Operation Freshman

19 November 1942 — Vemork

Date
19 November 1942
Command
Transport / Airborne
Target
Vemork, Norway

Narrative

Operation Freshman, on the night of 19/20 November 1942, was the first British airborne operation to use the Horsa glider — an attempt to destroy the Vemork heavy-water plant in occupied Norway and so deny the Germans a material vital to their nuclear research. Two Handley Page Halifax bombers towed two gliders, each carrying Royal Engineers, from a Scottish airfield, but the operation was a disaster: in bad weather over difficult mountain terrain the combinations failed to reach the target, the tow ropes parted, and one Halifax and both gliders crashed. The survivors were captured and, under Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’, murdered; forty-one men were lost. The plant was instead crippled three months later by the Norwegian commando raid Operation Gunnerside.

Sortie details (which aircraft from which squadron, which crew flew, the outcome) will populate this page once the TNA AIR 27 squadron-diary importer arrives.

The fallen

89 airmen in this archive died on 19 November 1942 or the day that followed. For a raid of this kind these are overwhelmingly the night's losses, though a death-date match is not by itself proof an individual flew this operation.

See all 89 who died on 19 November →

Source: Operation Freshman — Wikipedia →