Roenneberg, then 23, was tapped by the Special Operations Executive, or SOE — Britain’s war-time intelligence gathering and sabotage unit — to destroy key parts of the heavily guarded plant in Telemark, in southern Norway, in a raid in February 1943.
In a 2014 Norwegian documentary in connection with his 95th birthday, Roenneberg said the daring operation went “like a dream” — a reference to the fact that not a single shot was fired.
Parachuting onto snow-covered mountains, the group was joined by a handful of other commando soldiers before skiing to their destination. They then penetrated the fortress-like heavy-water plant to blow up its production line.
Roenneberg said he made a last-minute decision to cut the length of his fuse from several minutes to seconds, ensuring that the explosion would take place but making it more difficult to escape. The group skied hundreds of kilometers (miles) across the mountains to escape and Roenneberg, wearing a British uniform, ended up in neighboring neutral Sweden.
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