Viking Magazine - July 2019 - 22

Over a period of six years and more
than 20 trips back to Troms from his
home in Jessheim, Haug interviewed
witnesses and gathered the story of what
happened during Operation Martin.
A Phone Call from Bromnes
The operation began when Baalsrud and
11 other men crossed from Scotland on
a fishing boat, the Brattholm, and sailed
into Toftefjord at the end of March
1943. They would deliver explosives and
radio equipment for resistance leaders,
and work to organize and support
members of the resistance in northern
Norway.
Howarth's book and other narratives
say that Operation Martin's goal was
to blow up the airport at Bardufoss.
But Olav Bogen, a historian and senior
staff member at Norway's Resistance
Museum in Oslo, says that's not the case.
" It was originally planned as a
sabotage mission, but then it changed, "
Bogen says. " The building up of the
resistance was more important. " In
fact, the instructions for Operation
Martin, dated March 20, say nothing
about Bardufoss, and talk only about
equipping people who wanted to form a
guerrilla organization for action against
the enemy.
The Martin operatives went to the
general store at Bromnes, whose owner
they knew to be trustworthy. They
realized too late that they had revealed
their presence to the wrong person-the
store owner had died. The man who had
taken his place was anxious and unsure
if his visitors were really the Norwegian
fighters they said they were; maybe they
were German sympathizers testing his
loyalties. He called the sheriff after they
left and reported the unfamiliar boat
and crew anchored on Toftefjord. The
next day, a German patrol boat closed
in on the Brattholm.
To leave no evidence of their mission,
the men on the fishing boat lit a seven22
VIKING JULY 2019 sonsofnorway.com
minute fuse, pushed away in lifeboats,
and rowed for shore as the Brattholm
detonated. German gunfire and small
boats followed them. For 11 of the
men, it was the end: one was shot dead
on the beach, two died from torture
while in German custody at a Tromsø
hospital, and eight more were captured,
interrogated and tortured at Gestapo
headquarters in Tromsø, then shot and
pushed into a mass grave.
Baalsrud alone, the 12th man,
escaped. He'd been shot in the leg. He
was missing a boot. And he would be on
the run for two months, trying to reach
neutral Sweden.
No One Said No
Baalsrud knew his presence would
endanger others-the Germans declared
aid to the enemy a crime punishable by
death-so he avoided homes and people
as much as he could, knocking on
doors only when he thought he would
succumb to cold or hunger. He swam
in icy waters, his uniform freezing into
a hard shell on his body afterward.
He scaled mountains and was buried
up to his neck in an avalanche. He
sheltered for days in a small crevasse
and for weeks in a hole in the snow
under a boulder.
In interviews years later, he called the
people of Troms the real heroes. When
he did ask them for help, no one ever
said no.
LEARN MORE ABOUT
JAN BAALSRUD
READ
" We Die Alone, " David Howarth
" The 12th Man, " Tore Haug and Astrid
Karlsen Scott
WATCH
" The 12th Man, " Harald Zwart's 2017 film
One family gave him a boot for his
bare foot and bandaged his wound.
Some cooked him a hot meal. They
offered hiding places in lofts and
outbuildings. They rowed him across
the fjord in the dark of night and
skied for days to arrange the help he
needed. As he grew weaker, he had
to rely on a network of volunteers to
pull him on a sledge and deliver food
to the remote spots where they had
stashed him. A group of Sámi took
him on the final leg of his journey into
Sweden for refuge and medical care.
" My main message in writing the
book was to put forward his helpers,
these 81 helpers that were direct in
connection with Jan, " Haug says.
" That was also one of Jan's wishes
before he died. "
Haug says being a history and
script consultant for the movie had
its pros and cons: gala screenings
in Norway and Los Angeles on the
one hand, but on the other, some
fictionalizing of the story to create
dramatic tension. " I had worked six
years to get the truth, all the details,
and then to throw some of them
overboard was a kind of fight for
me, " he confesses.
The Hollywood treatment of
Baalsrud's story calls to mind a film
about another mission carried out by
Kompani Linge soldiers. But " The
Heroes of Telemark " ultimately
succeeded in their efforts. Their
sabotage of heavy water supplies at
Vemork and on Tinnsjø crippled the
Germans' nuclear weapons program.
Ironically, it's the failure of Operation
Martin that became legendary for
what it revealed.
Baalsrud had " remarkable survival
skills and will to survive, " Bogen says.
That's central to the story, but so is the
help he received. The legend is " his
personal character, but also that of the
people in the north who helped him. "
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Viking Magazine - July 2019

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