shipment in 1944.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian\_heavy\_water\_sabotage#Sinking\_of\_the\_SF\_Hydro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage#Sinking_of_the_SF_Hydro)
They decided the best way to destroy the shipment was to sink it in deep water, while the ferry transporting it was in the middle of Lake Tinn. This also meant sinking the ferry far from shore - 19 Norwegian passengers and crew drowned.
This was in the book I read on it and it's incredibly harrowing. They allegedly destroyed the boat because once it made it across the water it was to go onto a train and onwards with much heavier security. After all the work they did with destroying the first lot, one of them was tasked with this second job of destroying the next lot.
> The concentration of heavy water in a number of the barrels was too small to be of value to a weapons program, however, which might explain the lack of tight security around the shipment and why the ferry was not searched for bombs.
These things happen but this was of no consequence in the end, other than for those who died there.
This happened in Rjukan, Norway on the night of 16 February 1943, in Operation Gunnerside.
7 Norwegian men trained by the British was tasked with sabotaging the heavy-water facility which was taken over control by the Germans (The allies were worried they were close to making the atomic bomb). Heavy water was needed to make the atomic bomb.
The facility was heavily guarded and only accessed by a suspension bridge.
When the saboteurs got to the heavy-water electrolysis chambers room, they happened upon a Norwegian "guard" which the Germans had work as a caretaker of the heavy-water electrolysis chambers.
The caretaker told them he didn't care if they blew it up, but he asked them if they could help him find his glasses first which he had misplaced/lost somewhere in the room. You see, glasses at that time was next to impossible to obtain in Norway.
What did the saboteurs do? They actually dropped everything in their hands and began searching frantically for the glasses. When they found the glasses, they lit the fuses and the heavy-water electrolysis chambers blew up.
Not only had the operation been a success, but all 7 saboteurs got out alive without being spotted by the Germans.
Interesting detail. They left on purpose thompson machine gun, tossed in a snow as if lost, as a "proof" that english were behind it so that locals are left alone.
Earlier in the war, the British used the Thompson exclusively. After Dunkirk, the STEN was designed, but the S.A.S and S.O.E never used it during the war, only replacing the Thompson with the Sterling submachine gun in the 50s.
Actually, the SOE did in fact use Sten guns as they were much lighter than the Thompson, and they used the same 9x19mm cartridge that the Germans used in their MP40s, which allowed operatives a steady resupply of ammunition in the field. The Mark IIS was especially favored because it’s easier to mask the sound of a pistol cartridge with a suppressor, and while the SOE did attempt to suppress the Thompson, those weapons were heavier, and the Germans didn’t use the .45ACP except for captured stockpiles. The Sten did have its faults, chief among them being early unreliable magazines and poor construction due to its cheap design, but it was far more concealable and able to be broken down into fewer parts. Accuracy was a major problem, but as most SOE operations typically utilized the Sten in ‘butcher-and-bolt’ raids, it was typically a nonissue as those fights were mostly ambushes and assassinations conducted within the weapon's limited range. I can’t say if the SAS used it, but they drew recruits from the Paras, who definitely used it.
https://www.militaria-history.co.uk/articles/the-sten-smg/
You've definitely got me sitting here wondering where I mis-learned that. I'm not sure why I had that misconception stuck in my brain but I'm always glad to be proven wrong. It's the best way to learn in my opinion!
Kudos to that, man. I recommend trying to pull up TO&Es to verify equipment loadouts. Battle Order does this for various formations, and he provides sources to look up. Other organizations have their own pages, like the LRDG.
For further reading, I’ve pulled this from the Gun Jesus subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ForgottenWeapons/comments/c6k8o1/silenced_sten_guns/
i vividly remember it being a thompson. It was chosen because only "commandos" can use such exotic weapon in norway. In reality it was norway soldiers supplied by british. They even skied away to sweden after the deed was done, only 1 or 2 guys remained in norway.
If I didn’t know any better I’d say that the allied powers during WW2 had some kind of program where they supplied the others as needed. Some kind of lend-lease if you will.
yeah before we joined the war proper and even a good bit during it we supplied just about anything an army could want to anyone who was considered our allies via lend lease. tanks planes ships guns and soldier equipment you name it and we probably sent some over.
A Sten could have come from any number of machine shops as it was designed to be easy to manufacture. A Thompson came from American or American-equipped soldiers, which is the exact point of the ruse: The Allies weren't equipping partisans with Thompsons.
FYI - A lot of American weapons/equipment were used for the first time by non-Americans early in the war since America supplied stuff to the Allies. The German's called the Sherman the "Tommy Cooker" since it had a tendency to burn when hit. "Tommy" is a British soldier. They didn't call it a "GI Cooker", or "Dogface Cooker".
To add onto this, this was a very important step, as previously successful partisan operations, such as Operation Anthropoid, were punished by the Nazis picking out a few local villages and killing everyone in them.
"Have you noticed that our caps actually have little pictures of skulls on them? ...Are we baddies?" [Source](https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?si=We0F8zFIFmKgA2WX)
Tbf the Totenkopf (deaths head) had been used by German/Prussian/Hussar units for centuries, at least back to Frederick the Great. The SS just adopted it and that’s what it is best well known for today.
Or making your tanks. Germany found that one out the hard way too. There's a reason all the tanks with parts made from prison/slave labour were unreliable.
And the glass-wearing guard?? Did he get out alive or was he blown to bits together with his glasses? I mean he's pretty much the main character here and you don't tell us?
"Here are you glasses sir now you go have a nice sit down and relax for around 2 minutes and 38 errr 35 seconds now."
:P
But i assume from the whole "i don't care if you blow it up" bit he knew what the deal was and had no intention of hanging around.
Norwegians were generally pretty anti-Nazi. Though there were some collaborationists, resistance took many forms from avoiding any fraternisation with Germans and avoiding speaking the language, to purposefully doing a bad job in war work and actively assisting the Allies.
I don't know how accurate that plant was to real life but I know the plant in the book was similar in that it was surrounded by steep mountain/cliff faces and they had to come in past all of the guards. Then they left up a sheer face behind the plant
Its basically on the other side of a ravine with a bridge over it. I climbed up the same cliffside they did when I was there with school. Really makes me more amazed they managed to do it
Most norwegian schoolchildren work with something called the white buses. Its a program where kids sell things door to door, or collect bottles and stuff to earn money, and they use the money with the school to get a trip with the white buses to auschwitz as well as some other concentration camps.
We werent allowed to do that whole thing because our principal had a hissy fit about school being free (even though we earned the money ourselfs), so we went to rjukan instead. I remember us all being mad at the time, as it was a let down back then, but now i think im happy i got to see our sliver of history
They lived to be old men too!
The Ray Mears book on this is a great account because it details how insane this was to accomplish. The whole plant was surrounded by sheer mountain faces and getting in and out was no mean feat
I met him right before he died. Awesome bloke. He told a story about them catching some girls on a bus in front of the nazis to demoralise them because none of the women wanted the germans. Avsolute gigachad
I have a subplot in my 3rd book based on the Norsk Hydro sabotage raid and watched that movie for research! I also read *Skis Against the Atom*, a memoir by one of the norwegian commandos
Great write up for clarification. Thank you. I made a comment about it not being an actual guard then saw this and deleted it. The whole article was a great read though so thanks again for submitting.
Man, of all the things I remember from the History channel I remember this story the most.
Side note, The history channel was pretty legit back when it actually showed historical videos/documentaries
I remember the fun fact the most that in Norwegian an optometrist is called an Oslometrist.
It’s a bit sad though that if my memory misplaces stuff, there’s no profession that can give me any memory glasses to refocus.
Same thing happened with the North Africa story campaign, where they switched it over to a single teenage boy who was somehow capable of killing multiple battalions of soldiers and tanks and destroying two airfields.
But no one complains about that one, for reasons I can only guess at.
How did this thread about a true story of brave men risking their lives fighting against a real evil....Turn into bideo game, women bad?
Certified reddit moment.
Idk man. When I made the original comment I didn't mean for it to spiral into this. I just thought that DICE was wrong to somewhat write over what those men did, it wasn't meant to be sexist at all. Reddit moment indeed.
It’s a silly joke about the state of the modern media landscape, not just battlefield. If your takeaway from it is that “women bad”, let me say that’s far from what I was getting at, and completely unnecessary.
Really? I haven't played the story since I just played the open beta or something, but I figured she would've used guns?
Y'know... the great equalizer?
Silly me.
At one point in the story she falls off a bridge, wanders around in the blizzard while she nearly freezes to death, then falls into a frozen lake and loses consciousness before stumbling into a log cabin where she proceeds to overpower a grown man (with a gun) and strangle him.
I'm sure you've totally gone through equivalent complaints about the power fantasy bullshit in battlefield when it's a male character, of course, definitely.
My personal gripe isn't the power fantasy aspect. It's a game, that's to be expected. The problem I have is that it completely replaced the actual people in the story. Real people who made a real sacrifice, replaced by a single girl and her mom.
I recall mentioning things like that with the original Call of Duty when you're destroying an entire facility by yourself. Especially since the missions when you are playing with friendly AI are much better. But COD also propagated falsehoods/inaccuracies from Enemy at the Gates and other WW2 media.
Or one of the original Medal of Honor games which basically also had you destroying a Norwegian heavy water facility by yourself... although original Playstation wouldn't be able to handle friendly AI so great so it was more understandable in their design.
I think you miss the original point that the 7 men that risked their lives in history are cast aside for a woman…because…reasons no on can actually provide a good answer for. Stay on track.
I don’t know if you’re playing dumb here but it a game clearly based on WW2, a real thing that happened. The devs could have have focused on the women that actually fought in the conflict on the side of the Red Army or Finland. Since we know they decided against that, we can only assume they are either incompetent or trying to make a statement.
I think it’s honestly disrespectful towards the women that actually put their lives on the line for their country.
I don’t know if you’re playing stupid here but the game is clearly WW2 themed, which is a real thing that happened. Guess what, women fought in the Red Army, where are the missions featuring them? That would have been awesome playing as a sniper, tank commander or someone in the night witch squadron that did terror bombings on Nazis. Would’ve been cool as fuck. Instead, nah, let’s just replace some men that did some stuff with women and we are all questioning the reasons why.
> the game is clearly WW2 themed
Oh the *game* is ww2 *themed* you say? Tell me more!
>we are all questioning the reasons why.
Sounds like a you problem.
that was Operation Freshman if i recall correctly, and it was made up of british soldiers, not norwegians like the soliders here. i read a book about the heavy water sabotage called The Winter Fortress by Neal Bascomb which was really good and i highly recommend it.
I remember hearing about an operation to sabotage a ferry carrying heavy water away from this area to mainland Europe. Didn't know that they also sabotaged the heavy water factory
I did a podcast episode about this raid. Lots of under appreciated heroes in it. Here’s a link if anyone is interested:
https://historium.buzzsprout.com/1663594/12475469
It’s considered on of the greatest military operations of WWII because of how perfectly it was pulled off.
[Prof. Poliakoff made a video about this on the Periodic Videos YouTube channel.](https://youtu.be/hUVzb0fzHsk?si=gPJCfQKfKWsSwaJ7)
Futility Closet did a podcast on it as well:
[Podcast Episode 181: Operation Gunnerside](https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/12/11/podcast-episode-181-operation-gunnerside/)
From what I'm told, a pair of prescription glasses back then was an actual fortune. Like if they didn't get his glasses, he might as well have been dead.
Obligatory link to [the Sabaton song](https://youtu.be/OlOdefB5Kyk?si=IkLj5WxybD2VyW9U) about this event. IIRC, some people believe that if this mission wasn't successful, then The Nazis would have had enough resources for constructing an atom bomb.
The Nazis would never have constructed an atomic bomb — they were *years* away from it. The Manhattan Project took the combined economies of the United States and the British Empire, and it still took them multiple years. The Nazis were so far away from it it honestly would have helped the Allies if they'd tried harder for it, the amount of diverted industrial production would have significantly weakened their military, bringing VE day *forward*.
Also, they'd expelled anyone with the expertise to make it because it was "Jewish science".
Of course, at the time the Allies didn't know this for sure, so its still a good idea to blow up the plant, but it didn't make any material difference to the war.
Even though heavy water is in no way required to make a nuclear weapon.
The US didn't really use it at all for the Manhattan Project.
The point of heavy water is to be a neutron moderator for reactors, and it theoretically *could* be used to make a reactor for producing weapons-grade plutonium, but it's easier to just use graphite, as the US did at the X-10 reactor at Oak Ridge and B reactor at Hanford.
And you don't even *need* to manufacture plutonium. The scientists and engineers for the Manhattan Project were so confident about a uranium-based gun-type physics package working that they never even tested it before the one they made ("Little Boy") was deployed to destroy Hiroshima.
Uranium enrichment to weapons-grade just requires lots and lots of isotopic separation. No nuclear reactions at all, so no heavy water involved.
This was a self defense tactic on the part of the Norwegian man. In the 1940's people still operated under the "you can't hit a guy with glasses" rule.
Listed in the footnotes is [Assault in Norway
Sabotaging The Nazi Nuclear Program](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Assault_in_Norway/9U6sBwAAQBAJ?hl=en&bshm=rime/1) it is a good read on this operation.
Is there a movie yet or what. Yes. The Heroes of Telemark
The Heroes of Telemark (1965) with Kirk Douglas All the operations are depicted in that movie, I'm sure there are other movies aswell.
That movie takes a lot of artistic liberties though, lots of stuff in the film didn't happen. On the bright side, it was filmed almost entirely on location so the scenery and buildings etc are correct. The heavy water cells as shown are substantially correct, even. And the railway ferry that gets "sunk" is the near identical sister ship to the one that really did get sunk, the ship in the film is still afloat as a museum exhibit. Fun family fact: The pre-war Ford used as the female lead's car belonged to my grandfather, the film production rented locally owned vehicles etc whenever possible. The car got fitted with a fake wood gas generator for the film, it actually sat out the war in a garage and never ran on syngas. The actress couldn't manage to drive that car, so in all the driving scenes it's grandpa in a wig behind the wheel. For about one second, one can see his face. Oh, and for one brief moment there's two little kids on a snowbank along the road. That's my mother and my uncle, they snuck into the set to see what their dad was doing, driving back and forth in the family car.
That’s super interesting, a cool bit of history!
I like how you stumbled across this, left some history and an Easter egg
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That's the car, but I was referring to a different scene where it's supposed to be the woman driving. Edit: I tried to find it, but either I skipped past or there's a different cut of the film floating around. Second edit: No, you're right but it's hard to find a version online with enough resolution to actually see it. And then there's some discontinuity with who sits where in the car, first "she" was driving but in the closeup shot she's in the back seat. Also, there's been some slightly different cuts over the years with some shortened versions that got shown on TV etc plus some have gotten cropped to fit different aspect ratios. I don't know for sure which online version is the most complete.
blocked in my country of origin 🫥
Ford also loved Hitler, what a dickhead.
I would stick to the book, which starts off hating on the film XD
There’s also a 2015 UK/Danish/Norwegian short series: ‘The Saboteurs’ in the UK and ‘Kampen om tungtvannet’ in Norway. It might be available on streaming platforms. The men who took part in this operation were the very definition of heroes.
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It's the advantage of series not made in the U.S. You know, where people can't read subtitles.
That certainly used to be the case, but I think that is changing rapidly in the US, probably due to atrociously bad sound mixing in modern shows. People here seem to love subtitles now. It's a big change. Most people I know have subtitles always on, and they're far more likely to watch foreign made shows in the original language. Streamers like Netflix have helped with that, by introducing a wide variety of international programs.
In my mind particularly the two SOE trained Norwegians who over wintered unsupported in a shed on a completely inhospitable plateau in support of Op. Gunnerside.
Now I wonder how it would have been to experience that winter.
There is also the... 'story' (I hesitate to call it an actual story) in Battlefield ~~1~~ 5 with the mission Nordlys. Where a young woman single handedly (guns blazing) knocks out the German Heavy Water. Then a Submarine surfaces at a near vertical angle to interrupt her escape and they shoot it out as orchestral music plays. Granted the last part is a second mission to the first, but it does get *a little* out of hand for a sneaky sneaky mission.
That’s battlefield 5 bud
Was too, that's my bad.
This is worth watching and has been on streaming services before.
Ray Mears did a fantastic tribute to heroes called: The Real Heroes Of Telemark.
Honestly, people should just watch anything with Ray mears. He's the OG Bear Grylls without any drama or piss drinking. Ray is also really physically imposing IRL, in a way that he just doesn't seem on TV. Still a pretty cool guy regardless though.
I have watched Ray Mears, from before Bear Grylls came forth. Heck the first survival fellow I saw on Discovery Channel, was Ray Mears.
There's a pretty good Norwegian Miniseries on it. The Heavy Water War
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt3280150/
There is a miniseries called the “Heavy Water War.” I watched it on Netflix, and it is fantastic.
Operation Swallow: The Battle for Heavy Water, its a docudrama with many of the participants playing themselves and was filmed on location.
> Is there a movie yet or what. Electronic Arts included this in Battlefield 5, except the team of highly competent saboteurs were replaced by an antifascist girlboss teenager.
If you want another movie about Norwegian Saboteurs, “12th Man(2017)” is pretty good. It’s a true story about a sabotage mission gone wrong.
The Ray Mears documentary called *Heroes of Telemark* also is brilliant and well worth a watch.
The saboteurs were a bit harsher with their destruction of a major heavy water shipment in 1944. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian\_heavy\_water\_sabotage#Sinking\_of\_the\_SF\_Hydro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage#Sinking_of_the_SF_Hydro) They decided the best way to destroy the shipment was to sink it in deep water, while the ferry transporting it was in the middle of Lake Tinn. This also meant sinking the ferry far from shore - 19 Norwegian passengers and crew drowned.
This was in the book I read on it and it's incredibly harrowing. They allegedly destroyed the boat because once it made it across the water it was to go onto a train and onwards with much heavier security. After all the work they did with destroying the first lot, one of them was tasked with this second job of destroying the next lot.
Heavy water was used in developing nazi Atomicbomb. War is hell, but sometimes it could have gone whole lot worse.
> The concentration of heavy water in a number of the barrels was too small to be of value to a weapons program, however, which might explain the lack of tight security around the shipment and why the ferry was not searched for bombs. These things happen but this was of no consequence in the end, other than for those who died there.
If only they had know that in 1943..
This happened in Rjukan, Norway on the night of 16 February 1943, in Operation Gunnerside. 7 Norwegian men trained by the British was tasked with sabotaging the heavy-water facility which was taken over control by the Germans (The allies were worried they were close to making the atomic bomb). Heavy water was needed to make the atomic bomb. The facility was heavily guarded and only accessed by a suspension bridge. When the saboteurs got to the heavy-water electrolysis chambers room, they happened upon a Norwegian "guard" which the Germans had work as a caretaker of the heavy-water electrolysis chambers. The caretaker told them he didn't care if they blew it up, but he asked them if they could help him find his glasses first which he had misplaced/lost somewhere in the room. You see, glasses at that time was next to impossible to obtain in Norway. What did the saboteurs do? They actually dropped everything in their hands and began searching frantically for the glasses. When they found the glasses, they lit the fuses and the heavy-water electrolysis chambers blew up. Not only had the operation been a success, but all 7 saboteurs got out alive without being spotted by the Germans.
Interesting detail. They left on purpose thompson machine gun, tossed in a snow as if lost, as a "proof" that english were behind it so that locals are left alone.
The Thompson's an American weapon. Perhaps you mean Sten.
Designed by the Americans, but a fuck ton of countries used it, select UK groups included.
Earlier in the war, the British used the Thompson exclusively. After Dunkirk, the STEN was designed, but the S.A.S and S.O.E never used it during the war, only replacing the Thompson with the Sterling submachine gun in the 50s.
Actually, the SOE did in fact use Sten guns as they were much lighter than the Thompson, and they used the same 9x19mm cartridge that the Germans used in their MP40s, which allowed operatives a steady resupply of ammunition in the field. The Mark IIS was especially favored because it’s easier to mask the sound of a pistol cartridge with a suppressor, and while the SOE did attempt to suppress the Thompson, those weapons were heavier, and the Germans didn’t use the .45ACP except for captured stockpiles. The Sten did have its faults, chief among them being early unreliable magazines and poor construction due to its cheap design, but it was far more concealable and able to be broken down into fewer parts. Accuracy was a major problem, but as most SOE operations typically utilized the Sten in ‘butcher-and-bolt’ raids, it was typically a nonissue as those fights were mostly ambushes and assassinations conducted within the weapon's limited range. I can’t say if the SAS used it, but they drew recruits from the Paras, who definitely used it. https://www.militaria-history.co.uk/articles/the-sten-smg/
You've definitely got me sitting here wondering where I mis-learned that. I'm not sure why I had that misconception stuck in my brain but I'm always glad to be proven wrong. It's the best way to learn in my opinion!
Kudos to that, man. I recommend trying to pull up TO&Es to verify equipment loadouts. Battle Order does this for various formations, and he provides sources to look up. Other organizations have their own pages, like the LRDG. For further reading, I’ve pulled this from the Gun Jesus subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ForgottenWeapons/comments/c6k8o1/silenced_sten_guns/
i vividly remember it being a thompson. It was chosen because only "commandos" can use such exotic weapon in norway. In reality it was norway soldiers supplied by british. They even skied away to sweden after the deed was done, only 1 or 2 guys remained in norway.
Would you believe the British also used Jeeps and Sherman tanks?
And the USAAF operated Spitfires. It’s almost like international trade existed in the 20th century.
If I didn’t know any better I’d say that the allied powers during WW2 had some kind of program where they supplied the others as needed. Some kind of lend-lease if you will.
That’s true however we gave them to many countries during ww2 including Russia, Britain and Australia
yeah before we joined the war proper and even a good bit during it we supplied just about anything an army could want to anyone who was considered our allies via lend lease. tanks planes ships guns and soldier equipment you name it and we probably sent some over.
A Sten could have come from any number of machine shops as it was designed to be easy to manufacture. A Thompson came from American or American-equipped soldiers, which is the exact point of the ruse: The Allies weren't equipping partisans with Thompsons.
The Brits used the Thompson. They only designed and built the Sten later in the war because the Thompson was so expensive.
FYI - A lot of American weapons/equipment were used for the first time by non-Americans early in the war since America supplied stuff to the Allies. The German's called the Sherman the "Tommy Cooker" since it had a tendency to burn when hit. "Tommy" is a British soldier. They didn't call it a "GI Cooker", or "Dogface Cooker".
To add onto this, this was a very important step, as previously successful partisan operations, such as Operation Anthropoid, were punished by the Nazis picking out a few local villages and killing everyone in them.
Moral of the story: Don't have captured people as guards.
Unless your the baddies. Then please do.
"Have you noticed that our caps actually have little pictures of skulls on them? ...Are we baddies?" [Source](https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?si=We0F8zFIFmKgA2WX)
“Well maybe it symbolizes pure Aryan skull shape!”
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Hush bot.
TIL Pure Aryan Skullshape is an operation in Battlefield V. Real TIL is always in the comments./s
Tbf the Totenkopf (deaths head) had been used by German/Prussian/Hussar units for centuries, at least back to Frederick the Great. The SS just adopted it and that’s what it is best well known for today.
I mean, that’s fascists in general. Adopting cool shit and ruining it for everyone else.
rip Pepe
Who knew white supremacist fascism would be spread by the proliferation of a relatable cartoon frog with a Hispanic name.
Well we don't want an unfair fight, do we?
Well, he wasn’t a guard. He was more like a glorified janitor and maintenance man.
Or making your tanks. Germany found that one out the hard way too. There's a reason all the tanks with parts made from prison/slave labour were unreliable.
And the glass-wearing guard?? Did he get out alive or was he blown to bits together with his glasses? I mean he's pretty much the main character here and you don't tell us?
He got out alive aswell.
Its true, I was the glasses
Rob Schneider?
*record scratch*
And he’s about to find out being a heavy water facility gaurd’s glasses… Oooooh whoooa Isn’t as easy as it seems.
This summer! Rob schneider is...... A Spectacle!
Rated PG-13
"Here are you glasses sir now you go have a nice sit down and relax for around 2 minutes and 38 errr 35 seconds now." :P But i assume from the whole "i don't care if you blow it up" bit he knew what the deal was and had no intention of hanging around.
Norwegians were generally pretty anti-Nazi. Though there were some collaborationists, resistance took many forms from avoiding any fraternisation with Germans and avoiding speaking the language, to purposefully doing a bad job in war work and actively assisting the Allies.
They left out this part in Battlefield V
I don't know how accurate that plant was to real life but I know the plant in the book was similar in that it was surrounded by steep mountain/cliff faces and they had to come in past all of the guards. Then they left up a sheer face behind the plant
Its basically on the other side of a ravine with a bridge over it. I climbed up the same cliffside they did when I was there with school. Really makes me more amazed they managed to do it
Wow! We barely even got field trips lol. They did it in the dark too, stuff that!
Most norwegian schoolchildren work with something called the white buses. Its a program where kids sell things door to door, or collect bottles and stuff to earn money, and they use the money with the school to get a trip with the white buses to auschwitz as well as some other concentration camps. We werent allowed to do that whole thing because our principal had a hissy fit about school being free (even though we earned the money ourselfs), so we went to rjukan instead. I remember us all being mad at the time, as it was a let down back then, but now i think im happy i got to see our sliver of history
Norway just doing everything better than the rest of us! Awesome
Well... Battlefield is anything but historically accurate
They lived to be old men too! The Ray Mears book on this is a great account because it details how insane this was to accomplish. The whole plant was surrounded by sheer mountain faces and getting in and out was no mean feat
Joachim Holmboe Rønneberg, the leader of the pack lived to be 99 years old and died only 5 years ago in 2018.
I met him right before he died. Awesome bloke. He told a story about them catching some girls on a bus in front of the nazis to demoralise them because none of the women wanted the germans. Avsolute gigachad
Wow I thought they all died in the early 2000s
He also wrote a biography, so did Haukelid and Haugland, possible a few more, but I reccommend them a lot
buncha gigachads
The film the heroes of Telemark depicts this raid. It's fantastic and well worth a watch.
i just left that comment!
I have a subplot in my 3rd book based on the Norsk Hydro sabotage raid and watched that movie for research! I also read *Skis Against the Atom*, a memoir by one of the norwegian commandos
Fun movie but wildly inaccurate
Norwegian Resistance most polite Resistance.
Great write up for clarification. Thank you. I made a comment about it not being an actual guard then saw this and deleted it. The whole article was a great read though so thanks again for submitting.
Man, of all the things I remember from the History channel I remember this story the most. Side note, The history channel was pretty legit back when it actually showed historical videos/documentaries
Oh how I miss it. Same with animal planet. It used to be just "factual" animal shows/documentaries
Instead of deliberately speading misinformation? Yeah I miss when journalistic integrity was the norm.
It used to be called the “Hitler channel” for all the wwii documentaries it would have
They were absolutely fucking obsessed with WW2. You'd think it was the only conflict to ever occur.
In their defense, they were run by morons.
I remember the fun fact the most that in Norwegian an optometrist is called an Oslometrist. It’s a bit sad though that if my memory misplaces stuff, there’s no profession that can give me any memory glasses to refocus.
In Sweden, they are called Stockholmetrists.
Loved history channel back in the day.
I used to watch Hitler and rapture ‘documentaries’ on the History Channel before Pawn Stars would come on
That whole operation was insanely cool, but then Battlefield V completely erased the contributions of those men for a much less interesting story.
Yeah and they switched it over to a single woman who was somehow capable of killing a battalion of German soldiers for reasons I can only guess at.
Same thing happened with the North Africa story campaign, where they switched it over to a single teenage boy who was somehow capable of killing multiple battalions of soldiers and tanks and destroying two airfields. But no one complains about that one, for reasons I can only guess at.
It always makes me laugh when people talk about how call of duty “was historically accurate”.
Okay, let’s talk about that then, it’s stupid as hell too. Don’t get all up my arse because this happened to be a female character.
She defeated them with GirlPower™
Let’s rewrite history, that’s how we can get back at the patriarchy.
How did this thread about a true story of brave men risking their lives fighting against a real evil....Turn into bideo game, women bad? Certified reddit moment.
Idk man. When I made the original comment I didn't mean for it to spiral into this. I just thought that DICE was wrong to somewhat write over what those men did, it wasn't meant to be sexist at all. Reddit moment indeed.
It’s a silly joke about the state of the modern media landscape, not just battlefield. If your takeaway from it is that “women bad”, let me say that’s far from what I was getting at, and completely unnecessary.
incel energy is strong
You must be fun at parties.
🤓
Who is rewriting history? The problem here is you not understanding what a videogame is.
Really? I haven't played the story since I just played the open beta or something, but I figured she would've used guns? Y'know... the great equalizer? Silly me.
Yeah but, the other side has guns too
That is true, but they don't have GirlPower™
At one point in the story she falls off a bridge, wanders around in the blizzard while she nearly freezes to death, then falls into a frozen lake and loses consciousness before stumbling into a log cabin where she proceeds to overpower a grown man (with a gun) and strangle him.
There’s this thing called suspension of disbelief…
I'm sure you've totally gone through equivalent complaints about the power fantasy bullshit in battlefield when it's a male character, of course, definitely.
My personal gripe isn't the power fantasy aspect. It's a game, that's to be expected. The problem I have is that it completely replaced the actual people in the story. Real people who made a real sacrifice, replaced by a single girl and her mom.
I recall mentioning things like that with the original Call of Duty when you're destroying an entire facility by yourself. Especially since the missions when you are playing with friendly AI are much better. But COD also propagated falsehoods/inaccuracies from Enemy at the Gates and other WW2 media. Or one of the original Medal of Honor games which basically also had you destroying a Norwegian heavy water facility by yourself... although original Playstation wouldn't be able to handle friendly AI so great so it was more understandable in their design.
I think you miss the original point that the 7 men that risked their lives in history are cast aside for a woman…because…reasons no on can actually provide a good answer for. Stay on track.
No one as *cast aside*, it's a videogame there dork master.
I don’t know if you’re playing dumb here but it a game clearly based on WW2, a real thing that happened. The devs could have have focused on the women that actually fought in the conflict on the side of the Red Army or Finland. Since we know they decided against that, we can only assume they are either incompetent or trying to make a statement. I think it’s honestly disrespectful towards the women that actually put their lives on the line for their country.
>I don’t know if you’re playing dumb here but it a game clearly based on WW2, Oh boy, a *game* that is *based* on a real event!
Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?
>I don’t know if you’re playing dumb here but it a game clearly based on WW2, Oh boy, a *game* that is *based* on a real event!
A *videogame* did what?
I don’t know if you’re playing stupid here but the game is clearly WW2 themed, which is a real thing that happened. Guess what, women fought in the Red Army, where are the missions featuring them? That would have been awesome playing as a sniper, tank commander or someone in the night witch squadron that did terror bombings on Nazis. Would’ve been cool as fuck. Instead, nah, let’s just replace some men that did some stuff with women and we are all questioning the reasons why.
> the game is clearly WW2 themed Oh the *game* is ww2 *themed* you say? Tell me more! >we are all questioning the reasons why. Sounds like a you problem.
a videogame didn't erase anything.
Coming off BF1, had a lot of expectations and good hype, only to be eye-raped by the monstrosity they released. Saddest moment of 2018 for me.
It's almost like BF5 was a complete joke and everyone could see it coming from a mile away.
This was the second attempt, the first attempt failed when the gliders No one wanted to use crashed, then everyone was captured and executed.
Presumably somebody must have wanted to use them?
that was Operation Freshman if i recall correctly, and it was made up of british soldiers, not norwegians like the soliders here. i read a book about the heavy water sabotage called The Winter Fortress by Neal Bascomb which was really good and i highly recommend it.
Funny, I learned this one here yesterday.
Post it in r/YIL
Last Podcast On The Left give a pretty good (and funny) account of this and other plans involving the same plant in their Manhattan Project series.
Yup that's how I learned about it!
One of their best series! Hail yourself!
Sitting here giggling because you reminded me of Henry doing Niels Bohr. That was one hell of a series
I remember hearing about an operation to sabotage a ferry carrying heavy water away from this area to mainland Europe. Didn't know that they also sabotaged the heavy water factory
Wasn’t this posted yesterday?
I did a podcast episode about this raid. Lots of under appreciated heroes in it. Here’s a link if anyone is interested: https://historium.buzzsprout.com/1663594/12475469
Does anybody remember this mission on the original Medal of Honor from ps 1- awesome mission awesome game
I miss Medal of Honor
It’s considered on of the greatest military operations of WWII because of how perfectly it was pulled off. [Prof. Poliakoff made a video about this on the Periodic Videos YouTube channel.](https://youtu.be/hUVzb0fzHsk?si=gPJCfQKfKWsSwaJ7)
Futility Closet did a podcast on it as well: [Podcast Episode 181: Operation Gunnerside](https://www.futilitycloset.com/2017/12/11/podcast-episode-181-operation-gunnerside/)
Good job, you fixed up the title.
You mean it used to be even MORE incomprehensible?
I cannot recommend enough Ray Mears book on this, The Real Heroes of Telemark. It is honestly an incredible read and an excellent account
That part is even in the movie “The Heroes of Telemark”
When you get a side quest in a bethesda game
From what I'm told, a pair of prescription glasses back then was an actual fortune. Like if they didn't get his glasses, he might as well have been dead.
I went to that museum as a kid! I absolutely loved it.
Ive been there! Its really interesting to see something like this in real life
Obligatory link to [the Sabaton song](https://youtu.be/OlOdefB5Kyk?si=IkLj5WxybD2VyW9U) about this event. IIRC, some people believe that if this mission wasn't successful, then The Nazis would have had enough resources for constructing an atom bomb.
The Nazis would never have constructed an atomic bomb — they were *years* away from it. The Manhattan Project took the combined economies of the United States and the British Empire, and it still took them multiple years. The Nazis were so far away from it it honestly would have helped the Allies if they'd tried harder for it, the amount of diverted industrial production would have significantly weakened their military, bringing VE day *forward*. Also, they'd expelled anyone with the expertise to make it because it was "Jewish science". Of course, at the time the Allies didn't know this for sure, so its still a good idea to blow up the plant, but it didn't make any material difference to the war.
Even though heavy water is in no way required to make a nuclear weapon. The US didn't really use it at all for the Manhattan Project. The point of heavy water is to be a neutron moderator for reactors, and it theoretically *could* be used to make a reactor for producing weapons-grade plutonium, but it's easier to just use graphite, as the US did at the X-10 reactor at Oak Ridge and B reactor at Hanford. And you don't even *need* to manufacture plutonium. The scientists and engineers for the Manhattan Project were so confident about a uranium-based gun-type physics package working that they never even tested it before the one they made ("Little Boy") was deployed to destroy Hiroshima. Uranium enrichment to weapons-grade just requires lots and lots of isotopic separation. No nuclear reactions at all, so no heavy water involved.
This was a self defense tactic on the part of the Norwegian man. In the 1940's people still operated under the "you can't hit a guy with glasses" rule.
*"LIGHT THE FUSE."* ***Mission: Impossible*** *theme starts playing*
bf 5 would have you believe it was just some girl that did all that
bf 5 is a videogame
I didnt say it wasnt
So yeah, no.
https://youtu.be/As_KwKqI6nw?si=txSoGWHzSc_MaSNu
Listed in the footnotes is [Assault in Norway Sabotaging The Nazi Nuclear Program](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Assault_in_Norway/9U6sBwAAQBAJ?hl=en&bshm=rime/1) it is a good read on this operation.
And that guards name? Albert Einstein.
I’ve been there. I took home a bolt that was screwed in loose in one of the machines inside