Two officers and eight men from No. 2 Commando and two Norwegian
corporals from the
Norwegian Independent Company 1, part of the
Special Operations Executive were selected for Operation Musketoon. The raid was commanded by
Captain Graeme Black, from
Dresden, Ontario in
Canada and the
second in command, Captain Joseph Houghton. The other men from No. 2 Commando were
Company Sergeant Major Miller Smith,
Lance Sergeant Richard O'Brien,
Lance Bombardier William Chudley and
privates John Fairclough, Cyril Abram, Eric Curtis, Reginald Makeham and Fred Trigg. The two Norwegian corporals were Erling Djupdraet and
Sverre Granlund. Before leaving for Norway, the team trained for a fortnight on a large country estate in Scotland. During the planning the commandos were supposed to be picked up after the raid by a
Short Sunderland flying boat but this was cancelled before the mission due to the risk to the aircraft. The party was to head for neutral Sweden instead. Each man was issued with special equipment, including a silk map of Norway and Sweden, a
Washi paper map of
Russia and Norwegian
kroner banknotes. They also carried two compasses (one sewn into each collar tab), a
hacksaw blade, a
fighting knife and a Colt
M1911 pistol. The only other
small arm taken was a
suppressed Sten gun, carried by Captain Houghton.
Sea crossing To transport the raiders across the
North Sea, a , , belonging to the
Free French Navy was used, under the command of
Commander Querville.
Junon was selected because in silhouette it had the appearance of a German
U-boat, which could be advantageous if sighted on the surface. The submarine left the
Orkney Islands at 11:40 on 11 September 1942, under escort in British waters by , and
Thunderbolt.
Raid The submarine settled on the bottom of the fjord until darkness and surfaced at 21:15 to put the commandos ashore by dinghy. Reaching the shore, they hid their dinghy under some stones and moss, then set out across the mountains to Glomfjord, reaching the
Svartisen undetected. Houghton and Granlund, a Norwegian, went ahead to reconnoitre the area before the party began to climb the mountain. At one stage they had to traverse a near-vertical rock face before reaching the summit. The commandos did not know that their presence was suspected. A German
topographical party was in the area and its commander,
Leutnant Wilhelm Dehne, had spotted some unidentified figures above the Glomfjord. Later he discovered some
Player's cigarette packs and the remains of a camp. Fortunately for the commandos, his route back to Glomfjord took him away from their new camp overlooking the power station. The other nine commandos had set out for the rear of the power plant; seven entered the machinery hall, leaving two commandos on guard. The commandos in the power station discovered that the Germans had left the control room and only a Norwegian engineer was on duty. Sergeant Smith and Private Fairclough were detailed to plant their explosives among the machinery in the powerhouse and the other commandos located the area where the Norwegian staff worked and slept. The workers were gathered up and ordered to leave the station via an access tunnel over long, which was the only land route between the station and the villages in the fjord. On their approach to the tunnel, a German guard was killed by Granlund and another managed to run off down the tunnel to raise the alarm. In order to delay German reinforcements, the commandos left
smoke bombs inside the tunnel. By this time the commandos in the station had set their plastic explosives with 10-minute delay fuses on both turbines and generators. Bruce was the last British person to speak to Black; on 13 October 1942 they were taken to the
SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA) headquarters in Berlin, where they were interrogated one by one by
Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller. They remained in Berlin until 22 October, when they were taken to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On the next day, 23 October, they were shot in the back of the neck and their bodies
cremated. These commandos were the first to die under the
Commando Order issued on 18 October 1942 by
Adolf Hitler, which called for the execution of all captured commandos. The official German story given to the
Red Cross was that the seven men had escaped and not been recaptured. ==Aftermath==