Knut Haugland
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| Knut Haugland | |
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| Born | September 23, 1917 Rjukan, Telemark, Norway |
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| Nationality | Norwegian |
| Occupation | Museum director (ret.) |
| Known for | Explorer working with Thor Heyerdahl and a resistance fighter during WWII |
Knut Haugland (born September 23, 1917), is a former resistance fighter and noted explorer from Norway who accompanied Thor Heyerdahl on his famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. He was born in Rjukan, Telemark.
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[edit] World War II
During World War II, Haugland, with nine other Norwegian resisters organised and carried out the famous raid on the Norsk Hydro plant in Rjukan, Norway, which was producing "heavy water" (deuterium oxide) for the German nuclear weapon research programme. He then narrowly escaped capture by the Gestapo when his transmitter, hidden in Oslo Maternity Hospital, was located by DF. Haugland was awarded the DSO and the MC by the British.
[edit] Kon-Tiki expedition
He first met Thor Heyerdahl in 1944 at a paramilitary training camp in England. It was here that Haugland first heard of Heyerdahl's theories about Polynesian migration patterns, and his plans to cross the Pacific on a balsa wood raft. In 1947 Haugland was invited by Heyerdahl to join the "Kon Tiki" expedition as a radio operator. On the expedition Haugland and Torstein Raaby were in frequent radio contact with American amateur operators, sending meteorological and hydrographic data to be passed on to the Meteorological Institute in Washington, DC. Despite the tiny radio which had an output of only 6 watts — about the same as a small battery-powered flashlight — they managed to contact radio operators in Norway, even sending a telegram to congratulate King Haakon VII on his 75th birthday.
In later years Haugland was the director of the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.
[edit] References
- Heyerdahl, Thor (1950). The Kon-Tiki Expedition. George Allen & Unwin. (Translated by F.H.Lyon)
