Operation Freshman failed when the British military gliders crashed short of their destination. Once on the ground, the Norwegians began to send back intelligence about the plant, including the composition of its defenses. The four men were parachuted over Hardangervidda on October 18, 1942, to rendezvous with the British Operation Freshman and proceed to Vemork. The Norwegian Resistance Operation Grouse successfully placed four Norwegian nationals - Haugland, Arne Kjelstrup, Jens-Anton Poulsson and Claus Helberg - who became Operation Grouse. These operations - codenamed Grouse, Freshman and Gunnerside - finally managed to knock the plant out of production in early 1943.

Between 19, a sequence of sabotage actions by the Norwegian resistance movement, as well as Allied bombing, ensured the destruction of the plant and the loss of the heavy water produced. When the Nazis took over Norway, they wanted to use the plant - which produced 'heavy water' - in their quest to produce nuclear weapons. Its only sources of locomotion would be the Pacific trade winds and the Humboldt Current which sweeps northward along the west coast of South America and thence in the direction of the Tuamotu Archipelago.'ĭuring World War II, Haugland was a member of the Norwegian Resistance where he was instrumental in the destruction of the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant. The Kon-Tiki raft was fashioned out of logs of the lightest wood in existence and lashed together with native-made hemp rope. He named the expedition on honor of the pre-Incan Sun god. 'To prove that such a migration was possible, Mr Heyerdahl decided to attempt the trip in a raft of the type preserved in Incan legends and early Spanish historical accounts. 'It was the theory of Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnologist and leader of the venture, that the settlement of the Pacific Islands resulted from a migration of American peoples who had sailed there many of years ago, rather than a trek from Asia as claimed by other scientists,' the article explained. Haugland was one of six men, who with Thor Heyerdahl in 1947, successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean in a 45 foot raft made of balsa wood and bamboo - named Kon-Tiki - to prove that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.Ĭalled the 'most unusual expedition ever to place reliance on Amateur Radio for communication' in the December 1947 issue of QST, Kon-Tiki departed Peru for Polynesia on April 28, 1947. Knut Magne Haugland of Norway, passed away on December 25.

Kon tiki 1947