Operation Freshman
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Operation Freshman was the codename given to a British airborne operation conducted in November 1942 during World War II. It was the first British airborne operation using Airspeed Horsa gliders, and
The Vemork hydroelectric plant, circa 1947.
The Vemork hydroelectric plant in snow in 2008
The Vemork Hydroelectric Plant as it looks today. Heavy water production took place in the now-demolished Hydrogen Production Plant, formerly situated to the left (i.e. in front) of the building in the picture.
The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt Nazi German heavy water production via hydroelectric plants in German-occupied Norway during World War II, involving both
Operation Freshman
…for questioning, but the members of Operation Grouse slipped away into the wilderness of Hardangervidda. They later contributed to the successful Operation Gunnerside in February 1943, when a small team of Norwegian SOE agents were parachuted into the area and destroyed much of the heavy water equipment in Vemork…
Experimental apparatus with which chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discovered the nuclear fission of uranium in 1938
Heavy water made by Norsk Hydro
Reconstruction of the Operation Gunnerside team planting explosives to destroy the cascade of electrolysis chambers