Operation Freshman victims to be remembered on 80th anniversary of ill-fated mission
A wreath-laying ceremony in Caithness next weekend will mark the 80th anniversary of a brave but ill-fated wartime mission designed to wreck Nazi Germany's attempts at developing an atomic bomb.
Local members of the Royal British Legion Scotland will gather at the Skitten airfield memorial on Saturday, November 19, to honour the men who lost their lives in Operation Freshman in 1942 and the resistance fighters who tried to help them.
The aim of the daring operation was to halt the Germans’ atomic weapons programme by destroying a vital heavy-water plant in occupied Norway. Three years into World War II, there were growing fears that the Nazis could win the race to develop an atomic bomb – with potentially catastrophic consequences for the Allies.
The target of the intended sabotage was the Norsk hydroelectric company’s plant at Vemork, situated in a landscape of towering cliffs and deep gorges. The plant produced Europe’s only supply of deuterium oxide, otherwise known as heavy water, a key component in atomic research.
The Germans had taken control of the plant after invading Norway in April 1940.
Two Halifax bombers, both towing Horsa gliders containing commando-trained Royal Engineers, took off from Skitten, a satellite of RAF Wick. 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.
Follow-up attacks by the Norwegian resistance, backed by Britain’s Special Operations Executive, did succeed and these inspired the 1965 Hollywood action movie The Heroes of Telemark.
After a coded message from the Norwegian agents saying conditions would be suitable, it was agreed that Operation Freshman would be launched on the night of November 19, 1942.
Take-off was scheduled for 5.30pm but Halifax “A” was delayed for almost half an hour as the crew tried unsuccessfully to get the Halifax-to-Horsa intercom gear in working order. Crew “B” took off around 6.20pm, also having had intercom problems.
At 11.41pm the operations room at Wick received a radio signal from Halifax “B”, in the vicinity of Egersund, asking for a course to return to Skitten. Nothing more was heard from the aircraft – it crashed in hills and all seven on board were killed instantly. The bodies of Flight Lieutenant Arthur R Parkinson (26), Flight Lieutenant Arthur E Thomas (32), Flying Officer Arnold T Haward (28), Pilot Officer G W Sewell de Gency (20), Flight Sergeant Albert Buckton (23), Flight Sergeant George M Edwards (24) and Sergeant J Falconer (20) were buried in the snow until the following spring when they were interred in herring boxes. In May 1945 the remains were exhumed by British troops and buried in Helleland churchyard.
Horsa HS114 came down some four kilometres away, with Pilot Officer Norman A Davies and Pilot Officer Herbert J Fraser (both 28) being killed on impact along with Driver Ernest Pendlebury (25). Fourteen others – Lieutenant Alex C Allen (24), Lance Sergeant George Knowles (28), Corporal John G L Thomas (23), Lance Corporal Frederick W Bray (29), Lance Corporal Alexander Campbell (24), Sapper Ernest W Bailey (31), Sapper Howell Bevan (22), Sapper Thomas W Faulkner (22), Sapper Charles H Grundy (22), Sapper Herbert J Legate (24), Sapper Leslie Smallman (22), Sapper James M Stephen (25), Sapper Gerald S Williams (18) and Driver John T V Belfield (26) – survived the crash and were taken prisoner by the Germans. Within a matter of hours they had been shot by a firing squad at Slettebø barracks. All 17 bodies were dumped in a hole that had been dug on the shore at Brusand. At the end of the war the remains were exhumed and reinterred at Eiganes cemetery, Stavanger.
Halifax “A”, piloted by Squadron Leader A M B Wilkinson, with Group Captain Tom Cooper as second pilot, returned to Skitten in the early hours of November 20. The iced-up tow rope had broken near Stavanger and Horsa glider DP349 made a crash landing on snow-covered mountains at Fylgjesdalen.
Staff Sergeant Malcolm F Strathdee (27), Sergeant Peter Doig (25), Lieutenant David Alexander Methven, GM (20), Lance Sergeant Frederick Healey (29), Sapper John G V Hunter (22), Sapper William Jacques (30), Sapper Robert Norman (22) and Driver George Simkins (30) were killed outright in the crash of DP349 and their bodies lie in Eiganes cemetery. Four severely injured soldiers – Corporal James D Cairncross (22), Peter P Farrell (26), Lance Corporal Trevor L Masters (25) and Sapper Eric J Smith (25) – were taken by the Germans to a jail in Stavanger where they were murdered on the night of November 24 and the following morning.
The following day the four corpses were disposed of at sea. They were never recovered.
The five men who had emerged relatively unscathed from the crash landing at Fylgjesdalen – Sapper James F Blackburn (28), Sapper Frank Bonner (25), Lance Corporal Wallis M Jackson (21), Sapper John W Walsh (21) and Sapper Thomas W White (23) – were captured and taken to a concentration camp near Oslo. On January 18, 1943, they were executed by firing squad and their bodies were buried in a mass grave. After the war their remains were exhumed and reinterred in a Commonwealth war graves plot in Oslo.
The murdered men were victims of Hitler’s notorious “commando order” of October 1942 demanding that sabotage troops or partisans working for the Allies should be “killed to the last man in battle or flight” or, if captured indirectly, handed over to the SS.
In February 1943, after a long ski journey and a dangerous descent onto the ravine below Vemork, saboteurs managed to blow up the key plant along with 3000lb of heavy water. That attack, and an American bombing raid in November the same year, effectively halted the production of heavy water at Vemork but the plant still held substantial stocks.
An attempt was made to move the remaining heavy water to Germany, a journey that involved transferring the consignment to a ferry across Lake Tinnsjø. Resistance men laid explosive charges that caused the boat to sink in the deepest part of the lake.
All that remains of Skitten airfield is a cluster of huts on farmland between Killimster Moss and Reiss on the B876. The roadside World War II memorial will be the focal point of next Saturday's small ceremony, starting at 11am.
Afterwards, those taking part will go back to the Legion premises at Mackenzie House in Coach Road, Wick, where there will be refreshments as well as a display of photos and information relating to the operation.
Alex Paterson, chairman of the Wick, Canisbay and Latheron branch of the Legion, will attend the ceremony some 40 years after he was among those at the unveiling of the memorial.
“A lot of Norwegians that had been involved in the resistance came over here," he recalled.
Mr Paterson travelled to Norway in 1968 on an exercise during his time in the Territorial Army and was able to visit locations connected to World War II under the guidance of Norwegian mountain troops.
“They took us to the Hardangerfjord and a lot of the places where they used to drop the stuff for the resistance," he explained.
“We came across an old shed that hadn't been touched since the wartime. The Germans went off and left machine guns and ammunition and everything lying about on the floor – they just left it the way it was. I think it's still there.”
Mr Paterson believes it is only right that the sacrifices made by those involved in Operation Freshman continue to be commemorated.
“It was a very important thing," he said. "They were trying their best. My goodness, if Hitler had got the atomic bomb we'd have been finished. The Germans were quite well advanced in nuclear research in those days.
"It was Halifax bombers that took them over, and two gliders. Imagine taking gliders over Norway at this time of year, in the snow that's prevalent high up there. They were desperate to get this place shut down.
“The Germans had occupied Norway and they always thought that we were going to have a go at Norway rather than Normandy. They had more than 400,000 troops based in Norway – that's a huge army.”
He added: "There must be folk down south who had relations that were on that operation. It would be fine if any of the families came up for a look."
- In July 1946, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, commander in chief of the German forces in Norway, faced a war crimes trial at the British Military Court in Brunswick, Germany. He was found guilty of eight of the nine counts against him – including all the charges relating to Operation Freshman. He was sentenced to death but this was commuted to life imprisonment. Falkenhorst was released from prison in 1953 on grounds of ill health and died in 1968, aged 83. No more prosecutions were brought over the Freshman murders.
