Gladiators Of World War II

Norwegian Resistance Fighters (1x5)

Air date: Jan 19, 2002

For five years during World War 2, the Nazis occupied Norway. They were plagued by organised resistance; relatively small numbers of brave men and women, operating in the bleak and mountainous countryside. Theirs was a war of small actions and narrow escapesαthe threat of capture, torture, and death was constant and successful attacks could result in reprisals on civilians. Fishing boats slipped in and out of the long Norwegian coastline, carrying agents and information. Radio Spied monitored the German fleet in the distant and isolated fjords, and provided weather reports for the D-Day landings. Specially trained commando forces prevented the movement of heavy water, vital to Hitlers atomic bomb project. With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, the 60,000 members of Milorg, the resistance network, took the surrender of the German garrison, now swollen to 365,000 men. One of the greatest achievements of the Norwegian Resistance had been to tie down large numbers of Nazi troops, who would otherwise have been fighting in mainland Europe.