"They were there for Norway…""They" are nine Norwegian commandos cross-country skiing through deeply wooded, mountainous terrain in 1943, then trudging through deep snow to reach the Vemork hydroelectric power plant in the town of Rjukan, high above a waterfall and as formidable an edifice as one can imagine from that era.Vemork was also site of the world’s only plant for mass production of "heavy water," on which the Nazis had placed their primary bet to produce atomic weapons during World War II.After the invasion and occupation of Norway in April 1940, the Reich’s munitions research team soon figured out that Vemork was critical to their plans.Physicist Werner Heisenberg was one of the key leaders of the Nazi nuclear program, and in 1942 he had promised all of the Nazi and Wehrmacht leadership a bomb "the size of a pineapple" that could destroy cities.THE RACE AGAINST TIME TO DESTROY IRAN’S ILLICIT NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM HEATS UP AMID FRESH STRIKESFILE: In this file photo dated Monday, Dec.
23, 2019, released by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, showing technicians at the Arak heavy water reactor's secondary circuit, as officials and media visit the site, near Arak, 150 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran.(Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, FILE)The key to that bomb was the heavy water produced at Vemork, so the Nazis hardened the defenses around the plant and kept increasing them as the Allies’ interest in destroying the plant became obvious.The tale of the race between the Nazis and the Allies for nuclear weapons and the specific drama surrounding Vemork is recounted in the bestseller of a decade ago: "The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb" by Neal Bascomb.
Director and producer Michael Bay optioned the rights to make the movie based on the riveting account by Bascomb, but it has not yet been made.It is a shame that Bay hasn’t made the movie yet, as such a film would be a sho...