FYI.....
Jaro
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CLAUS HELBERG
Real 'hero of Telemark'
Member of commando team that destroyed German atomic weapons program
ASSOCIATED PRESS [14 Nov. 2003]
OSLO, NORWAY - Claus Helberg, a Norwegian resistance fighter and member of a commando team that destroyed Germany's atomic weapons program in a daring Second World War raid, has died. He was 84.
Helberg died March 6 of a heart attack. The 1943 raid, known as Operation Gunnerside, destroyed the Nazis' heavy water plant near Rjukan, 145 kilometres east of the capital, Oslo. Germany occupied Norway from 1940 to 1945.
The plant could have provided Nazi scientists with the chemical reaction necessary to build an atomic bomb.
The raid was depicted in a 1965 movie, The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.
After the raid, the nine commandos fled to Sweden and Britain.
Lewis Mantus, a British writer who helped publicize the 60th anniversary of the raid, held Feb. 28, said Helberg and the other eight fighters "probably saved the world and we should be thankful for what they did."
Born near Rjukan, Helberg was an avid outdoorsman and guide, leading citizens and Scandinavian royal families through the country's mountain trails.
Before and after the Second World War, Helberg laboured to increase interest in Norway's natural beauty by building hiking trails and huts across the country's mountain plateaus.