Operation Freshman: 'I touched the runway, just to say that Jim had been here'
A relative of an Operation Freshman victim has paid an emotional visit to the former Caithness airfield where the ill-fated mission took off more than 80 years ago.
Phil Falconer was able to touch the old runway at RAF Skitten and reflect on the sacrifice made by his uncle, Flight Sergeant Jim Falconer, and the 40 other men who died in the raid on Nazi-occupied Norway.
Mr Falconer and his wife Linda, from St Cyrus, Aberdeenshire, had travelled north to attend an illustrated talk by military historian Bruce Tocher organised by Sinclair’s Bay Trust as part of the Caithness At War project.
Two Halifax bombers, both towing Horsa gliders containing commando-trained Royal Engineers, took off from Skitten, a satellite of RAF Wick, in November 1942. But the mission failed disastrously and only one bomber crew made it back.
Forty-one men lost their lives – 23 of them executed by the Gestapo.
Dr Tocher is a leading authority on the Operation Freshman story. He told an audience of more than 80 at Reiss village hall about his research into the daring bid to wreck Germany's ability to develop an atomic bomb by sending sabotage troops to attack a heavy-water plant at Vemork, supported by a Norwegian resistance group.
Flight Sergeant Jim Falconer, who grew up in Edzell, Angus, was 20 when he was killed after the aircraft known as Halifax “B” crashed in the wintry Helleland hills in south-west Norway.
Speaking before Saturday's talk, Mr Falconer explained: "I was brought up knowing about Jim all the time. He was never ever not spoken about – my dad spoke about him all the time.
"My granny stayed in Edzell and she had a big picture of him on the wall, and she got buried with the picture in her coffin.
"It was always mentioned, it was always spoken about."
Earlier in the day, the Falconers and Dr Tocher had visited the Skitten airfield memorial and the remains of the wartime runway.
Mr Falconer said: "I bent down and touched it with my hand, just to say that Jim had been here. That would have been the last place he'd stood before they took off.
"I was just thinking about what they had to do. It must have been a horrible night they left – away to do that and you're only 20, and you're thinking you might get back."
Mr and Mrs Falconer have visited the Operation Freshman crash sites in Norway and felt it was fitting to see the place where the mission was launched.
"He touched the ground that Jim last stood on," Mrs Falconer said, adding: "You can't really appreciate what they must have endured to get to that point.
"Probably the ones that died on impact in many ways were the lucky ones. Other ones were tortured and suffered terribly."
Dr Tocher, originally from Forfar, is a geologist who was a university lecturer and worked in the oil and gas industry. He moved to Norway in 1995 and has been researching Operation Freshman with a view to writing a book.
He said: "I've been working on it more or less full-time for four years. I took early retirement and, as my wife says, I'm working harder and longer hours now than I did when I actually worked professionally in the industry.
"It's a passion. It's a story that's so fascinating in so many facets. It's got an amazing connection between the UK, the Commonwealth and Norway.
"There are so many people involved in this and it's a story that needs to be more widely known. It was seen at the time as one of the most important raids of the war."
Dr Tocher pointed out that Operation Freshman – sanctioned by Churchill – was the precursor to Operation Gunnerside. That mission became the inspiration for the 1965 film The Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris and Ulla Jacobsson.
As Freshman "went disastrously wrong", little was mentioned about it at the time. "They got no recognition for what they did. There were no bravery awards made," Dr Tocher said.
"It was the first glider-borne attempt of World War II by the Allies, in the most extreme conditions you could imagine, a super-high-risk operation with a very limited chance of coming back. And yet they were basically forgotten, and it took years before some of the families found out what actually went on.
"The main aim is to write a book. My kind of angle was to try and tell the story through the guys who took part, so I set myself a quest to trace the families of all the 48 men who actually took part in the raid. I've managed to get 37, plus a lot of other people who were involved.
"Last year I had 67 of the relatives over in Norway for a week. I took them to the crash sites, took them to the sites where the soldiers were executed, took them to the graveyards, and we ended the whole thing with a reception at the British embassy in Oslo.
"We visited Vemork, we went to the heavy-water cellar. It was an incredible experience.
"The big thing was getting the families over. I was in touch with more than 100 relatives of the guys who took part."
He added: "The tragedy was that so many of these young lads lost their lives horribly. It was so unnecessary."
Dr Tocher's talk was arranged by Alistair Jack, development trust support officer at Caithness Voluntary Group. The aim of the Caithness At War project is to establish a heritage trail highlighting the importance of the area in guarding against a potential Nazi invasion.
Mr Jack said: “It was amazing to see such a great turnout to the talk and so much support for the Caithness At War project, and I would like to thank everyone who turned up or who sent messages of support on social media.
"The event was far more successful than we could have imagined so we hope to organise another talk on a subject of interest relating to the project within the next few months.
“The Caithness At War project is now moving forward at pace with all planning applications for the information panels submitted to Highland Council, so as long as we don’t have any issues then we are aiming to have a launch for the trail sometime in August.”
A wreath-laying ceremony took place at the Skitten airfield memorial in November last year to mark the 80th anniversary of Operation Freshman. Local members of the Royal British Legion Scotland and others gathered to honour the men who lost their lives in the operation and the resistance fighters who tried to help them.
