Astrup, Helen, and B.L. Jacot. Night has a Thousand Eyes. Edinburgh: Macdonald, 1953. Oslo Intrigue. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.1. General
2. Norsk Hydro Raid
Astrup, Helen, and B.L. Jacot. Night has a Thousand Eyes. Edinburgh: Macdonald, 1953. Oslo Intrigue. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.
Baden-Powell, Dorothy.
1. Operation Jupiter: SOE's Secret War in Norway. London: Hale, 1982.
2. Pimpernel Gold: How Norway Foiled the Nazis. New York: St. Martin's, 1978.
Heimark, Bruce H. The OSS Norwegian Special Operations Group in World War II. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood, 1994.
Surveillant 4.1: "Heimark investigates the conduct of unconventional warfare as one of the many OGs [operational groups] parachuted deep behind enemy lines in German occupied countries."
Moore, Bob, ed. Resistance in Western Europe. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000,.
Foot, I&NS 16.1, finds this work to be a "useful summary of the state of research into resistance to Nazism" in Belgium, the Channel Islands, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway. The author has written the introductory and concluding chapters. He sides with those who argue that the "resistance was not of a great deal of use."
Nielsen, Thomas. Inside Fortress Norway, Bjørn West -- Norwegian Guerrilla Base, 1944-1945. Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 2000.
McKay, I&NS 17.3, comments that the author "has written a lively historical account of the Norwegian Resistance Base, Bjørn West, which was set up in the mountains between Bergen and Sognefjord in the closing phase of the war."
Petrow, Richard. The Bitter Years: The Invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway, April 1940-May 1945. New York: Morrow, 1974.
Constantinides calls this an "incomplete, if good, version" of the intelligence aspects of the author's story.
Pryser, Tore. Hitlers hemmelige agenter: tysk etterretning i Norge 1939-1945. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2001.
McKay, I&NS 17.4, says that the author "has produced an ambitious and wide-ranging study of great interest. He has sought not merely to describe in some detail the range of activities of the principal German services.... In addition, he has explored the social background, motivation and mentality of those people who worked in them whether as officers or agents.... Pryser's book ... will be found indispensable to anyone doing serious historical work on the German intelligence and security organs during World War II or on the history of Norway during the German occupation."
Riste, Olav. "Intelligence and the 'Mindset': The German Invasion of Norway in 1940." Intelligence and National Security 22, no. 4 (Aug. 2007): 521-536.
The German invasion of Norway and Denmark in April 1940 "was a brilliantly successful surprise attack." For both Norwegian and British policy-makers "the idea that Germany was about to launch a major invasion of Norway was remote from any of the preconceived scenarios about Germany's next move."
Riste, Olav, and Berit Nokleby. Norway 1940-45: The Resistance Movement. Oslo, Norway: Tanum, 1970. [Wilcox]
Røholt, Bjørn, with Bjarne W. Thorsen. Usynlige soldater: Nordmenn i Secret Service forteller. Oslo: Aschehaug, 1990.
McKay, I&NS 10.3, says Røholt has produced "a lively, marvelously detailed and authoritative account of the work of the some 250 agents who made up the SIS network in Norway. Both Røholt and Thorsen actively participated with distinction in the secret war.... Usynlige soldater is an important contribution both to the history of [t]he secret war in Norway and to the history of SIS."
Salmon, Patrick. Britain and Norway in the Second World War. London: HMSO, 1995.
Foot, I&NS 11.1: This book brings together the papers from a 1991 conference in Oxford where scholars and participants in World War II examined the Anglo-Norwegian alliance. There are "several gems in this book," and readers will enjoy the book's "well-informed and well-written text."
Worm-Muller, Jacob Stenerson. Norway Revolts Against the Nazis. London: Drummond, 1941.
Allied efforts to interrupt heavy water production at the Norsk Hydro plant near Rjukan in German-occupied Norway included a failed glider assault by British commandos in November 1942, the destruction of a portion of the plant by an SOE team of Norwegians in February 1943, an Eighth Air Force bombing raid in November 1943 that left the plant largely intact, and a subsequent Norwegian Resistance operation in February 1944 that destroyed a final shipment of heavy water on its way to Germany.
The efforts against Norsk Hydro were loosely the basis for the 1965 movie "The Heroes of Telemark," starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.
Berglyd, Jostein. Operation Freshman: The Hunt for Hitler's Heavy Water. Stockholm: Leander & Ekholm, 2006.
Peake, Studies 52.3 (Sep 2008) and Intelligencer 16.2 (Fall 2008), says that the author "sets the record straight" on the destruction of the heavy water plant at Vemork, Norway. This is a "thoroughly documented and illustrated book" that "fills a gap in our history."
Dahl, Per F. Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy. Bristol, UK: Institute of Physics Publishers, 1999.
Beard, I&NS 16.3, notes that this work tells two stories: one, the scientific race for the bomb; and the other, the commando and air attacks on the Norwegian plants making heavy water. The reviewer gives Dahl "high marks," since "[b]oth scientific and military events are expertly described."
Gallagher, Thomas M. Assault in Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Bomb. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. London: Macdonald & Jane's, 1975.
Clark comment: This book recounts the destruction, by an SOE team of Norwegians, of a heavy water plant in Norway and a later operation that destroyed a large shipment of heavy water on the way to Germany. Constantinides notes that the author "tells the story in popular style, emphasizing both the good planning and the bravery that went into the success." However, there are no footnotes, with sources indicated only in the text. See also Haukelid, Attack on Telemark (1974), and Kurzman, Blood and Water (1997).
Haukelid, Knut. Skis Against the Atom. London: Kimber, 1954. Attack on Telemark. New York: Ballantine, 1974.
Clark comment: As a member of the Norwegian Resistance in World War II, Haukelid participated in the Norsk Hydro raid and the later operation that destroyed a large shipment of heavy water on the way to Germany. Constantinides says that Haukelid's account of this daring operation "is good but too modest and too terse."
Helberg, Claus. "The Vemork Action." Studies in Intelligence 36, no. 5 (1992): 80-90.
The author participated in the sabotage attack in February 1943 against the heavy-water production plant at Vemork, Norway. Here, he passes on first-hand observations about the operation.
Herrington, Ian. "The SIS and SOE in Norway 1940-1945: Conflict or Co-operation?" War in History 9, no. 1 (2002): 82-101.
Howarth, David Armine. The Shetland Bus. London: Nelson, 1951. Across to Norway. [?]: Sloane, 1952.
Pforzheimer, Studies 5.2 (Spring 1961), says that this is the story of Norwegian escapees from the Nazis "assembled at a British base in the Shetland Islands (where the author was deputy commander)." They used their boats to transport "saboteurs, agents, and refugees" between Norway and the islands.
Kurzman, Dan.
1. Blood and Water: Sabotaging Hitler's Bomb. New York: Holt, 1997.
Clark comment: This book recounts the destruction, by an SOE team of Norwegians, of a heavy water plant in Norway in February 1943 and a subsequent Norwegian operation in February 1944 that destroyed a large shipment of heavy water on the way to Germany.
Bernstein, NYT, 12 Feb. 1997, calls the author's scientific and strategic background to the story "frustratingly sketchy." However, the military side of the story is "an engrossing, even exciting" account of the efforts to destroy the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant and its product. Kurzman's narrative "blends operational details with portraits of individuals caught up in the war."
For Torgerson, Air Chronicles [http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil], the author "has done an exceptional job of tying together the disparate elements of what some World War II historians consider the most successful commando raid by the Allies against Nazi Germany."
2. "Sabotaging Hitler's Bomb." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 9, no. 2 (Winter 1997): 38-47.
For someone interested in the raid on Norsk Hydro but not to the level of wanting to read an entire book on the subject, Kurzman has done an excellent job of tracing the operation's main lines in this article.
Saxon, Wolfgang. "Claus Helberg, 84, War Hero in the Norwegian Resistance, Is Dead." New York Times, 13 Mar. 2003. [http://www.nytimes.com]
Claus Helberg "took part in the Telemark commando strike of February 1943, which denied the occupying Germans a source of material they might have used to build an atomic bomb.... Helberg went on the mission to reconnoiter the ground approach and joined the band of saboteurs who managed to dynamite the plant in February 1943, hobbling it for the rest of the war. He was captured by the Germans, escaped, and shuttled precariously to Sweden and Britain and back to Norway on reconnaissance missions. He joined the Company Linge, a unit of Norwegian exiles who distinguished themselves gathering intelligence, organizing the resistance and sabotage."
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