Knut Haugland; Independent obit
Hyfler/Rosner
He fought the Nazis. He braved the Pacific. And he hated
being called a hero. Jonathan Brown looks at the
extraordinary career of Knut Haugland, the last Kon-Tiki
survivor
Monday, 28 December 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/knut-haugland-a-reallife-adventure-story-1851472.html
Adventure stories rarely come more epic than that of Knut
Haugland, the Norwegian resistance fighter who died on
Christmas Day at the age of 92. His exploits were already
the stuff of legend even before he joined Thor Heyerdahl's
crew aboard his balsa wood raft, Kon-Tiki. Together they not
only conquered the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean using
only the most primitive of technologies - but in doing so,
they helped rejuvenate the crushed spirit of human endeavour
in the bleak aftermath of the Second World War.
A heavily decorated commando who escaped three times from
the clutches of the Nazis, his bravery and endurance gave
rise to one of the most enduring legends of the Second World
War - one retold in spectacular style in a Hollywood movie.
Yesterday Haugland's successor as director of the Kon-Tiki
Museum in Oslo, where thousands flock each year to relive
the optimism and excitement of that intrepid voyage,
announced that the former radio operator had succumbed to
natural causes in a city hospital, closing the final chapter
on an extraordinary life.
Haugland's death, following that of Heyerdahl himself in
2002, marks the passing of the last of the six-man crew that
set sail from Callao in Peru in April 1947, bound several
thousand nautical miles for the far-flung islands of
Polynesia based on little more than an anthropological
hunch. That journey set a new benchmark for modern
adventurers, spawning an international best-selling book
published in 66 languages and an Oscar-winning film in which
Haugland played himself. It also helped popularise
Heyerdahl's passionately held belief that the great oceans
had been highways and not barriers for the movement of
ancient seafaring civilisations.
Haugland's role aboard the Kon-Tiki was that of radio
operator, keeping the outside world aware of the raft's
stately progress during the long drift westwards on the
currents off South America. He had trained in the technology
before the war and fought against the invading German forces
until Hitler's troops overran Norway in 1940. Under
occupation the then 23-year-old gave the impression of
having settled down as an Oslo factory worker but was in
fact a major figure in the Norwegian resistance movement.
His first brush with the Nazi authorities came in August
1941 when he was arrested but escaped. In exile, he joined
the Norwegian Independent Company, a celebrated band of
patriotic Nordic fighters assembled under the auspices of
the newly-formed British Special Operations Executive which
was planning raids in occupied northern Europe. Key to the
British strategy was the establishment of a network of radio
sets and operators allowing for the co-ordination of
anti-Nazi operations.
The most famous of these became known as the Norwegian Heavy
Water Sabotage - an ambitious raid on the Norsk Hydro Rjukan
plant at Vermork. The operation provided the sensational
plot line for Anthony Mann's 1965 film The Heroes of
Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.
Appropriately enough it was being broadcast once again on
the BBC yesterday as news of Haugland's death was announced.
Yet Haugland was always unhappy with the depiction of events
in the film and particularly the use of the word hero. "I
never use that word about myself or my friends. We just did
a job," he said in one of his last interviews to mark the
60th anniversary of the raid. "Forty-one men were killed and
it could have been avoided. Because of the loss of life you
shouldn't glorify the story."
The plan of action grew out of Allied fears that the Nazis
were preparing to build their own atomic bomb. One of the
key components in the production process was deuterium
oxide, otherwise known as heavy water. The hydro plant at
Vermork provided the Germans with a ready supply as a
by-product of local fertilizer production capable of
manufacturing 12 tons of the stuff a year. Before the war
the French had carried away much of the reserves but while
the hydro plant was still operable the threat remained.
In November 1942 a forward party of four local resistance
fighters, including Haugland, was parachuted onto the
Norwegian wilderness from where they would ski to a base
close to the plant. It was their task to report back to the
British after memorising the blueprint of the facility. This
first phase was codenamed Operation Grouse and was achieved
successfully. But the second phase - Operation Freshman -
was a disaster. Despite the harshness of the Nordic terrain
and savage weather, the British planned to land two gliders
packed with Royal Engineers and members of the 1st Parachute
Regiment on a frozen lake. They took off from Wick in
Caithness pulled by Halifax bombers. One plane and both
gliders crashed with much loss of life. The crew that were
not killed outright were interrogated by the Gestapo before
being put to death.
The failure not only alerted the Germans to the importance
of the heavy water site, but also consigned the Norwegian
advance party to a gruelling winter on the remote Hardanger
Plateau where they were forced to endure temperatures of
minus 20F. Food was so short they resorted to eating the
contents of a reindeer's stomach. Haugland's job was to keep
in contact with the British using a radio he had fashioned
from a stolen fishing rod and an old car battery. Each
morning at 1am he would make contact, often unable to
control the chattering of his teeth.
The final phase of the sabotage began in February 1943.
Named after SOE head Sir Charles Hambro's favourite grouse
shooting moor, Operation Gunnerside saw a further six
Norwegian commandos parachuted into the target area. Luck
played its part and the two groups were united, launching
their assault on the now heavily mined and floodlit plant.
To bypass the exposed bridge which led to the plant they
waded through snow and forded an icy river before scaling a
sheer ravine side to reach their target via an old railway
line. In the end the cells producing the heavy water were
blown up without a shot being fired. The Norwegians made
their way back to the plateau undetected, leaving behind a
British gun to divert suspicion from the local resistance,
including the mole working inside the hydro plant.
Three thousand Germans were involved in the hunt for the
saboteurs and though it was revealed that the Nazi high
command had not in fact been planning to build a bomb, the
operation came to be regarded as a triumph of its kind.
After surviving this, the perils of the Pacific held little
fear for Haugland. He had first met Heyerdahl at a military
training camp in Britain in 1944 where he had fled once more
after another close scrape with the Gestapo. Sufficiently
impressed with the anthropologist's powerful personality and
controversial theories on Polynesian migration patterns, he
agreed to join the expedition, taking a break from a
military career which was to see him rise to the rank of
lieutenant colonel before retiring from his position as head
of the Norwegian Resistance Museum in 1983. In 1947, the
desire to sail across the Pacific baffled many in a world
still mourning the deaths of thousands of mariners who lost
their lives in oil-choked seas during the war. Yet few could
resist the spirit of resurgent individualism and heroic
adventure which the Kon-Tiki project embodied, even if many
were baffled by Heyerdahl's devotion to the idea that New
World mariners had populated Polynesia from the east rather
than the west.
The raft itself was named after a mythical seafarer who,
according to the Aymara Indians of Lake Titicaca in
modern-day Bolivia, had set sail over the horizon never to
be seen again. Despite the reliance on primitive
technology - the raft was built by the men on the dockside
based on drawings dating back to the time of the
conquistadores - the expedition allowed itself the luxury of
a hand-cranked radio. Haugland spent much of the 101 days at
sea briefing the outside world. The voyage came to a halt
when the vessel was grounded on a reef off Raroia Island,
part of the Tuamotu group, some 3,770 nautical miles from
the Peruvian coast. They were eventually rescued from the
tiny islet after several days, and taken back to Tahiti by a
French schooner. An expedition which included Heyerdahl's
grandson duplicated the voyage in 2006.
David Carson
>Haugland, the Norwegian resistance fighter who died on
>Christmas Day at the age of 92.
Every other obit I've seen says he died on the 26th.
David Carson
--
Why do you seek the living among the dead? -- Luke 24:5
Who's Alive and Who's Dead
http://www.whosaliveandwhosdead.com
David Carson
>>Adventure stories rarely come more epic than that of Knut
>>Haugland, the Norwegian resistance fighter who died on
>>Christmas Day at the age of 92.
>
>Every other obit I've seen says he died on the 26th.
Well, shut my mouth. Reading again, I see that they all say Friday, which
was the 25th.