Latest / Ridiculous History / Operation Gunnerside: How a Crew of Military Skiers Ruined the Nazi Bomb

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Operation Gunnerside: How a Crew of Military Skiers Ruined the Nazi Bomb · Ridiculous History

• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So close, so close, it is as if we are
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: in gliders, which will make sense in a few minutes.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: We are so close to an anniversary episode today. This
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: episode is publishing on February twenty six, twenty nineteen, but
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: two days from now, if you're listening to this, the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: day it comes out, we will hit the anniversary of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: something called Operation gunner Side. I know you love a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: good operation, Ben, I mean, who doesn't write this will
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: be the seventies six anniversary of Operation Gunner Side. And uh,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: if you're wondering, hey, guys, what the heck is Operation
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: gunner Side, we're glad to tell you, of course, with
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the help of our constant super producer, Casey Pegrum and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: truest friend and confidante. The Golden Girls song is playing
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in my head. I love that song is really good.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: It's so good. It's only the This has nothing to
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: do with today's episode, and I'll keep the banter short.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: But did you ever listen to the full version? Did
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: either of you guys ever listened to the full version
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of the Golden Girls song? Is it just called thank
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: You for Being a Friend? I can't I can't remember,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: but it's it's not as good. The best part is
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the TV theme and if you had a party and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: invited everyone, you know, it's my part. I like the end.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: The card attached would say and everybody comes in, thank
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you for being a you know, I say to you,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: thank you for being a Ben, thank you, thank you.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: You know what you're uh, You're no slouch at being
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a knoll and Casey Pegram you were my favorite Casey. Well,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: thank you, Ben. Okay, I didn't know if you were
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: going to respond to that. That's a casey on the case. There,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that's a casey on the case. That's a very nice
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: casey on the case. Do you know who else was
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: being good at what they were who else? Nazis? Nazis? Yeah, Nazis. Okay,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: let me let me caveat that a little bit. But
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: they were, they were being successful at what they were doing.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, So our story today takes
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: place in the nineteen forties in World War Two and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the rush to build the first nuclear weapon. And this
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: is something that I didn't know, that I didn't learn
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: until I was looking into the story with you, Ben,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: is that the Germans were kind of had a head
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: start on the Manhattan Project, and it was actually because
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of progress the Germans were making towards developing a nuclear
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: bomb that we got involved started doing our own version
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: right right, So, as early nuclear research, just nuclear research
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: is beginning in the United States, Germany is already moving
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: forward with its own energy research and atomic bomb program,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: which was called Lanvine, which translates to the Uranium Club,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and that was founded as a secret program in April
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of nine nine, which was just shortly after Otto Han
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and Fritz Strassmann, who are to German scientists, accidentally discovered
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: nuclear fission, giving the Germans quite an advantage over the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: United States. Right. This was December ninety eight, over Christmas
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: vacation when these physicists made this discovery, and it's one
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: of those world changing events where people in the know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: people who monitor this sort of stuff, can naturally begin
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: going down similar directions in terms of innovation. The Uranium
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Club was led by a is thisist named Kurt Diepner,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and he had built a think tank of the top
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: eggheads in Germany, including Verna Heisenberg. The Americans were working
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: on this too, the Germans had a different program, so
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: they're they're trying to accomplish the same thing they want
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to build, ultimately an atomic weapon. But one of the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: differences that they had was their use of what they
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: called a moderator. And a moderator is a component of
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a nuclear reactor. So nuclear actors usually have a couple
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of things in common. They have a fuel source, control rods,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a moderator, coolant, and an encasement yea, and a nuclear
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: bomb similar to nuclear reactor is creating is thriving on
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the same explosive energy, only it's just released out into
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the world, as opposed to harnessed into like electric electricity
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: or power exactly exactly. So, a moderator is a substance
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that's essentially used to slowed down the fission process, making
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: it more controllable or at least more efficient, right spot on.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: So here's one of the big differences. In the US,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: scientists are using graphite as a moderator. They're using these
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: graphite blocks, and they don't have cooler, they don't have radiation,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: they don't have heat shielding. They're still figuring this out. Germany,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, is using something called heavy water.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: What what's it? What's heavy water? Aside from an awesome name,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: for something. It's incredible, uh, and I did not know
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: what it was. UM. And heavy water is water that
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: has um a an atomic or molecular rather weight of
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: twenty rather than eight, and that's in a m U
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: or atomic mass units UM. To the layman or anyone,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: really heavy water would taste the same as regular water.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It would feel same on your body. You could swim
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: in it, just the same as you could any other
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: kind of regular water. But it occurs incredibly rarely in nature, right, UM.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I think it's something along the lines according to the
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Smithsonian magazine, UM, it is incredibly rare in nature happening.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Something along the lines of one in a billion llcules
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: of water that occur naturally would be considered heavy. UM.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: One giveaway that you're dealing with heavy water would be
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: that ice cubes made out of it would sink rather
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: than float because they're a little heavier. Right right. It's
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: it's not a clever title, right, there's trying to be euphemistic.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: The water is heavy, you know, it's super descriptive. It's true, UM,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: But this is the substance that the Nazis decided to
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: use as that what was the word been moderate? As
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: that moderator for splitting of the atom and slowing down
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that reaction in a way that would allow them to
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: harness it more effectively. Um Graphite, as we know, super common,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: easy to I'm buy, It's in all kinds of stuff.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Heavy water, on the other hand, you gotta make it,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and in order to make it for this research that
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: they were doing, the Germans had a pretty massive facility
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: where they did just that. Right. Oh and quick note
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: on heavy water. It has a larger than normal amount
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, which is also known
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: as heavy hydrogen. So it all works out. They've got
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a theme, and they also have a plant where they
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: create this stuff, a place called their Mark, and their
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: mork was created in like more door. It sounds like
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a very sounds like a very evil you know, sour
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: man Hitler esque name. Really does. Did you ever see
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that Mitchell and Webb sketch where they say, are we
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the batties? Of course because the skull has particular villains, right,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: but they're confused about where they fit into the story.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like you were going to say something that
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: pertained to our episode, though, so I don't I don't
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: want to roll over. All I was gonna know, you're
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: not at all been. All I was gonna say is
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: they got this place by invading another place. But they
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: actually acquired this um, this very sinister sounding plant. Uh.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It's called the vim Or Chemical Plant, and it was
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in Telemark County UM in Norway, which was occupied by
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the Nazis at this point in World War two, and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: it became a very important strategic uh stronghold for them.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: It was built like a fortress, and they were able
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to use the fact that it was a chemical plant
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to help aid their research and to produce this heavy water. Absolutely,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: this plant was already producing heavy water through the thirties.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: By January nine, it had produced more than a hundred
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: grahams of this substance. But after the Germans sees the plant,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: they forced the workers to increase the production of heavy
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: water because they needed this moderate See. I did not
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: know that bad. I didn't know that they were already
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: making it there, because it's sort of a weird thing
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to make, Like it's it's like, why, what what other
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: purpose does it serve? Chemically or in some kind of
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: industrial manufacturing process? You know, maybe maybe the Norwegians just
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: had a pet peeve about ice cubes that float. Maybe
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: they thought they were insolent. That seems very expensive. That's true.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: That's a good point. Maybe that's what smart water is.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And maybe maybe they also added like extra electrolytes and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and all that. Yeah, yeah, well plants grave it's true. Um,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing. This is the lynchpin in the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Nazis plan to develop this weapon. And they're pretty far
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: along in their research and this stuff that they have
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to have a pretty sizeable manufacturing chemical plant to produce.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: They need it to make the weapon that they will
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it won't do without it, right right, And British intelligence
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: learns about this through some connections to the plant and
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: some connections to Norwegian domestic resistance parties. So they hear
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: that the Germans want to increase the production during the
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: summer of nineteen forty one, and they get this via
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: message from the Norwegian underground. There's a guy who obtains
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: this for the British named leaf Tron Stud and he
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: anonymously corresponds with the British forces, you know, to preserve
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: his identity, and they begin to hatch a plan. The
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: British say, well, let's engage in some some good old sabotage.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Sabotage itself has a very interesting etymology. What is it?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: So sabotage comes from uh French? I believe casey? Is
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that correct? Like sabotaire? Yeah? Yeah, that's okay. So this
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: is interesting. I don't know if you had heard the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: etymology of sabotage were Casey. I feel like you probably have. No,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: nothing's coming to mind right now. So it meant it's
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: always meant deliberately and maliciously destroying property. Right. The apparent
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: story I can't verify here is that the modern meaning
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: derives from strikers who allegedly had this tactic of throwing
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: shoes into machinery. But this is apparently not the you
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: know again, this is just a fun story about it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: We don't know exactly where it comes from, but it
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is related to the word shoe allegedly, so like throwing
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: your shoe into like the gears of a machine or
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: something like that. That's very you know what makes me
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: think of like the whole like throwing a monkey wrench
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: into the works. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because it causes the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: gears to grind to a halt. So they wanted to
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: They wanted to engage in some good old fashioned sabotage,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and they had a secret unit that was accomplished at
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: this called the Special Operations Executive or sometimes called the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Is that like the League of
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Extraordinary Gentlemen. Yeah? Yeah, They trained people to conduct covert
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: sabotage missions. I love the idea of that as being ungentlemanly.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It's not like coming right to your face and doing
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: us doing it like under cover of night, creeping around
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: dirty Pool, old Man, dirty Pool, dirty Pool. They had
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a Norwegian branch of the Special Operations Executive and they
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: recruited various Norwegians who have fled to England after Germany
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: invaded their country in nine and they had this crazy
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: training regiment in Scotland. They had to train under cover
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of night to climb mountains, ford rivers, camp outdoors for weeks.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: These these guys are being made into rangers almost you know. Yeah,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: but they're rangers with a very particular skill set, their
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: ski rangers. Yes, yes, tell us a little more about that. Well,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I will let me you know what. In fact, I'm
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna do it better better than tell you.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do a reading for you from a book
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: titled The Winter Fortress. The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Atomic Bomb by Neil Bascomb. Missile Missile paint the pictures
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to tell you exactly what these guys did. Nazi occupied
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Norway in a staggered line, the nine saboteurs cut across
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the mountain slope. Instinct more than the dim light of
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the moon guided the young men. They threaded through the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: stands of pine and traversed down the sharp, uneven terrain,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: much of it poked with empty hollows and thick drifts
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of snow. Dressed in white camouflage suits over their British
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Army uniforms, the men looked like phantoms haunting the woods.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: They moved as quietly as ghosts. The silence broke only
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: by the swoosh of their skis and the occasional slap
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of a pole against an unseen branch. The warm, steady
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: wind that blew through the vest Fjord valley dampened even
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: these sounds. It was the same wind that would, eventually,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: they hoped, blow their tracks away. So yeah, they did
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: super badass downhill skiing. Uh. In order to stealthily approach
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: this facility, because you see, there had actually been two
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: previous attempts, failed attempts to do exactly what these guys
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: were setting out to do on their skis. One of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: them was called Operation Grouse, and then one was called
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Operation Freshman, in which forty two British Allied soldiers died
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: um in a botched mission where they were going to
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: UM kind of gain entry to the facility using gliders
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that had been deployed from UM planes, right, so they
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: had a little bit of internal tension. Bombing the plant
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was the preferred tactic of the American military, but Transta
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: was opposed to this because if the bombs hit the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: liquid ammonious storage tanks, the civilian population nearby would be
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: at risk. And secondly, bombing might not even destroy the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: heavy water facilities because they were in the basement of
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the plant under layers and layers of concrete. So they
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: had to actually send people in. First. They sent in Grouse,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: which was a small scout team. They parachuted from a plane,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: They landed in the area, and they started literally sneaking around.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: After they had been there for a month in November,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Operation Freshmen launched these thirty nine British air troops carried
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: by two military gliders. The idea is that they would
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: land near the plant using the information provided by the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: scouting group Grouse, and then they would attack. But the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: weather was terrible, they had communication issues. One of the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: gliders crashed into a mountain, the other crash landed way
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: off course. Everyone that was in the glider that hit
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the mountain died in the crash. Some of the soldiers
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: in the second glider died in their crashed the worm
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: was off target. The others were caught executed by the Gestapo. Additionally,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: German forces found a map that identified Vermorc as a
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: British target, but there was still some hope. The Germans
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: were not able to find and capture the group known
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: as Grouse. They had remained in the wilderness, living off
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the land, hunting reindeer to survive and they were renamed Swallow.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Three months pass and the Swallow group gets word from
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Britain that there are six more Norwegians who are going
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to be sent to take out this plant in something
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: called Operation gunner Side. This was a small group of
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Norwegian commandos from the Norwegian branch of the s o E.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: They were gonna parachute straight to the target zone instead
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of using a glider. They were going to meet up
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: with the Swallows and then together they were going to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: raid the Vermot plants. So they jumped from a plane
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: while it's snowing in February eighteen forty three. They dressed
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: in British uniforms under their snowsuits because they thought, you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: if we get caught, we're almost certainly going to be
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: tortured and then die. But we would like them to
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: blame the British instead of the Norwegian resistance, so that
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the Germans won't kill Norwegian civilians. They survived by the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: way uh They landed miles away from where they were
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. They traveled for five days and then
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: they connected with their friends Grouse now named Swallow, and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: then they began their raid on February. That's right, Ben
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: So Gunner side. The Gunner Side group UM decided that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: there were three ways to access the plan. They knew
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: they had to rely on stealth. One of them was
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to come down from the mountains which overlooked the plant,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but that was covered in mine fields. And then they
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: also had to cross a incredibly fortified and heavily guarded
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: suspension bridge, and then they had to get to the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: bottom where there was a gorge that led to a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: railway line that they could follow alongside of UM to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: get to an area that was a lot less heavily police. Yeah,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and they broke through a fence. You can see an
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: interview about this with a guy named Newt Heikelid in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the New York Times. Uh. They broke through a fence
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and then they divided their group into a five man
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: cover squad a four man explosives group. The explosives guys
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: wanted to enter the plant through a side door, but
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the door was locked, and they tried to find aside
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: access tunnel. Uh. But they started getting divided, call it
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the fog of war. Once they got in, they started
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: placing explosive charges next the heavy water production cells, and
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: they had to UM. They had to improvise a little bit.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: The explosives were supposed to have minute fuses, but they
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: cut them to make them thirty second fuses, so they
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: had thirty seconds to run away, I know. And so
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: after they have successfully destroyed the heavy water facility, they
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: flee and they say, hey, guys, bonus points, Let's try
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to get out of here alive. So they hop back
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: on the skis and they ski toward town. They reach
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a mountain plateau and they split up. They travel more
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: than two hundred miles the four man explosive team on
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: skis to Sweden, Neutral Neutral, Neutral Sweden, land of modern
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: furniture and meatballs and neutrality and the chocolate. Many many
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: things are good about Sweden. But those are the things
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: that come to mind for me. Um. But here's the thing.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: They did not fire a single shot. They were able
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to capitalize on the chaos that those explosions created and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: high tail it out of there on their skis, get
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: his neutral Sweden, and then ultimately get back to get
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: back home alive. And these were men who were going
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: into the situation fully aware that they might not make
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: it out out alive. As you can tell, this is
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a pretty intrepid mission. Doesn't really fall under a ridiculous
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: for me as much as it does totally badass. Maybe
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the idea of of stealth spy types on skis is
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a little funny, but man, what what what bravery these
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: these guys exhibited, and to to have it go so well,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: it's so rare. How long does it take to ski
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: two hundred miles? I don't know, I don't know. Yeah,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I want the Proclaimers to do a version of their
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: song about this. So Operation Gunners Side was initially a success.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: It did caused German forces to lose five ms of
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: heavy water and it knocked the plan out of action
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: for a few months. Unfortunately, by May of ninette, the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: facilities were rebuilt and they were back in the heavy
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: water game. I see a message board here on J
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: two ski dot com where someone talks about completing a
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: ski marathon at a hundred and thirty kilometers in two days.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: That's faster than walking. Yeah, but that's about That's about it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Kilometer is more than a mile, so this will probably
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: take like maybe four days. Yeah, that's about on base
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: because a hundred forty kilometers is about eighty seven miles.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: There's also a lot depends on the terrain, and I
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: gotta wonder if they had them maybe hoof it occasionally,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: if it is if the yeah, or if it was
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: literally a two hundred mile completely downhill route to sweet
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: It's just a bunny slope, nothing to it. Um so
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Huh, And we hope that you enjoyed the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: story of Operation Gunners Side. If you don't know how
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to ski yet, I mean, hey, it's never too late
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to pick up a new skill set. But before we go,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I I have some breaking news. I've been told that
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: we have an update on our etymology conversation. Is that correct, Casey?
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: That is correct? So I did look into the etymology
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of saboteur or sabotage, and it does seem to derive
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: from the word the French word sabo for a wooden
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: shoe or a clog. So see that that would cause
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: some damage out absolutely, yeah, that would that would grind
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the gears or what have you. Literally, hey, so it
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: looks like Casey on the Case the segment we never
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: closed it out last time, so let's close it now,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Casey on the Case. And I do want to point
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: out to when we talk about how intrepid these uh,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: these guys were. They all were equipped with um, you know,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: weapons and survival gear, but they had to travel lightly
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: because they did not have any vehicle support outside of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: themselves and their their legs and their skis. They also
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: had sanide pills on them and so they couldn't be
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: taken alive. I mean, you know, we've all been in
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that kind of situation at some point, and it's just
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: like the boy Scouts say, you have to be prepared
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: or excuse me. I think it's just the Scouts now,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right. We
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: hope that you have enjoyed this episode, and we would,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of course, as always, like to thank our superproducer, Casey.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I always want to give you a nickname,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and I always stopped myself. Do you want to be
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the saboteur? Oh? I like that idea. Yeah, I'm into it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I support that wholeheartedly. So we'd like to take our superproducer,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Casey the sabot a pegrum. I would like to thank
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our theme. We'd like to thank Gabe,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: our research associate. Man. I'd like to thank you for
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: being a friend traveling down that road, whether on skis
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: or on foot, uh, and possibly back again, unless it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: uphill and you're expected to do it on skis, that's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: not gonna work. I love playing that song. My cats
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: are so sick of me playing that. It's a good
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: show too. It really holds up very forward thinking. It
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: does surprisingly watching it when I was very young with
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: my grandmother, I enjoyed it, but I think I didn't
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: get most of the jokes. So now it's blanches Ah dirty, dirty,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: dirty personality, but lovable and hey, maybe that's the way
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: you think of us. If so, let us know, or
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: if not, you could just write to us. We are
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: on Instagram, We're on Facebook, we are on Twitter. You
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: can meet our favorite part of the show, your fellow
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: listeners on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. You hit me
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: personally on Instagram at Embryonic Insider, where I post you know,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: cat pictures and the like, and then Ben, I believe
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you're on there as well. The rumors are true. You
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: can see my various misadventures that involve, frankly, all kinds
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of weird stuff, from from travel to mysterious investigations, um
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to god. I don't know there was a time when
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I was going through a lot of puppet pictures. Either way,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that's at ben Boland. And of course, if you want
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to check out our weird t shirts based on puns
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and catchphrases that we are cartoonishly enamored of visit us
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: at our store on rich Aculous History Show dot com
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the te Public Store um and join us next time
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some other stuff. But I haven't
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: quite gotten that far ahead yet, but we'll get there.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: We'll see the