Knut Haukelid
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Knut Haukelid (Brooklyn, New York May 17, 1911 - Oslo, Norway March 8, 1994) The twin brother of actress Sigrid Gurie, Knut, graduated from the Norwegian Military Academy in 1948. He served as Major in the Telemark Infantry Regiment, and was later appointed Lieutenant General, and head of the Home guard of Greater Oslo.
During World War II Knut Haukelid and his small band of Norwegian soldiers sabotaged the Nazis' Rjukan, Norway-based supply of "heavy water" in a long-range raid which began at an airfield in England. The heavy water produced at a facility in occupied Norway was vital to Hitler's race with the United States to develop the atomic bomb.
For his participation in this raid, Knut Haukelid received the War Cross with sword.
[edit] In the Media
Books such as Knut Haukelid's Skis Against the Atom and Thomas Gallagher's Assault in Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program provide accounts of the Norway raid and Haukelid's participation.
A largely fictional Hollywood account of the sabotage, The Heroes of Telemark (1965), starred Richard Harris as Knut Straud.
[edit] Trivia
- When in 1969, Knut learned of his twin sister's death in Mexico from an embolism, he, too, suffered an embolism, but recovered.
