Thamshavnbanen sabotage
Encyclopedia
The Thamshavn Line sabotage was a series of sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

s against the railway Thamshavn Line in Orkdal
Orkdal
Orkdal is a municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Orkdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Orkanger. Other villages in the municipality include Kjøra, Geitastrand, Gjølme, Thamshavn, Fannrem, Vormstad, Svorkmo, and...

, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. There were four separate sabotages, all performed by Company Linge
Norwegian Independent Company 1
Norwegian Independent Company 1 was a British SOE group formed in March 1941 originally for the purpose of performing commando raids during the Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany. It was organized under the leadership of Captain Martin Linge...

 in an attempt by the Norwegian resistance
Norwegian resistance movement
The Norwegian resistance to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms:...

 to prevent Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 from getting the pyrites that were being extracted at the mine at Løkken Verk
Løkken Verk
Løkken Verk is a village in the municipality of Meldal in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located south of Svorkmo , east of Bjørnli, and north of the municipal center of Meldal....

.

Background

The Løkken Mine
Løkken Verk
Løkken Verk is a village in the municipality of Meldal in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located south of Svorkmo , east of Bjørnli, and north of the municipal center of Meldal....

 had been operated since 1654, and in 1908 it was modernised with electric pumping and Norway's first electric railway that connected the mine to the port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....

 at Thamshavn
Thamshavn
Thamshavn is a small port village in the municipality of Orkdal in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is the site of the port for Orkanger and the ferrosilicon plant Elkem Thamshavn...

 25 km away. After the German invasion in 1940 German forces secured control over the mine, but let the operating company Orkla Gruber-Aktieselskab (that since has developed into the Forbes 500
Forbes 500
The Forbes 500 was an annual listing of the top 500 American companies produced by Forbes Magazine. The list was calculated by combining five factors: sales, profits, assets, market value, and employees...

-company Orkla Group
Orkla Group
Orkla Group is a Norwegian industrial conglomerate operating in the Nordic region, Eastern Europe, Asia and the US. The company's main divisions are branded consumer goods, aluminium solutions, materials, associates and financial investments.-Operations:...

) continue extraction, since most of the export had been going to Germany anyway. The company obliged, since they saw no advantage in disobeying, which would only have resulted in the German forces themselves taking over the operation of the mine.

The Norwegian government-in-exile
Cabinet Nygaardsvold
Nygaardsvold's Cabinet was appointed on 20 March 1935, the second Labour cabinet in Norway. It closed the brought to an end the non-socialist, minority Governments that had been dominating politics since the introduction of the parliamentary system in 1884, and replaced it with stable, Labour...

 decided that it was important to stop the Germans from obtaining copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 and sulfur
Sulfur
Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...

 from the mines and the smelters
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...

 at Thamshavn (now Elkem Thamshavn
Elkem Thamshavn
Elkem Thamshavn is a smelting plant owned by Elkem located at Thamshavn just north of Orkanger, Norway. The plant produces ferrosilicon and microsilica and was started in 1931.-History:...

) and initially suggested bombing both Løkken Verk and Thamshavn. The resistance protested, and felt that by using sabotage the civilian losses could be minimised. It was decided to attempt to stop the mining through targeted sabotage on key infrastructure along the railway.

Transformer station

The first target was the transformer
Transformer
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field...

 station for the railway at Bårdshaug. Since the railway operated solely on electric locomotives, removing the power source would make it impossible to operate it. Three soldiers from Company Linge were chosen for the action: Torleif Grong, Per Getz, and their leader Lieutenant Peter Deinboll
Peter Deinboll
Peter Vogelius Deinboll, DSO, MC was a Norwegian engineer, and resistance member during World War II.-Personal life:...

. They traveled with a fishing boat from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and were put to shore at Bjørnør
Bjørnør
Bjørnør is a former municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It encompassed the present-day municipalities of Roan and Osen, plus the Stoksund area in present-day Åfjord, all in the western part of the Fosen peninsula...

 on Fosen
Fosen
Fosen is a traditional district in Trøndelag, consisting of the municipalities Osen, Roan, Åfjord, Bjugn, Ørland, Rissa, Agdenes, Snillfjord, Hemne, Hitra and Frøya. The district is dominated by forested valleys, lakes, coastal cliffs but also shallow areas, and in the interior mountains reaching...

 and traveled by foot to Namdalseid
Namdalseid
Namdalseid is village and a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Namdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Namdalseid. Other villages and farm areas include Sjøåsen, Statland, Tøttdalen, and Sverkmoen.The village of Namdalseid...

. They were constantly passed by German trucks, and figured there would be less chance to be captured if they hitch hike
Hitch Hike
"Hitch Hike" is a 1962 song by Marvin Gaye, released on the Tamla label. Another song Gaye co-wrote , this time instead of confessing to being stubborn, the singer is now on the look out for his girl, whom he feels has run so far that he has to travel "around the world" thinking of places she could...

d with one of them. When a truck offered them a lift they accepted, and the officer onboard offered to sit in the back and watch their backpacks—which were filled with explosives. Luckily for the saboteurs the backpacks were not seized.

The night before 4 May 1942 the three men arrived at Orkdal where they went and targeted the transformer station. While they were installing the explosives German soldiers passed by, but failed their duty by not checking inside the station and thus were not able to abort the sabotage. The explosion went off at five in the morning. The commander in the area, Hauptmann Møbius, had been out drinking the evening before, and was not able to organise an efficient search or investigation. Unfortunately for Deinboll he had miscalculated the time before the explosion and was spotted by German troops and a chase was organised, but the troops failed to find him. He caught a ride with a fishing boat to Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

 were he rendezvoused with Grong and Getz and they drove to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 via Meråker
Meråker
Meråker is a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Stjørdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Midtbygda which is about west of Storlien in Sweden and east of Stjørdalshalsen in Stjørdal. Other villages in Meråker include Gudåa,...

.

Thamshavn

The second target for sabotage was the port at Thamshavn and was performed by Deinboll, Bjørn Pedersen and Olav Sættem. At first they lived at Deinboll's parents' home at Thamshavn, but later they moved to a cabin
Log cabin
A log cabin is a house built from logs. It is a fairly simple type of log house. A distinction should be drawn between the traditional meanings of "log cabin" and "log house." Historically most "Log cabins" were a simple one- or 1½-story structures, somewhat impermanent, and less finished or less...

 in the forest, receiving supplies from local resistance members. They figured, due to heavy security, that it would be impossible to blow up the factory itself, so instead they chose to blow up the ship D/S Nordfahrt, that would be full of pyrites. The night before 25 February 1943 the three went out in a row boat to fasten explosives to the ship, timed to go off at 16:00 the next day. But the next day another ship arrived at the port and Nordfahrt was moved out into the fjord. Because of this the timing mechanism became inaccurate and just when the explosives attached to the ship blew, a tugboat
Tugboat
A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

 came by and managed to haul the wreck to land. The three each travelled to Trondheim, with plans to go to Sweden via Steinkjer
Steinkjer
is a town and a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Innherad region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Steinkjer, which is also the seat of the county government...

 and Ogndal
Ogndal
Ogndal is a former municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located in the central and western part of the present-day municipality of Steinkjer. Starting in 1917, the administrative center of Ogndal was actually located in the town of Steinkjer...

, but their contact in Steinkjer had been arrest
Arrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

ed and instead they had to travel via Selbu
Selbu
Selbu is a municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Mebonden. Other villages in Selbu include Flora, Fossan, Hyttbakken, Innbygda, Selbustrand, Tømra, and Vikvarvet.-General information:...

.

Locomotives

Neither of the two first sabotages had resulted in especially large problems that could not be fixed, and the resistance decided that the third target was to be the rack lift
Rack lift
A rack lift is a type of elevator which consists of a cage attached to vertical rails affixed to the walls of a tower or shaft and which is propelled up and down by means of an electric motor which drives a pinion gear that engages a rack gear which is also attached to the wall between the rails....

 in the mine. Secondarily, if it failed, the saboteurs were to take out all of the locomotives able to pull railway cars, thus prohibiting the transport of pyrites. This required seven men, again led by Deinboll. They were dropped by parachute
Parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag, or in the case of ram-air parachutes, aerodynamic lift. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong cloth, originally silk, now most commonly nylon...

 at Svorkdalskjølen and hid in cabins in the forest. But they were soon discovered, and chose to move to Skjenalddalen.

On 31 October 1943 the group planned to blow up one British Westinghouse
British Westinghouse
British Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company was a subsidiary of the American Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. British Westinghouse would become a subsidiary of Metropolitan-Vickers in 1919; and after Metropolitan Vickers merged with British Thomson-Houston in 1929, it...

 locomotive and one rail car at Løkken and one ASEA
ASEA
Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget was a Swedish industry company. It merged with the Swiss Brown, Boveri & Cie in 1988 to form Asea Brown Boveri...

 at Orkanger
Orkanger
Orkanger is village and former municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located in the present-day municipality of Orkdal at the end of the Orkdalsfjorden, and arm of the Trondheimsfjord. Orkanger is the administrative and commercial centre of the municipality of Orkdal...

 and one rail car and two Westinghouse locomotives at Thamshavn. But not all the locomotives were located where the saboteurs thought they were and only four were blown up. This was not good enough for Deinboll, and it was decided that a new sabotage was to be performed at Klinghåmmår'n where they were to stop the train, chase the staff and blow up the train and track. But things went wrong, the explosives were miscalculated and Odd Nilsen was killed. At the same time an attempt to blow up a rail car at Løkken failed, again due to miscalculation in the explosive timing. After this the saboteurs left the area, but Paal Skjærpe was arrested in Hovin
Hovin
Hovin may refer to the following geographical locations:*Hovin, Sør-Trøndelag in Sør-Trøndelag, Norway*Hovin, Telemark in Telemark, Norway*Hovin, a parish in the municipality Spydeberg, Norway*Hovin, an area in Oslo, Norway...

 and tortured by Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 in Trondheim. But he did not talk, and was scheduled for execution on |7 May 1945, only days after peace came to Norway.

Last attempt

The final attempt to close down the export came in 1944 when three men returned, via Sweden, to blow up the remaining locomotives. On 9 May they stopped a train at Hongslomælen, the crew was chased away and the train blown up. This was repeated on 31 May when they blew up the last rail car. But the Germans took countermeasures, and brought up steam locomotives from Germany to operate the line.

One of the great logistical problems of the Germans was that Thamshavnbanen operated on a metre gauge
Metre gauge
Metre gauge refers to narrow gauge railways and tramways with a track gauge of . In some African, American and Asian countries it is the main gauge. In Europe it has been used for local railways in France, Germany, and Belgium, most of which were closed down in mid 20th century. Only in Switzerland...

 (1000 mm) railway, unlike the rest of the Norwegian network, that operated on standard gauge
Standard gauge
The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

 (1435 mm) or conventional narrow gauge (1067 mm). So acquisition of engines had to be done from the continent. And the railway was the only in the world to use 25 Hz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....

 6.6 kV
Volt
The volt is the SI derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. The volt is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta , who invented the voltaic pile, possibly the first chemical battery.- Definition :A single volt is defined as the...

 AC
Alternating current
In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....

 power supply in combination with metre gauge, and so the Germans had to acquire steam locomotives. A total of seven were brought up from Germany and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. Also, the Germans chose to rebuild the railway with dual gauge
Dual gauge
A dual-gauge or mixed-gauge railway has railway track that allows trains of different gauges to use the same track. Generally, a dual-gauge railway consists of three rails, rather than the standard two rails. The two outer rails give the wider gauge, while one of the outer rails and the inner rail...

, so the line had three parallel tracks, on in metre gauge and one in standard gauge. This would allow the Germans to operate steam engines from the Dovre Line
Dovrebanen
The Dovre Line is the main line of the Norwegian railway system between Oslo and Trondheim. The 64 km section south of Eidsvoll has been replaced by the Gardermo Line, the only high-speed line in the country. The line between Eidsvoll and Dombås is from old times the Eidsvoll–Dombås Line. The line...

 on the standard gauge track and the railway cars on the narrow gauge tracks. No standard gauge locomotives were acquired and the third track was removed after the war.

Aftermath

Halting the flow of pyrite
Pyrite
The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...

 ore from Løkken Verk
Løkken Verk
Løkken Verk is a village in the municipality of Meldal in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located south of Svorkmo , east of Bjørnli, and north of the municipal center of Meldal....

 and Thamshavn to the Nazi Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 was a key objective for the Norwegian resistance movement
Norwegian resistance movement
The Norwegian resistance to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms:...

. Sabotage was chosen in lieu of bombing in order to safeguard the civilian population. Yet the attacks on the mine created a complex conflict of interest, as the operation of the mine nominally remained in local hands.

After the 1942 attack on the railway transformer, Chief of Electrical Engineering at the mine, Petter Deinboll's own father, engineer Petter Blessing Deinboll, was assigned the task of restoring power. He eventually decided to flee with his family to Sweden, where he worked for the resistance. On his return at the end of the war, Chief Engineer Deinboll was refused reinstatement in his job, he and his family were blamed for the wartime destruction, his house was taken over by others, and his properties auctioned off.

In 2003, Orkla Group
Orkla Group
Orkla Group is a Norwegian industrial conglomerate operating in the Nordic region, Eastern Europe, Asia and the US. The company's main divisions are branded consumer goods, aluminium solutions, materials, associates and financial investments.-Operations:...

 issued an apology for their treatment of Petter Deinboll's family, and a commemorative bronze sculpture of the wartime saboteur was unveiled in Orkdal
Orkdal
Orkdal is a municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Orkdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Orkanger. Other villages in the municipality include Kjøra, Geitastrand, Gjølme, Thamshavn, Fannrem, Vormstad, Svorkmo, and...

.
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