Operation Grouse – Hardangervidda

Place: rjukan · Approximate position

On 18 October 1942 four Norwegians from Kompani Linge jumped out into the darkness over Hardangervidda and let their parachutes carry them down into the snow. The team, led by Jens Anton Poulsson, were to be the Allies' eyes and ears ahead of the heavy water operation – but the winter turned out longer and harder than anyone had planned for. Month after month they kept themselves hidden and lived off what the plateau could give, among other things reindeer they shot themselves, while they waited for reinforcements that never arrived. When the Gunnerside team finally jumped the following winter, it was the Grouse men who received them and guided them safely to Vemork. Without the advance party's frugality and endurance out in the snow, the sabotage itself would hardly have succeeded.

The advance party (Operation Grouse/Swallow) operated across a large area of Hardangervidda. The point is placed at Store Saure, some 30 km north-west of Rjukan, where the team wintered in the "Svensbu"/"Fetter" cabin that Poulsson had built before the war. The position of the cabin itself has not been publicly located, so the placement is approximate.

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