Operation Gunnerside

Imagine if you will, it's the 1940's and Europe is being overrun by the Nazi war machine. Scientists that would take part in the success of the Manhattan Project have fled their now occupied nations bringing their knowledge of harnessing atomic power to the Allies. That didn't deter the Nazi's from forming a program of their own, starting the "Uranium Club" in 1939. No one knew where the other stood in their goal of building the bomb, for all the allies knew Hitler was on the cusp of developing it first. Nuclear fission was discovered in Berlin after all. When a Norwegian scientist escaping Nazi occupation informed the British a hydroelectric plant, which just so happen to be the largest producer of Heavy Water in the world, was captured by Hitler and its production ramped up, the Allies knew the implications. Heavy Water is a key ingredient in the process of creating nuclear fission. It allowed the process to occur with natural uranium, instead of the much more difficult to produce enriched uranium. To slow the Nazi's nuclear program several missions were attempted to destroy the heavy water production, the only problem was the plant was build like a fortress in one of the most inhospitable places in the world. This is the story of those men that took on a suicide mission to stop Hitler from getting The Bomb. Join us this week as week as get Historically High on Operation Gunnerside. 

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