A hero passes away

[Whiteshiva]

From The Times
December 29, 2009
Knut Haugland: resistance fighter and Kon-Tiki mariner


(Knut Falch)

Knut Haugland

Knut Haugland was a wartime hero of the Norwegian resistance and the last living member of Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific Ocean on a balsawood raft. Radio was one of few modern devices allowed on board the ramshackle-looking vessel with its single square sail that set out from Peru in April 1947 to prove a point about ethnic migration. Haugland was one of two radio operators on board whose job was to inform the outside world about their progress. They used the amateur radio network, call sign L12B. It was Heyerdahl’s theory that people from South America could have crossed the Pacific on such craft to settle in the Polynesian islands. He came to this conclusion after recognising similar carvings in both locations and observing the steady westwards drift of clouds and ocean currents.

The expedition caught popular postwar imagination and became a landmark of 20th-century maritime adventure and exploration when after 101 days drifting more than 4,300 miles on the prevailing wind and currents, Kon-Tiki crashed on to a reef that appeared unavoidably in its path, in the Tuamotu Islands of French Polynesia. The expedition proved, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, that the migration route was feasible and that the balsawood raft would not sink halfway across the Pacific.

Haugland had met Heyerdahl three years earlier, heard his theories about early migration routes and had been excited by the idea of testing them in the most practical way. Heyerdahl had insisted that only materials available to the pre-Colombian Indians should be used and Kon-Tiki was launched without benefit of a single nail, screw or rivet. As the crew mastered the single steering oar they quickly learnt that, provided her stern was kept strictly in line with the wind, the raft would flex with the waves and head relentlessly westwards at an average of 1½ knots.

The six crew and a single stowaway parrot endured the voyage with calm stoicism. The acclaimed film of the expedition, in which Haugland played himself, presented the crew of rafters as lean, bearded characters who might have stepped solemnly from an Ingmar Bergman film. Their diet was in part fish they caught, coconut milk and water kept in bamboo containers. They even caught shark that constantly tracked the wallowing raft. “We ate them before they ate us should we slip from the planks,” one crewman said.

The five Norwegians and one Swede on board were uninjured when the raft was stranded, but the sea swamped their bamboo shelter, soaking the radio. As the water rose Haugland and his fellow operator, Torstein Raaby, sent out an emergency message, one man cranking a hand generator. It was picked up by a radio ham in New Zealand who was asked to alert the emergency services if nothing more was heard within a certain timescale. As the expedition’s radio equipment slowly dried out, higher frequencies could be achieved until 13,990 MHz frequency allowed contact and shortly before a major international search operation would have been launched, L12B was able to report that all was well.

The book of the expedition and the film which followed received great acclaim.

Knut Haugland was born in Rjukan, Telemark, in 1917 and had survived a life full of danger and excitement well before the invitation to sail the Pacific on a balsawood raft. In 1938, after taking his examen artium, he enrolled on a military course to study radio communications. His posting to Setermoen in the far north early in 1940 coincided with the German invasion of Norway. Haugland fought in the battles near Narvik as a part of the Norwegian campaign, but once the German occupation was established he retreated to work at the Høvding Radiofabrikk factory in Oslo. He bitterly opposed the invasion and occupation of his country and was obstinately determined to do all in his power to thwart it. He joined the Norwegian resistance movement and in August 1941 was arrested by Statspolitiet, escaping from custody, crossing into Sweden and from there reaching Britain. There he enrolled in the Norwegian Independent Company, the Kompani Linge.

With nine other Norwegian resistance fighters he embarked on the now famous raid to demolish the first plant in the world to mass-produce heavy water at Vemork, higher up the same valley where he was born in the rugged Telemark countryside. Although early in the war the use of heavy water in the development of nuclear energy may not have been fully understood by the resistance, a German intention to develop a nuclear capability later became clear.

Haugland was parachuted into Hardangervidda in October 1942 with three other resistance members who were codenamed Operation Grouse. Their orders were to await a British operation codenamed Freshman which would use gliders.

When this proved a disastrous failure, another team, Operation Gunnerside, was sent and in February 1943 the Vemork plant was successfully sabotaged. Haugland remained in Hardangervidda for two months before moving to Oslo where he helped to train marine telegraphers.

He made a return visit to Britain to collect more radio equipment and then flew back to Norway, parachuting near Skrimfjella to help with communications work with the resistance. In Kongsberg he was arrested for a second time by the Gestapo but again escaped and continued with his efforts to train radio operators. On April Fool’s Day in 1944 he again narrowly escaped from the Gestapo when one of his transmitters hidden in the Oslo Maternity Hospital was located by a German radio direction finder.

After this series of close shaves Haugland fled to England and did not return to Norway until after the war. His record of service twice won him Norway’s highest decoration for military gallantry, the War Cross with two swords. Britain acknowledged his war record with the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Medal, while the French awarded him the Croix de guerre and Légion d’honneur. He also received the Royal Norwegian Order of St Olav.

After the war Haugland returned to normal military life with a break for the Kon-Tiki expedition before transferring to the Royal Norwegian Air Force where he headed the electronic intelligence service in northern Norway, holding the rank of major and then lieutenant-colonel.

He left the air force in 1963 to become acting, and subsequently the permanent, director of Norway’s Resistance Museum. He was also director of the Kon-Tiki Museum beside Oslo Fjord where the famous raft now rests. He later became board chairman until his retirement in 1991.

Significantly, perhaps, all but one of the Kon-Tiki expedition members were keen supporters of the Scout movement. Haugland himself was an attaché to the 12th World Scout Conference in Elvesaeter and his taste for adventure and obstinate refusal to bow to authoritarian government or accept received wisdom at face value were marks of an exceptional man in the Scouting tradition. He is survived by his wife and his three children.

Knut Haugland, DSO, MM, resistance fighter and Kon-Tiki mariner, was born on September 23, 1917. He died on December 25, 2009, aged 92

[blackgang]

Good on him, his kind will be missed by many.

[AntRobertson]

I remember that as a kid I had a book all about that Kon-Tiki expedition and that for a long time it was my absolute favourite - something about it all captured my imagination.

It's sad that the last chapter of it has now, in a way, been written but hopefully at least the legacy will endure and excite like it did for me.



Vale, Knut Haugland.

[StrontiumDog]

He had a great life. Not many like him around nowadays...

RIP

[Bower]

Voyage of the Kon-Tiki was one of the first adventure books i read, inspiring stuff.

RIP to a real life hero

[Loy Toy]

Yes he, along with his brave adventurer mates influenced many of our childhood dreams and fantasies and based upon the Kon-Tiki expedition.

A wonderful life he must of lived and may he Rest In Peace!

[jandajoy]

Me too. An inspiring read. What a splendid fellow. RIP.

[nedwalk]

what a truelly coragous glorious life, the world has lost another brave legend

[watterinja]

A good man. Lived a very full life. RIP, you've earned it.