Quotes About Vemork

The Uranium Club would require a steady, robust supply of the precious liquid. Unfortunately, the world's sole producer, Norsk Hydro's Vemork plant, was far away in an inaccessible valley in Norway, a country whose neutral status in the war made it an unreliable partner.

Syverstad was at Vemork, and Nielsen in an Oslo hospital, awaiting an appendectomy that his sister, a nurse there, had arranged for him to have on Sunday—the perfect alibi.

The Allies had broken their word. Without consulting the Norwegian government, they had sent a fleet of bombers to strike Vemork. Many civilians had died. Much needless destruction had been wrought, especially on the nitrate plant in Rjukan. That site had never appeared on any target list and only produced fertilizer for Norwegian agriculture. Hardest to accept was the fact that the primary target, the heavy water plant, had not even been damaged, just as Tronstad had warned it would not be.

If production continued, the Allies would likely attack Vemork again. He wanted to move the plant's high-concentration equipment—including all existing stocks of heavy water at every level of concentration—to Germany, where a new plant would be constructed.

The best intelligence the British received came through German activity at Vemork. As early as April 1940 Jacques Allier had alerted his British allies to Nazi efforts in uranium research using heavy water from the plant.

Within days, Tronstad received final confirmation from Skinnarland's spies that the entire shipment of Vemork's heavy water—except for a few drums of nearly worthless concentrate—was at the bottom of Lake Tinnsjø.