Title: Sabotage 

Author: Neal Bascomb 

Genre: Narrative Nonfiction 

 

In the midst of World War 2, Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany. Heavy water was created at a factory in Vemork that gave the Nazis the opportunity to build a atomic bomb. The stories of many men fighting for their beloved homeland and their justice are told throughout the book. Failure after failure they kept on facing the harshest weather, starvation, enemies, fear, and losses of communication. They were lead by the British military with the goal to sabotage any chance Hitler had at building an atomic bomb. Some of them soldiers having never faced the Norway winters and some having grown up there they never gave up. Operation Gunnerside and Grouse were finally the last successful attempt at the first sabotage at Vemork. They were able to bomb the plant and destroy all of the heavy water and machines with no deaths. After they all split up, some escaping to Sweden and some going on in Norway to build up more resistance cells. American bomb raids were later implemented on the heavy water plant. These were very successful and prompted the Nazis to plan to transport all heavy water to Germany. However, Britain got word of this and was able to send word to one of the old operation Gunnerside members to plan another sabotage. Once again they had success and were able to completely destroy all heavy water during the shipment. Because of all of these successful sabotages Nazi Germany was not able to successfully create an atomic bomb before the war came to an end. 

 

   Page 202 “When we say ‘Our Fatherland,’ we mean everything we love at home...It’s also all of the wonderful memories from the time we ourselves are small, and from, later when we had children of our own...Everything…Norwegian songs and music and so much, much more. That’s our Fatherland and that’s what we have to fight to get back.” This quote from the book really shows what the soldiers were fighting for and what they wanted to protect. It goes to show that they won't give up and they will fight at all costs together for their country. 

Page 247 “Diebner always believed that without the sabotage of Vemork, he would have had enough heavy water by the end of 1943 for a working reactor. He likely would not have stopped his research until he produced a bomb. ‘The obliteration of deuterium production in Norway,’ he wrote later,’ is one of the major reasons why Germany never obtained one.” This quote shows the end result and how all of the events and stories of sabotage from the book really did stop Germany. The book it a tale about stopping Hitler and this last paragraph shows that the soldiers did just that. 

 

The tone towards the book is suspenseful and the mood is pride/ prideful.

I know this because in the book there is a lot of portions where they are in tight situations and there are many close calls where in their missions they almost get caught. I know the mood because the reason they were fighting for their country to be free from the Nazi’s was because they had pride or nationalism in their country.

Evidence 1: This time, the guard came out fitted with a steel helmet and a rifle and a flashlight in hand. Advancing from the barracks, he shone the flashlight beam close to where Haukelid and Poulsson were positioned.” This incident shows suspense because during this time if they got caught they would’ve been captured, interrogated, and killed which could’ve potentially meant a different outcome for World War 2.

Evidence 2: List of operations to take back Norway: Operation Grouse, Operation Gunnerside, Operation Freshman, D/F Hydro sinking. This how the Norwegians have pride in their country because if they didn’t they wouldn’t have sent all the operations to try and get it back.

 

The stem in this book is the Nazi’s use of heavy water which in this case is used to make an atomic bomb. The evidence to support this is the whole second chapter because it shows how the Nazi’s will make the bomb and scientists behind the project.

 

 What is the overall structure of the text? - The structure of the text was to inform us about the story of the soldiers in action. It supposed to give an entire story of the men over at least a year.