The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb by Neal Bascomb
Midway through the largest war the world had ever seen, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler lacked a single component to harness nuclear energy and surpass the Allies in creating the atomic bomb. The missing link was water chemically laden with the hydrogen isotope deuterium, also known as “heavy water.” Heavy water was only produced in a solitary plant near Rjukan, Norway, known as Vemork and established by Norwegian professor of chemistry, Leif Tronstad. When British intelligence learned about the Führer’s plans, they joined forces with the intrepid chemist, who had escaped Nazi control, to prevent the plant from completing Hitler’s atomic bomb. On Thursday, November 2, 2017, Author Neal Bascomb presented a lecture at the United States Army Heritage and Education Center about the Allies’ harrowing, last-minute attempt to destroy the Vemork plant in 1942.
Bascomb’s lecture provided further depth to the intense historical and scientific research he used to shape his book, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb. Bascomb breathed life into the fascinating characters at the center of the real-life drama to stop Hitler’s most strategic weapon plans. He used untapped primary source material to tell the stories of the soldiers, scientists, and citizens involved with the episode, including his own expedition to Norway, where he retraced the steps of the Norwegian saboteurs scaling their way up the 600-foot snow covered cliff to Vemork in the Østlandet Region of Norway.
