367 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
367 lines
16 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
news
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obituaries
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military-obituaries
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special-forces-obituaries
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6901543
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-----
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# Knut Haugland
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## Knut Haugland, the Norwegian commando and explorer who died on Christmas
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Day aged 92, took part in two of the most adventurous and celebrated exploits
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of the last century - a daring raid on a suspected Nazi atomic weapons plant
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in war, and Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition in peace.
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![][1]
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Image 1 of 3
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Photo: Kon-Tiki museum
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![][2]
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Image 1 of 3
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Sept. 29, 1947: Members of the Kon-Tiki expedition crew wave from the homemade
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balsa wood and bamboo raft upon arrival in San Francisco, from the South
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Pacific. From left are Thor Heyerdahl, leader of expedition; Bengt Danielson;
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Erik Hesselberg; Torstein Photo: AP
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![Knut Haugland][3]
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Image 1 of 3
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At the Kon-Tiki museum in 2002 Photo: AP
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6:33PM GMT 28 Dec 2009
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[Comments][4]
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Haugland, who was the last survivor of the six-man _Kon-Tiki_ crew, had met
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Heyerdahl in 1944 at a special forces training camp in England, and was
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selected to join the expedition on the basis of the experience he acquired
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during the conflict as a radio operator.
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In typically nonchalant fashion, Heyerdahl had written to Haugland, whom he
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thought was bound to be "fed up hanging around at home by now, and would be
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glad to go for a little trip on a wooden raft", to invite him on board.
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"Am going to cross the Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the
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South Sea islands were peopled from Peru," the invitation ran. "Will you come?
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Reply at once." The response was positive.
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The six man crew set off from Callao, Peru, on April 28 1947 and sailed
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westwards along the Humboldt current. Their vessel, built using only the
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materials and technologies available in the pre-Columbian period, was the
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_Kon-Tiki_ - a raft composed of nine balsa tree trunks, each 45ft long by 2ft
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in diameter, lashed together with hemp ropes.
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The explorers lived off water stored in bamboo tubes, coconuts, sweet
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potatoes, bottle gourds and fruit, and the fish, dolphins and sharks they
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caught. After sighting islands in French Polynesia, the raft struck a reef on
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August 7 and was beached on an uninhabited islet off Raroia in the Tuamotu
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group. _Kon-Tiki_ had travelled a distance of some 3,770 nautical miles in 101
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days at an average speed of 1½ knots.
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In his best-selling book about the voyage, _The Kon-Tiki Expedition_,
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Heyerdahl recalled the radio slowly drying out after being soaked in the
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shipwreck, and Haugland using the hand-cranked emergency transmitter to send
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out an "all well, all well" message in time to head off a large-scale search.
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_Kon-Tiki _had not only conquered the vast, lonely Pacific Ocean, but
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rekindled the spirit of adventure in the dismal days after the war: in the
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subsequent Oscar-winning film, Haugland played himself.
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He was involved in two of the expedition's most dramatic incidents. The first
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came when he was enjoying a leisurely swim near the raft, only for his
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crewmates to spot "a shadow bigger than himself coming up behind him".
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Thoughtfully keeping their warnings "quiet" so as "not to create a panic" the
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men alerted Haugland to his unwelcome companion, and "Knut heaved himself
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towards the side of the raft". A race then ensued between man and shark which
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ended with Haugland lurching on board just as the beast passed "beneath his
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stomach". "We gave it a dainty dolphin's head to thank it for not having
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snapped," Heyerdahl recorded.
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The second incident occurred later, when Haugland averted the disaster that
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haunted all the _Kon-Tiki_'s men. That was to fall in and find that currents
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prevented a return to the raft, which - obviously unpowered - would simply
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drift slowly out of view, condemning the man overboard to his fate.
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When crewman Herman Watzinger did fall in, all rescue efforts appeared doomed
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until Haugland leapt into the water bearing a lifebelt attached to a long
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rope. The two men then swam towards each other and were hauled on board by the
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others. "We had a lot of nice things to say to Knut that day, Herman and the
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rest of us too," wrote Heyerdahl.
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Knut Magne Haugland was born on September 23 1917 at Rjukan in the Norwegian
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province of Telemark. After qualifying as a military radio operator, in 1940
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he saw action against the Germans near Narvik as part of the Norwegian
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campaign.
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After the Germans had overrun his country, Haugland found work in the Hovding
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Radiofabrik in Oslo, where he started covert work in the Norwegian resistance
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movement, but in August 1941 he was briefly arrested by Quislings, escaped and
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fled via Sweden to England.
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Haugland joined the so-called Norwegian Independent Company, formed to carry
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out commando raids in occupied Norway, which became one of the most decorated
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military forces during the Second World War.
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He was selected by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to train with three
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others for Operation Grouse, the raid on a hydroelectric power station near
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his hometown where the Allies suspected that heavy water, a key component in
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the atomic weapons process, was being produced in order to build a Nazi atom
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bomb.
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He parachuted with three others onto the Hardangervidda plateau on October 18
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1942. But a planned rendezvous with British engineers never materialised after
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the Britons' gliders crashed and the survivors were tortured and executed.
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As a result the Germans were alerted to Allied interest in heavy water
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production, but Haugland was ordered to wait on Hardangervidda, where his team
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subsisted on moss and lichen and, just in time for Christmas, a wandering
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reindeer. In sub-zero temperatures he kept in contact with the British using a
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radio to which he improvised spares using a stolen fishing rod and an old car
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battery. Every night at 1am he would make contact, often unable to control the
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chattering of his teeth, using the password "three pink elephants".
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It was February 1943 before Operation Gunnerside (named after a grouse moor
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owned by Sir Charles Hambro, head of SOE) was mounted. Six Norwegian commandos
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were dropped by parachute, and after a few days' search, met up with Haugland
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for a new assault on the hydroelectric plant.
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The heavily defended plant was now surrounded by mines and floodlights and
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accessible only across a single-span bridge over a deep ravine. The Norwegians
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climbed down the ravine, waded an icy river and climbed a steep hill where
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they followed a narrow-gauge railway and entered the plant by a cable tunnel
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and through a window. In the ensuing sabotage hundreds of kilograms of heavy
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water was destroyed. Though 3,000 German soldiers searched for the saboteurs,
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all escaped. The Nazi heavy water project never recovered.
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Haugland hid on Hardangervidda for two months before going to Oslo to train
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radio operators for the Norwegian resistance. Despite being known to the
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Gestapo, he twice used the clandestine sea crossing known as "the Shetland
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bus" to reach Scotland. In autumn 1943 he visited London for supplies and
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training in new code techniques and returned by parachute.
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In November 1943 he was arrested, only to escape, and his luck and courage
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held firm again the following year, when, on April 1, one of his transmitters,
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hidden inside a chimney at the Oslo Maternity Hospital, was located by
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direction-finding techniques. "The whole building was surrounded by German
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soldiers with machine-gun posts in front of every single door," Heyerdahl
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wrote later. "The head of the Gestapo was standing in the courtyard waiting
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for Knut to be carried down.
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"Knut fought his way with his pistol down from the attic to the cellar, and
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from there out into the back yard, where he disappeared over the hospital wall
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with a hail of bullets after him." On the run, Haugland managed again to
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escape to Britain and did not return until war's end.
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Haugland was twice awarded Norway's highest decoration, the War Cross with
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Sword, and was awarded the British DSO and MM, the French croix de guerre and
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legion d'honneur, and, postwar, the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav.
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After the Kon-Tiki expedition Haugland returned to the military. He served in
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the Norwegian army in Germany (1948-49), in the ministry of defence until 1952
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and then transferred to the air force where he headed the electronic
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eavesdropping service in Norway, an important position during the Cold War.
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Haugland was director of the Norwegian Resistance Museum from 1963 to 1983 and
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director of the Kon-Tiki Museum from 1947 to 1990.
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He was unhappy with the depiction of his wartime exploits in Anthony Mann's
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highly fictionalised 1965 film, _The Heroes of Telemark_, which starred Kirk
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Douglas and Richard Harris, and in 2003 he made a BBC documentary with Ray
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Mears, _The Real Heroes of Telemark_.
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He, however, refused to call himself a hero, saying: "I never use that word
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about myself or my friends. We just did a job." He preferred to remember those
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who died on the missions which he survived.
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Knut Haugland, married, in 1951, Ingeborg Prestholdt, who survives him with
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three children.
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## [Special Forces Obituaries][10]
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* ### [News »][11]
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* ### [Obituaries »][12]
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In news
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### [Eddie Chapman][16]
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[![Frank Bessac][17] ][18]
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### [Frank Bessac][18]
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### [Eileen Nearne][20]
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[![John Herivel][21] ][22]
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### [John Herivel][22]
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[![Knut Haugland][23] ][24]
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### [Knut Haugland][24]
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