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Neal Bascomb

The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb Hardcover – May 3, 2016

by Neal Bascomb (Author)

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From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Hunting Eichmann and The Perfect Mile, an epic adventure and spy story about the greatest act of sabotage in all of World War II.

It’s 1942 and the Nazis are racing to be the first to build a weapon unlike any known before. They have the physicists, they have the uranium, and now all their plans depend on amassing a single ingredient: heavy water, which is produced in Norway’s Vemork, the lone plant in all the world that makes this rare substance. Under threat of death, Vemork’s engineers push production into overdrive.

For the Allies, the plant must be destroyed. But how would they reach the castle fortress set on a precipitous gorge in one of the coldest, most inhospitable places on Earth?

Based on a trove of top secret documents and never-before-seen diaries and letters of the saboteurs, The Winter Fortress is an arresting chronicle of a brilliant scientist, a band of spies on skies, perilous survival in the wild, sacrifice for one’s country, Gestapo manhunts, soul-crushing setbacks, and a last-minute operation that would end any chance Hitler could obtain the atomic bomb—and alter the course of the war.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date

May 3, 2016
Dimensions

6 x 1.35 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0544368053
ISBN-13

978-0544368057
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From the Publisher

Behind the scenes with Neal Bascomb


Dr. Tronstad This is Dr. Leif Tronstad, a brilliant young Norwegian professor, who designed the heavy water plant at Vemork. On the Nazi invasion, he became active in the resistance—and then was forced to flee his country to avoid capture by the Gestapo, leaving behind his wife and two young children. In London, he informed the Allies of German interest in heavy water and learned how essential it was to their atomic bomb plans. After trading his laboratory coat for a military uniform, Tronstad became deeply involved in special operations against the Nazis in Norway, chief among them the sabotage of Vemork. In my research, I had rare access to his voluminous diaries and the many letters he wrote to his family. His is a hero’s story, but also one of war’s impact on the soul. Photo courtesy of Norsk Hydro Collection/Norsk Industriarbeider Museum.	Vemork A hundred miles west of Oslo stands the hydro-electric plant and industrial complex called Vemork. Built of tons of steel and concrete, nestled in a steep valley on the edge of a precipitous cliff, surrounded by miles and miles of frozen tundra, it is indeed a winter fortress. This photograph—and others of Vemork—do little justice to the foreboding nature of the place. During my research, I spent many weeks in the area, living in old cabins buried in snow, hiking and cross-country skiing, and combing through the plant’s archives. Day after day, I would approach the plant and marvel each time at the imposing task the saboteurs faced in attempting to infiltrate and destroy Vemork. Photo courtesy of Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum.	Commandos on the Vidda This narrative is truly a story of epic survival. With rudimentary equipment, the saboteurs dropped by parachute into Norway at a place called the Hardangervidda, where they then lived for months before their operation began. The 3,500 square mile high plateau had no roads, no permanent habitations. Many stretches were barren, lifeless hillsides of broken scree, one mile indistinguishable from the next. On the Hardangervidda, Norwegian legends said, it could grow cold enough, quickly enough, to freeze flames. While there, the team maintained wireless radio contact with London, and their cipher messages speak of terrible blizzards, starvation, desperate hunts for reindeer, and an indomitable spirit to survive in face of such conditions. Haukelid Family Photo.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A New York Times Espionage Bestseller

"Weaving together his typically intense research and a riveting narrative, Neal Bascomb's The Winter Fortress is a spellbinding piece of historical writing."
–Martin Dugard, author of Into Africa and co-author of the "Killing" series

"Neal Bascomb's The Winter Fortress is a riveting, high-action World War II thriller with nothing less than the fate of Planet Earth on the line. Just imagine the horror if Hitler had gotten the atomic bomb? Written with great verve and historical acumen, Bascomb hits the mark of excellence. Highly recommended!"
–Douglas Brinkley, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Deluge and Cronkite

"This book is a must read! A small band of spies commit themselves, their lives, and their family's lives to literally saving the world from the Nazis. An exciting and accurate story detailing a very dark time in world history, when the world pendulum could have tipped either way. If you liked Bridge of Spies, you are going to love this!”
–Scott McEwen, #1 New York Times Bestselling Co-Author of American Sniper.

"What would have happened if Hitler had managed to develop nuclear weapons? In The Winter Fortress, Neal Bascomb brilliantly tells the extraordinary true story of arguably the most important and daring commando raid of WWII: how an amazing band of men on skis made sure Hitler never got to drop the ultimate bomb."
–Alex Kershaw, New York Times bestselling author of The Longest Winter

“Brilliantly written, The Winter Fortress cinematically captures a commando team’s efforts to destroy one of the most important secret facilities in World War II. Bascomb’s riveting prose puts the reader into one of the more daring missions of the war and the Allies’ efforts to sabotage a crucial aspect of Germany's nuclear program. An excellent read.”
–Patrick K. O’Donnell, bestselling author of First Seals and Washington’s Immortals

"This well-told and deeply researched account sheds light on an aspect of World War II that is little known or remembered, creating a valuable history that will be beneficial for most collections."–Library Journal

"An exciting, thorough account . . . Featuring excellent characterization and exquisite detail concerning a theater of the war (Norway) not well-mined, this will make a terrific addition to World War II collections.”
–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Bascomb, a WWII historian and former journalist, thrillingly recounts the commando effort to destroy the Norwegian Vemork hydroelectric plant . . . A fascinating read about how a small group of Norwegians refused to submit to the brutal occupation of their country and contributed significantly to Allied victory."
--Publishers Weekly

"Gripping . . . Parts of the book read like an adventure novel, others like straightforward history, but the combination will appeal to readers of both WWII fiction and nonfiction."
--Booklist, starred review

"An authoritative account . . . Vivid and gripping."
--Foreign Affairs

“Bascomb brings this overlooked tale of wartime nuclear sabotage to life while taking care to explain the science behind the story.”
--Scientific American

"A spellbinding account of the quest to stop Germany from building an atomic bomb….The Winter Fortress is a taut and peerlessly told adventure story full of thrills, derring-do and heart-stopping tension. And it packs an even more powerful punch because so much is at stake.”
—Seattle Times

"Gripping."
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Told with both historical and scientific accuracy...this book has rocketed into my pantheon of the top suspense-filled stories about [WWII], along with The 900 Days and The Colditz Story."
—Ethan Siegel, Forbes

"Deeply researched . . .Bascomb interweaves the stories of Hitler’s ‘Uranium Club’ and of atomic chemist Leif Tronstad, who directed the Allied operation, with the thriller-esque tale of the commandos who put the plant out of action in 1943."
—Nature

"Suspenseful . . . An intensely researched and vividly told account of one of the most critical episodes of the war."
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Riveting and poignant . . . ‘The Winter Fortress’ metamorphoses from engrossing history into a smashing thriller . . . Mr. Bascomb’s research and, especially, his storytelling skills are first-rate.”
—Wall Street Journal

"This tale of a daredevil mission to slow Germany’s World War II progress toward an atomic bomb could only be conjured by a master storyteller. Neal Bascomb’s a master all right, but the events he describes in fly-on-the-wall fashion—working from recently declassified documents, firsthand interviews and previously unseen diaries and letters—are true. . . It’s part spy tale, part action-adventure yarn as the saboteurs strap on skis and undertake the mission of a lifetime. We know how it will turn out, but there are plenty of surprises along the way in a book that, once you reach the midpoint, is almost impossible to put down."
—BookPage

"Gripping ... compelling and makes for an absolute page-turner. It is as much a saga of adventure and survival in the mode of Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger as it is an account of wartime sabotage, secret agents and resistance fighters . . . epic in its sweep and is masterfully narrated by Bascomb."
—Knoxville News Sentinel

From the Inside Flap

From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author ofHunting EichmannandThe Perfect Mile, an epic adventure and spy story about the greatest act of sabotage in all of World War II

It s 1942 and the Nazis are racing to be the first to build a weapon unlike any known before. They have the physicists. They have the uranium. Now all their plans depend on amassing a single ingredient: heavy water, which is produced at Norway s Vemork, the lone plant in all the world that makes this rare substance. Under threat of death, Vemork s engineers push production into overdrive.

For the Allies, the plant must be destroyed. But how would they reach the castle fortress, set on a precipitous gorge in one of the coldest, most inhospitable places on earth?

Based on a trove of top-secret documents and never-before-seen diaries and letters of the saboteurs, The Winter Fortress is an arresting chronicle of a brilliant scientist, a band of spies on skies, perilous survival in the wild, sacrifice for one s country, Gestapo manhunts, soul-crushing setbacks, and a last-minute operation that would end any chance Hitler could obtain the atomic bomb and alter the course of the war.
"

From the Back Cover

From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Hunting Eichmann and The Perfect Mile, an epic adventure and spy story about the greatest act of sabotage in all of World War II

It’s 1942 and the Nazis are racing to be the first to build a weapon unlike any known before. They have the physicists. They have the uranium. Now all their plans depend on amassing a single ingredient: heavy water, which is produced at Norway’s Vemork, the lone plant in all the world that makes this rare substance. Under threat of death, Vemork’s engineers push production into overdrive.

For the Allies, the plant must be destroyed. But how would they reach the castle fortress, set on a precipitous gorge in one of the coldest, most inhospitable places on earth?

Based on a trove of top-secret documents and never-before-seen diaries and letters of the saboteurs, The Winter Fortress is an arresting chronicle of a brilliant scientist, a band of spies on skies, perilous survival in the wild, sacrifice for one’s country, Gestapo manhunts, soul-crushing setbacks, and a last-minute operation that would end any chance Hitler could obtain the atomic bomb—and alter the course of the war.

About the Author

NEAL BASCOMB is the national award-winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Winter Fortress, Hunting Eichmann, The Perfect Mile, Higher, The Nazi Hunters, Red Mutiny, among others. A former international journalist, he is a widely recognized speaker on the subject of war and has appeared in a number of documentaries. He lives in Seattle, Washington. For more information visit http://nealbascomb.com, or Twitter @nealbascomb.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

Nazi-occupied Norway, February 27, 1943 In a staggered line, the nine saboteurs cut across the mountain slope. Instinct, more than the dim light of the moon, guided the young men. They threaded through the stands of pine and traversed down the sharp, uneven terrain, much of it pocked with empty hollows and thick drifts of snow. Dressed in white camouflage suits over their British Army uniforms, the men looked like phantoms haunting the woods. They moved as quietly as ghosts, the silence broken only by the swoosh of their skis and the occasional slap of a pole against an unseen branch. The warm, steady wind that blew through the Vestfjord Valley dampered even these sounds. It was the same wind that would eventually, they hoped, blow their tracks away.
      A mile into the trek from their base hut, the woods became too dense and steep for them to continue by any means other than on foot. The young Norwegians unfastened their skis and hoisted them to their shoulders. It was still tough going. Carrying rucksacks filled with thirty-five pounds of survival gear, and armed with submachine guns, grenades, pistols, explosives, and knives, they waded, slid, and clambered their way down through the heavy, wet snow. Under the weight of their equipment they occasionally sank to their waists in the drifts. The darkness, thickening when the low clouds hid the moon, didn’t help matters.
      Finally the forest cleared. The men came onto the road that ran across the northern side of Vestfjord Valley toward Lake Møs to the west and the town of Rjukan a few miles to the east. Directly south, an eagle’s swoop over the precipitous Måna River gorge, stood Vemork, their target.
      Despite the distance across the gorge and the wind singing in their ears, the commandos could hear the low hum of the hydroelectric plant. The power station and eight-story hydrogen plant in front of it were perched on a ledge overhanging the gorge. From there it was a six-hundred-foot drop to the Måna River, which snaked through the valley below. It was a valley so deep, the sun rarely reached its base.
      Had Hitler not invaded Norway, had the Germans not seized control of the plant, Vemork would have been lit up like a beacon. But now, its windows were blacked out to deter nighttime raids by Allied bombers. Three sets of cables stretched across the valley to discourage low-flying air attacks during the day as well.
      In dark silhouette, the plant looked an imposing fortress on an icy crag of rock. A single-lane suspension bridge provided the only point of entry for workers and vehicles, and it was closely guarded. Mines were scattered about the surrounding hillsides. Patrols frequently swept the grounds. Searchlights, sirens, machine-gun nests, and a troop barracks were also at the ready.
      And now the commandos were going to break into it.
      Standing at the edge of the road, they were mesmerized by their first sight of Vemork. They did not need the bright of day to know its legion of defenses. They had studied scores of reconnaissance photographs, read reams of intelligence, memorized blueprints, and practiced setting their explosive charges dozens of times on a dummy model of the target. Each man could navigate every path, corridor, and stairwell of the plant in his mind’s eye.
      They were not the first to try to blow up Vemork. Many had already died in the attempt. While war raged across Europe, Russia, North Africa, and in the Pacific, while battalions of tanks, squadrons of bombers, fleets of submarines and destroyers, and millions of soldiers faced off against each other in a global conflict, it was this plant, hidden away deep in the rugged Norwegian wilds, that Allied leaders believed lay on the thin line separating victory and defeat.
      For all their intricate knowledge of Vemork, the nine were still not exactly sure how this target could possibly be of such value. They had been told that the plant produced something called heavy water, and that with this mysterious substance the Nazis might be able “to blow up a good part of London.” The saboteurs assumed this was an exaggeration to ensure their full commitment to the job.
      And they were committed, no matter the price, which would likely include their own lives. From the start, they had known that the odds of their survival were long. They might get inside the plant and complete their mission, but getting out and away would be another story. If necessary, they would try to fight their way out, but escape was unlikely. Resolved not to be captured alive, each of them carried a cyanide pill encased in rubber, stashed in a lapel or waistband.
      There were nerves about the operation, for sure, but a sense of fatalism prevailed. For many months now they had been away from their homes, training, planning, and preparing. Now at least they were about to act. If they died, if they “went west,” as many in their special company already had in other operations, so be it. At least they would have had their chance to fight. In a war such as this one, most expected to die, sooner or later.
      Back in England, the mastermind of the operation, Leif Tronstad, was awaiting news of the operation. Before the commandos left for their mission, he had promised them that their feats would be remembered for a hundred years. But none of the men were there for history. If you went to the heart of the question, none of them were there for heavy water, or for London. They had seen their country invaded by the Germans, their friends killed and humiliated, their families starved, their rights curtailed. They were there for Norway, for the freedom of its lands and people from Nazi rule.
      Their moment now at hand, the saboteurs refastened their skis and started down the road through the darkness.

1

The Water

On February 14, 1940, Jacques Allier, a middle-aged, nattily dressed banker, hurried through the doors of the Hotel Majestic, on Rue la Pérouse. Situated near the Arc de Triomphe, the landmark hotel had welcomed everyone from diplomats attending the Versailles peace talks in 1919 to the influx of artists who made the City of Light famous in the decade that followed. Now, with all of France braced for a German invasion, likely to begin with a thrust through Belgium, and Paris largely evacuated, a shell of its former self, conversation at the hotel was once again all about war. Allier crossed the lobby. He was not there on bank business but rather as an agent of the Deuxième Bureau, the French internal spy agency. Raoul Dautry, the minister of armaments, and physicist Frédéric Joliot-Curie were waiting for him, and their discussion involved the waging of a very different kind of war.
      Joliot-Curie, who with his wife, Irène, had won the Nobel Prize for the discovery that stable elements could be made radioactive by artificial or induced methods, explained to Allier that he was now in the middle of constructing a machine to exploit the energy held within atoms. Most likely it would serve to power submarines, but it had the potential for developing an unsurpassed explosive. He needed Allier’s help. It was the same pitch Joliot-Curie had given Dautry months before, one made all the more forceful by the suggestion that the energy held within an ordinary kitchen table, if unlocked, could turn the world into a ball of fire. Allier offered to do whatever he could to help the scientist.
      Joliot-Curie explained that he needed a special ingredient for his experiments? — ?heavy water? — ?and that there was only one company in the world that produced it to any quantity: Norsk Hydro, in Norway. As an official at the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, which owned a majority stake in the Norwegian concern, Allier was ideally positioned to obtain whatever supplies Norsk Hydro had at its Vemork plant as quickly and discreetly as possible. The French prime minister himself, Édouard Daladier, had already signed off on the mission.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition (May 3, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0544368053
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0544368057
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.35 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.35 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #733,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #105 in Norway History
- #1,755 in German History (Books)
- #6,854 in World War II History (Books)

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Neal Bascomb

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Neal Bascomb is the author of ten award-winning, national, and international bestselling books, including most recently FASTER, a tale of the greatest upset in motorsports history. He is also a critically acclaimed young adult writer. His book NAZI HUNTERS (Scholastic) won the YALSA Non-fiction Award for young adults, as well as a number of other national and state-level awards. Also from Scholastic, SABOTAGE and THE GRAND ESCAPE were breakout hits. A former international journalist and book editor, he has also written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Philadelphia with his family.

Bascomb is also the creator of the popular newsletter WorkCraft/Life (www.workcraftlife.com). Illuminating stories of people and the work they do. One feature profile, once a week, that will inspire, inform, infuriate, or just make you say wow. Sign up for free.

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Emilio Corsetti III

A sprawling WWII story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 11, 2021

Verified Purchase

From the subtitle, you might assume that this book tells the story of a single sabotage mission. That is not the case. There are three separate missions made by different saboteurs.

Two of the planned attacks are successful. One goes terribly wrong. As compelling as each planned attack is, the book suffers from too many characters with hard to pronounce names and a lack of images that would have helped enormously.

I listened to most of the book, reading on my Kindle between what I played on Audible. The Winter Fortress in the title refers to a manufacturing plant in Norway that produced heavy water. The author explains in detail what heavy water is, the production process, and how the Germans were using it in their attempts at building an atomic bomb. If I read that section ten times, I probably still couldn't fully understand it.

While the sabotage attempts are engaging, much of the book dwells on different characters struggling to survive in Norway's mountains awaiting orders. Men who have family a day hike away instead decide to rough it in the mountains. Supply drops go unrecovered. There is poor planning in almost every phase of the initial action.

The first attempt at sabotage involved men crammed into large gliders who were supposed to land in a hastily prepared landing spot. The mission was doomed from the start. Pilots towing the gliders navigated by beacon, which only got them into the general vicinity of the landing strip. It was at night. It was a mountainous terrain. The men waiting for them on the ground had only crude signal lights that went unseen. It ended in tragedy for all involved.

This book is a perfect example of how images would have made the story easier to follow and appreciate. No matter how well the author tried to describe the fortress, a character, a ferry, a plane, or a ship, it didn't match a simple picture's power.

3 people found this helpful

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Ethan Sellevold

Amazing read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 25, 2023

Verified Purchase

Great use of images and storytelling made it feel like you were reliving a rather unheard story from the war. Great writing, and an amazing amount of researching clearly went into this

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Anthony(Tony) Riggio

Denmark in World War II, Heavy Water, German building of an Atom Bomb

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 2, 2017

Verified Purchase

October 1, 2016
A review by Anthony T. Riggio of the book “The Winter Fortress” written by Neal Bascomb

I purchased this hardbound book through Amazon which is a history book about World War II in an area of the world I was totally unfamiliar with, namely Denmark, and it involved the Dane partisan activities along with British commandoes. Many of these nationally committed Danes escaped to England when the Nazi’s invaded Denmark and trained to be partisan soldiers to engage in sabotage efforts to slow down any progress’ the Nazi’s were hoping for in the development of their hoped for Atomic bomb. Prior to the invasion by the Nazi’s, the Danes operating a hydroelectric dam on the Rjukan River near Vemork Denmark, were producing “heavy water” which was primarily used to further scientific experiments that was used by academic institution. It had no real value and was sold off at minimum prices to universities.

With the advent of World War II, the Germans (as well as the American scientists) discovered that heavy water was an essential medium for centrifuges and the splitting of the atom. The German had been working on the development of an Atomic bomb during the war and the invasion of Denmark was for access to the hydroelectric facilities at Vemork where the heavy water was harvested in rather small amounts. The Germans saw this as an opportunity to manufacture heavy water on a large-scale basis necessary for their developmental hopes
.
The Allies aware of the German intentions vis a vie Vemork, through intelligence efforts soon decided that this facility became a target for destruction. They had to strike a balance between total-destruction and surgical elimination of the Heavy water parts of the hydroelectric facilities. Total destruction would have adversely affected the Danish population and the free Dane partisans, including the king of Denmark, in exile, who were part of the allied efforts.
Many Danes escaped to England to receive training for partisan purposes. A select group of these young men were selected for a commando raid to destroy the heavy water facilities while keeping the interests of the Danish public in mind.

This book was superbly written and kept my interest focused during the entire read, involving the topping of the Germans from developing an Atomic bomb. It was difficult to put down even though it was a small glimpse of World War II we never hear about. The book was a complete thriller, though the names of people and locations took a bit of an effort as I started reading but quickly adjusted.

This was one of the best historical presentations I have read and consequently I gave it a FIVE STAR rating.

3 people found this helpful

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J. D. Freeman

An Epic Mission indeed...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 29, 2016

Verified Purchase

Excellent book, very well researched, balanced account, and a truly even-handed text that responds to all the histories that it needs to deal with. Anyone interested in the realities behind 'The Heroes of Telemark' HAS to read this, or be confounded. It's so much better than Hollywood, and its ability to respond to the human back-stories is highly praiseworthy.

2 people found this helpful

Trigo

Detailed and gripping

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 22, 2016

Verified Purchase

This is a very well written book and so gripping that in places it reads more like a thriller. It has some excellent technical content as well - explaining Germany's nuclear ambitions during WW2 and elucidating why the heavy water, produced at Vemork in Norway, was so important to these plans. Mostly though it is a tribute to the extreme strength and bravery of the members of the Norwegian resistance groups.

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Great if the subject interests you

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 29, 2021

Verified Purchase

Interesting account of an amazing true story

StephenMB

Fabulous read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

Marvellous book that gets as close as possible to the stark truth of what it was like to be a resistance fighter in WW II. Heroes of Telemark didn't even get near to it.

3 people found this helpful

Robert L. Newstead

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 17, 2016

Verified Purchase

I saw the film with Kirk Douglas but this book truly reveals how much we owe our Norwegian Friends

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Buy new:

$20.50

FREE delivery: May 25 - 30

Ships from: Xcursy Store

Sold by: Xcursy Store

Buy used:

$10.75