Two days later. SOE headquarters, London
The mood was heavy in the SOE planning room on Baker Street that morning, thick as a fog in Wales.
Thirty-four crack soldiers and six brave airmen were dead. Months of planning and preparation down the drain. The stock and credibility of SOE shattered.
Wilson’s team had helped train the soldiers, and their loss weighed heavily on them all.
On the strategic front, the toll was even higher. The Germans had now been alerted as to the ultimate target of the raid—the heavy water facility at Norsk Hydro. No doubt the plant’s defenses would be strengthened even further. All knew it would take months to even think of another raid. And every day the German heavy water production was allowed to continue was another day they got closer to a weapon that could win them the war.
A further cost, Wilson and Tronstad knew, was that it was now likely the Germans would sweep the Rjukan area and pick up anyone on the ground even suspected of aiding the raid. Which put the Grouse team, still hiding on the vidda, in even greater danger. In order to remain hidden they’d have to head for the most remote and inhospitable regions. The rations they’d brought with them were intended to last for weeks, not months. The morning after the raid, Wilson’s first communication to them urged that it “is vitally necessary that you should preserve your safety at all costs.” The second was that at the same time, they required updated information on the status of new German defenses around the plant. Keep up your hearts, he urged them. We will do the job yet.
But in fact, they had to start over completely. The Home Office had the grim task of explaining the loss of forty elite men to the country. For reasons of secrecy, any mentions of the raid were completely expunged from the official records, lest people on the home front, specifically the press, ask questions as to what it was these men had given their lives for. Everyone knew recommending a new plan of attack would be no easy task now. Who would dare even authorize such a mission? Not to mention that the chance for favorable weather over Norway was narrowing by the day. The feeling at SOE was that if the disastrous mission had proved one thing it was that just landing a sizable party on the vidda was next to impossible, much less getting that team across it. So what would a new plan of attack be? Who would carry it out?
“Do we go for it again?” Henneker, whose stock had precipitously fallen, asked around the planning table.
“Getting any kind of approval from the Home Office will be next to impossible now,” Lord Brooks replied. What had now become clear, if it ever was in doubt, was that the likelihood of any of their men actually making it out, even if the raid had proven successful, was more than remote, if not impossible.
“Anyway, the window of weather to even contemplate such an undertaking is narrowing,” Henneker said. “And to drop a party of that size into the area, with enough firepower and supplies to get the job done…” To throw good lives after lost ones, he was saying. It would be the toughest decision they would ever have to recommend in their lives. Not only in terms of their consciences and careers, but in achieving the objective, which was to set back the German efforts to obtain the decisive weapon of the war.
“I’m open to all suggestions.” Gubbins looked around the room.
No one raised a hand.
Finally Leif Tronstad spoke up. “To my mind, the stakes haven’t changed, have they?”
“If anything, they’re only higher,” Brant Kelch, Whitehall’s scientific adviser, confirmed. “The Germans are said to be closing in on a critical mass, and from what I’m told, the combined American and British teams are still at least a year away.”
“So then our only choice is to bomb the damn thing into oblivion,” Henneker finally said. What the others were likely thinking. “Our new Sterlings can make the trip there and back. The Americans have their B-17s. Once past the coast, I’m advised the German air defenses aren’t anything to worry about. A day of heavy bombardment, we’ll level the place.”
“No. You won’t.” This time, Tronstad looked him squarely in the eye. “The gorge is far too narrow and the plant too protected by the overhang of the cliffs. The planes will have to fly in low, so who knows how many you’ll lose. In addition, the town of Rjukan is only a short way away. All that will happen is that your bombing will end up not achieving its ends and hundreds of innocent lives will be lost.”
“You were willing to risk British lives when they were on the table,” Henneker said with an edge of a challenge.
“I told you from the start your raid wouldn’t work. And we won’t slaughter innocent citizens.” The Norwegian scientist turned intelligence officer put down his pipe. “Especially when the prospects of success are so low. And when there is still another way.”
“And what way is that?” Gubbins asked, seemingly taken by surprise.
“One last raid.”
“Another raid…?” The SOE chief took off his glasses. “I just informed you what the climate for that kind of action is right now. How would this one be any different?”
“Because this time we’ll do it with men who have a fighting chance of carrying it out. My boys,” Tronstad declared.
“Your boys?” Lord Brooks looked at him.
“Norwegians?” Gubbins said. “You’re talking exclusively?”
“And why not? We have four already in place. A team of say, five or six more, equally trained. Who are as brave as any Brit and just as willing to put their lives on the line. Who speak the language and know the region like the back of their hands. Who better?”
“Members of the Linge Company have never been sent into battle,” Gubbins said. “This may well be our last chance at the target.”
“They were in battle before they came here. And if Grouse has shown you anything, it’s that they’re as resilient and committed as any of yours.”
“Ten men…?” Henneker sniffed skeptically. “Even if they do make it there, there are now thirty to forty German guards they’d have to get past before they even reached the objective. Forgetting the terrain.”
“Aye, and ask anyone,” Tronstad said, “the odds won’t bother them. And the terrain is their friend. They know the region and how to survive there. And they’re as good fighters, and as prepared, as any in the corps. Am I wrong, Jack?” He turned to Wilson. “We should have done this the first time. Is that not so?”
The head of the Norwegian section looked around the table. Gubbins had given him his job and he had known the man many years. But now it was time to do what had to be done, and do it right. “He’s right, sir.” He gave the SOE chief a nod. “They’re as capable as any men we have. And they’re eager to go and fight. So I agree, let’s send them in. I’ll stake my rank on it. They’ll show you results.”