Knut Haukelid, A `Hero Of Telemark'
OSLO, Norway - Knut Anders Haukelid, one of the "Heroes of Telemark" who helped cripple Nazi Germany's atomic-weapons program in Norway, has died, his family said yesterday. He was 82.
Kirvil Haukelid said her father died of heart failure Tuesday at Det Norsk Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo. He had been hospitalized with the flu.
During World War II, Mr. Haukelid and eight other Norwegian commandos parachuted into the mountains on what seemed a suicide mission, to destroy a heavy-water plant near Rjukan in Telemark County. The raid inspired several books and movies, including the 1965 film "The Heroes of Telemark."
The group stole into the heavily guarded plant on Feb. 27, 1943, and blew it up just after midnight.
"In the end, there was just a tiny insignificant pop," Mr. Haukelid wrote in his book about the raid. "Is this what we had come 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) for? Sure, the windows broke, and there was a flash of light in the night, but it wasn't much."
All nine commandos escaped. Mr. Haukelid remained in the mountains as a resistance fighter. He also helped to sink a ferry loaded with heavy water.
Mr. Haukelid was born in New York on May 17, 1911, to Norwegian parents and returned to Norway when he was 2. He studied in the United States from 1927-31, part of the time at the University of Massachusetts, and in Germany at Berlin University in 1937.
After Germany invaded Norway, Mr. Haukelid joined the military
and became one of Norway's most decorated soldiers. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1973.