kinci Dnya Sava esnasnda Nazi igali altndaki Norve'te direniin simgesi olan komando Jan Baalsrud'un '12th Man' adl filme dahi konu olan destans hikayesi. Climbing ashore, he heard gunfire, glanced backward and saw his friend on the ground, blood rushing from his head. ONE OF THE FIRST of those helpers is waiting for us in Toftefjord, on the porch of a modest green cottage, a short walk from the shore. It houses some of his possessions, including the skis he lost in an avalanche. This action saved the rest of his feet. Jan Baalsruds longest stay anywhere during his escape was in a mountain fissure at the top of the Manndalen valley. "I had forgotten the whole story, or rather I had tried to forget it all," Baalsrud said in a radio interview years later, "and it was completely forgotten when David Howarth came." Jan Baalsruds 1943 escape from Nazi-occupied northern Norway is the stuff of astonishing individual courage an almost bottomless will to survive but also a larger kindness and humanity. It was during this time, that he hid in a wooden hut at Revdal, which he called Hotel Savoy. He lay tied to a stretcher as they stealthily took him through fiords and dragged him up and down snowy mountains. After the war, Marius married a young woman named Agnete Lanes, who had helped him tend to Baalsrud. Su increble historia la narra un clsico ya de la historia militar de la Segunda Guerra Mundial que ahora llega a las libreras espaolas publicado por Capitn. It houses a few of his recovered possessions, including his skis which were found in 1943 at the bottom of a gully, and hidden until the end of the war. Baalsrud var utdannet geodetisk instrumentmaker. He evaded capture for approximately two months, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness. Hotel Savoy is situated off the E6 just north of the boundary between the municipalities of Storfjord and Kfjord, 14 km north of Skibotn. Jan Baalsrud is a well known Celebrity. Jan Baalsrud is a member of famous Celebrity list. Although the restored cabin looks quite idyllic when the weather is good, one can only imagine how freezing it must have been on ice-cold April nights. From behind the rock, he saw the soldiers getting closer, within range. It's open only a few days a week, and there is no sign outside to tell anyone that it exists. Not far beneath us, at the bottom of the bay, still lies some of the wreckage of the Brattholm. After consulting on the production of Ni Liv, he returned to the life he had started with his wife, Evie, an American from a wealthy family. In a very real sense, it fractured them. Historien er kjent gj. Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault is, by its very Quick: What time is it? I ARRIVE IN TOFTEFJORD on a bright, cool late-summer morning. But this is what Dagmar remembers most: before he left, the handsome stranger leant down, looked her squarely in the eye and declared, with stone-cold certainty, that if she ever told a soul that she'd seen him, everyone she loved would almost certainly be killed. The Gronvoll family's barn, where Baalsrud, snow-blind and lame, recovered after the avalanche, is still standing just up the road. At 71 years old, Jan Baalsrud height not available right now. He soon went to Scotland to help train other Norwegian patriots, who were going to enter Norway to continue the fight against the Germans. His little dog, a brown mutt, runs to the bow, his nose poking over the edge, aiming down. stated in. An ambulance plane took him to Oslo University Hospital, but it was too late. "When Jan was here, she didn't want journalists inside," Kjellaug says. That man promptly reported the conversation to the Gestapo. Baalsrud had no choice but to trust them. He spent seven months there, putting on weight, regaining his eyesight, and learning how to walk again on his disfigured feet. There was the fisherman who outfitted Baalsrud with new boots and a pair of skis. imported from Wikimedia project. Are, who has an uncanny resemblance to the pictures I saw of his father, works in the local fish-feed industry. Ill-equipped as always, he braved the elements under open skies. Jaeggevarre and the Lyngen River. Unfortunately, Hitler had different plans. File:Jan Sigurd Baalsrud (1917- 1988) (47953919208).jpg From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository Jump to navigationJump to search File File history File usage on Commons File usage on other wikis Metadata Size of this preview: 486 599 pixels. He heard more gunfire. Rune og Ronny fr kjenne p de samme utfordringene som Baalsrud hadde. first read this incredible tale of one man's refusal to die alone forty years ago--have been recommending to people ever since. Jan Baalsrud byl jmenovn estnm lenem du britskho impria. ON MARCH 29, 1943, with the brutal Norwegian winter not yet waning, Jan Baalsrud and 11 commandos and crewmen slipped into a secluded cove in the country's northern fjords. Biography Early life Jan Baalsrud was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway and moved with his family to Kolbotn in the early 1930s. Underveis mter de ogs det nord-norske folket som reddet han. A building nearby was a German military headquarters; he just as easily could have barged in there, and his story would have ended. For Jorunn Aase og Steinar Kverrhellen var dette dramaet ein grufull realitet. Baalsrud was handsome, as Dagmar recalls, her face reddening at the memory. In a 2016 interview with the New York Times, Dagmar Idrupsen recalled that day more than 72 years ago, saying that Baalsrud was ice cold and his uniform was frozen solid. Alone for two more weeks in a cave, he used a knife to amputate several of his own frostbitten toes to stop the spread of gangrene. jan baalsrud wife. male. F r senere dd ogs " Evie ". One lonely day inside the cave, he took out his pocket knife again and amputated the rest of them. Not satisfied with these versions of the story, Haug worked on a book of his own. This was when Baalsrud's journey took its grimmest turn yet. In a case of mistaken identity, they spoke to a civilian who had the same name as their contact. Many Norwegians have been fascinated by the gripping story of the Norwegian resistance fighter. As he watched four soldiers climbing toward him, he took stock. De giftet seg i 1951 De fikk datteren Liv i 1958. Politicians believed a pacifistic stance would help Norway avoid most of the impact of this new war as it had during WWI. An elegant pedestrian bridge has been constructed across the river, almost at the end of the trial. Han dde i 1988 og hans. On the fourth day, he found his way to a small village called Furuflaten. During two months in which he attempted to escape into neutral Sweden, he was buried in an avalanche, amputated his own frostbitten toes with a penknife, battled starvation, went snowblind and groped around until he accidentally bumped into an empty cabin where he took refuge, and was under constant threat of capture and execution. Inside the hut is a wooden platform, like the one Baalsrud was lying on when, half-mad with agony, he took a knife to his own feet. Ten of the remaining men were dragged from the icy water, turned over to the Gestapo, and executed. Narrowly escaping the clutches of Nazi soldiers who were just one door away, he was taken in by a family who helped him to freedom. "I can tell you something, youngest son of Marius," he said. This organised walk is 200 km long and crosses the islands of Rebbenesya and Ringvassya, the Lyngen peninsula and the mainland east of the Lyngenfjord. Even years after the war despite the book, the movie and the indomitable legend some neighbours, Are says, still think of Marius and his family as troublemakers, the ones who had endangered their community, who put everyone at risk. Everyone in the room understood the danger he was putting them in. Mother of Private. His later visit in 1987 was less triumphant, more poignant. He died in 1988, 12 days after celebrating his 70th. Caribou Media Group earns a commission from qualifying purchases. Alfred A. Vik), while Jan Baalsrud escaped to Sweden. Baalsrud swam to shore and saw that all his comrades were either in German custody, facing certain death, or were killed on the spot. 1. To better treat the remnants of the gangrene he got (during his escape from the Germans under WW2) in check, he spent the last years of his life living in the Canary Islands (Spain). Fearing for his life, the man reported them to German authorities. Two special soldiers relives Jan Baalsrud's miraculous flight from the Nazi's during harsh winter, when he survived and after the war became famous as the man with nine lives, known through the films Nine Lives (1957) and 12th Man (2017). Jan Baalsrud og de som reddet ham (Norwegian Edition) Norwegian Edition | by Tore Haug | Jan 1, 2000. TODAY, FURUFLATEN IS STILL very small, with about 250 people. +47 957 34 949) will gladly help you when she is available. He yanked out the magazine and tossed out the first two rounds. Tore Haug, walks up the hill where Baalsrud shot two Nazis. 0 references. He never settled in one place, and compartmentalized these interactions by refusing to disclose who he had visited previously or where he was headed next. The barn is still there today. Fellow Norwegians transported Baalsrud by stretcher toward the border with Finland. But not until after being shot and injured, going snowblind, and even having to amputate some of his toes by himself to avoid gangrene from spreading. "My father had two sisters," Are says, "and he sent them away" for the duration of the war. whump prompts generator > mecklenburg county, va indictments 2021 > jan baalsrud wife. He died on December 30, 1988 in Breia, Norway. They lit a time-delay fuse, piled into a dinghy, and attempted yet again to escape. In the now abandoned Haugland farm on the island of Hersya, Jan Baalsrud was given shelter and food for the first time. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud Birth 13 Dec 1917 Oslo, Oslo kommune, Oslo fylke, Norway Death 30 Dec 1988 (aged 71) Kongsvinger, Kongsvinger kommune, Hedmark fylke, Norway Burial Cremated, Other. Cannes: Harald Zwart on Fulfilling a Childhood Dream With 'The 12th Man' Jonathan Rhys Meyers co-stars in Zwart's WWII drama about Norwegian resistance hero Jan Baalsrud. By 1938, he had completed his military service and became an instrument-maker. His assignments: swim underwater, fastening explosive devices (limpets, or magnetic bombs) to German seaplanes, and to recruit Norwegian resistance fighters. The film The 12th Man, which depicts Jan Baalsrud's dramatic escape from the Germans during World War II, premiered on Christmas Day 2017. By this point, Baalsrud was delirious and hallucinating, recounting that he heard the voices of his eleven comrades calling out to him. Of the four Norwegian commandos who launched a sabotage mission against the Nazis, Jan Baalsrud was the only one left standing. Related External link: The Shetland Bus - This page lists those who died in this service, . He was entombed alive in snow for another four days and abandoned under open skies for five more. Thank you! One bullet shears off a big toe. There are Baalsrud's wooden skis, recovered by a local resident in the bottom of the valley in the summer of 1943 and hidden until the end of the war. But the family promised to help him. Suffering badly from exposure and snowblindness, he wandered towards the foot of Mt. Jan Baalsrud was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway and moved with his family to Kolbotn in the early 1930s. VIAF ID. Norwegian Independent Company 1 was one such unit, and is better known as Kompani Linge after its leader, Captain Martin Linge. Kjellaug still lives in Furuflaten, working as a nurse in a neighbouring town. Baalsrud, 25, had three years of military experience behind him when he set off with 11 other men on a covert mission to Norway. Film om Anden Verdenskrig fnger stadig og trkker i disse r . The story of his escape is absolutely incredible. Haug shuts the door. The march takes eight days and you can do either walk the entire route or just part of it. I look, too. Dagmar's aunt sent a small boat to fetch them to her own place across the fjord. It was during this time, while he lay behind a snow wall built around a rock to shelter him, that Baalsrud amputated nine of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene. Baalsrud spent seven months in a Swedish hospital in Boden before he was flown back to Britain in an RAF de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. He lived there until the 1950s. [4], A street in Kolbotn, Norway is named Jan Baalsruds plass (Jan Baalsrud's Place) in his honor. Then came a blizzard. From here, the path is well-marked with signs and orange tape. By now, Baalruds fortitude had made him a symbol of Norwegian resistance, and the occupying Nazi army redoubled its efforts to capture him. Finally, his luck began to improve, when stumbled on Furuflaten, a small village between Mt. 1 talking about this. They had one child. Through the kindness of his fellow Norwegians, Baalsrud received food, shelter, new boots and bandages for his badly-frostbitten feet, and some skis. The Gronvoll family stashed Baalsrud in their barn for four days as he tried to recuperate. " Baalsrud sterilised the knife in the flame of the lamp, then washed his feet with liquor and took a swig before cutting. Norway wanted to stay neutral, but Britain wanted Norway to join its blockade of Germany and to transport British goods at cheap rates. ANMELDELSE: Filmen "Den 12. mand" fortller den autentiske historie om Jan Baalsrud, der i 1943 undslap tyskerne og overlevede mere end to mneders flugt under ufattelige og umenneskelige forhold i Nordnorges vinter. By now, Baalsrud was on the verge of suicide. In March 1943, a detachment of four Kompani Linge commandos and eight other Norwegians embarked on Operation Martin. Tragically, that too would fail. Advertisement Baalsrud was visibly frail. Even at the end, Baalsrud's thoughts were never far from the capriciousness of fate: who lives and who dies, who survives and who doesn't, who is most deserving of honour and praise. Faced with freezing temperatures and brutal conditions his story is an incredible one. ON SKIS, BAALSRUD THOUGHT, the rest of the trip would be easy. He is known for Nine Lives (1957), Flykten ver Klen (1979) and I Jan Baalsruds fotspor (2014). His soaked uniform was crystallising, hardening into a shell of ice. Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl, translated by F. H. Lyon. As if all this wasn't enough, an avalanche threw him down the mountainside, leaving him concussed and partially buried in snow. Det neste barnet de fikk dde bare n uke gammel, i januar 1955. He was a Second Lieutenant (Fenrik). In 1943, he was 25 years old, a cartography instrument maker from Oslo. ON THE DRIVE TO REVDAL, Haug tells me that he wants me to experience the "Hotel Savoy" alone to leave me there for several minutes in silence so I can imagine what it must have been like to stay in there, day after day, expecting Marius and his friends to come, but them never coming, to be experiencing incredible pain from gangrene, to start to think that this would be the place where he would die. But then the old soldier grinned grimly, gritting his teeth, and glanced at Are. He made it to an arctic village, nearing death. On the other side of the fjord, which Jan Baalsrud reached on 12 April after being taken across the water, is a small basic cabin with no heating, ironically named the Hotel Savoy. "She said afterward that he was in such bad shape that it would have been better if he was dead than still alive," her son Dag says. After Germany took hold of Norway, the countrys politicians, royalty, and many civilians fled to safer countries. As a soldier drew close to his position, Baalsrud drew his snub-nosed Colt revolver and shot him dead. . Den mest kjente formen utviklet med slike instrumenter er den geodetiske kuppel. The Jan Baalsrud March. He was also ice-cold and soaking wet, his Norwegian commando uniform frozen solid. Den 12. mann forteller den dramatiske historien om Jan Baalsruds flukt fra nazistene under andre verdenskrig. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud died in Oslo on December 30th, 1988. Baalsrud was a 25-year-old son of an instrument maker who escaped his country after the German invasion in 1940 and returned three years later as a saboteur. The others drew back, buying him time. When the weather finally cleared, he was snowblind, hallucinating, and crippled with frostbite in his toes. But he was all right, more or less, until the avalanche. In the community centre is a simple exhibition about Jan Baalsrud, which includes treasures such as his skis. By his third day wandering alone, he was hallucinating, hearing the voices of the men of the Brattholm he had left behind. The members of Kompani Linge made the difficult choice to blow up their own boat rather than hand it over. Resistance members asked for help from Sami native tribe members, who used a sled and reindeer to stealthily cross through Finland and into Sweden, evading German units along the way. He also amputated one of his big toes. An avalanche buried him up to his neck. The story of Jan Baalsruds escape through occupied Northern Norway in the spring of 1943 has something of the improbable about it. Their heroism, like Baalsrud's, was of an ambiguous kind, and Howarth's question occurred to me again. Baalsrud joked to them that it was every bit as nice as the Hotel Savoy. Please try again later. Further away, others in his unit were being rounded up or killed by the Germans. [3] He was awarded the St. Olav's medal with Oak Branch by Norway. Haug is Baalsrud's second cousin, but he met the man only once, as a boy; he remembers Baalsrud refusing to talk with his relatives about his wartime experiences. All I can hear is the howling of the wind, blasting between the planks of wood. Jan Baalsrud. There was the man who warded off a neighbour, known to be on the German payroll, who came by while Baalsrud was inside. Trivia (4) When I speak with her, she is 82 and peppy, if a little bashful. The movie centers around Baalsrud's relationship with his Norwegian countrymen, who helped him survive in the wilderness and reach neutral Sweden while being tracked down by the Gestapo. Jan Baalsrud was born in Kristiania on the 13th December 1917. The story was later told in British author, View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. But in a cruel twist of fate, he ended up speaking to a shopkeeper with the same name some reports indicate he may have been a German imposter. His assignments: swim underwater, fastening explosive devices (limpets, or magnetic bombs) to German seaplanes, and to recruit Norwegian resistance fighters. Marius came to visit and meant to come back again, but a storm delayed him for another five days. He wandered in a snowstorm for three days. Their fishing boat, the Brattholm, carried a secret cargo of bombs and explosive devices. These skis enabled him to move more quickly, but a sudden blizzard caused him to veer off course. Then he returned to his old life, outside Oslo. The men lit a fuse, waiting until the last minute to jump before the Brattholm exploded. A further snowstorm entombed him for another four days. Zemel 30. prosince 1988 ve vku 71 let. The film has been a hit with audiences and gained rave reviews. At the top of the ridge, Haug says, there is a large boulder about five metres high, six metres wide and flat on one side. One scene sees Stage testing the water's temperature to see how long his target could have lasted in . Baalsrud, then 25 years old, had been preparing to conduct an underwater demolition element of Operation Martin. At the end of March 1943, Jan Baalsrud and 11 other intelligence officers from Kompani Linge and crew were sailing to Troms on the MS Bratholm to organise teams of saboteurs in occupied Norway. The final operative, Jan Baalsrud, was able to evade capture. Howarth, a journalist and Royal Navy officer, wrote We Die Alone based largely on the Norwegian military report on the escape that Baalsrud filed during his recovery and interviews with Baalsrud himself. The two others are a midwife, and the female reporter at the hospital. The new film about the drama, The 12th Man, is generating considerable interest in the story, so we sought out the locations where it all happened. He turned up toward the hill, planted one bootless foot in the snow and ran. There is Baalsrud's gun, the snub-nosed Colt, which Baalsrud's brother had given to a museum near Oslo before it was transported back to Furuflaten. Audible Audiobook. It is not currently marked, but the GPS coordinates are as follows:69.467396, 20.325756 There is a reasonable parking area next to the fjord, and you then follow a short path down to the cabin. He soon traveled back to Norway to aid the resistance directly, and witnessed the liberation of his country as the war ended. Village residents hid him in a barn in hopes that he would recover, but the frostbite on his feet had progressed to the point that he could no longer walk. He completed military service at 19, and when World War II broke out, he went to serve his country. To minimize the risk his presence posed, he promised to never mention where he had come from, or who he had seen. The year was 1943, and Norway was under German occupation. . Other Works The march takes eight days and you can do either all of the march or just part of it. When he arrived in a hospital in Sweden, Baalsrud weighed 80 pounds. Baalsrud's feet froze solid. page after page, the twists and . Jan Sigurd Baalsrud, MBE (December 13, 1917 in Kristiania, Norway - December 30, 1988 in Kongsvinger, Norway) was a commando in the Norwegian resistance trained by the British during World War II. While investigating facts about Jan Baalsrud, I found out little known, but curios details like:. From there, the route zigzags south 130 kilometres up and down mountains and across rivers, concluding at last at the border Norway shares with Sweden and Finland. The little hut that is there now is a replica; the original one was burned down by some kids several years ago. "No one else knew about him," Haug says. The 12th Resistance fighter, Jan Baalsrud, manages to escape by hiding and swimming across the fjord, in sub freezing temperatures, to the nearest island. Over the course of a few months, Jan Baalsrud (Thomas Gullestad) survives the harshest weather of the Arctic Circle as he flees a cruel and relentless German soldier, Kurt Stage (Jonathan Rhys. "Most young people, they don't know the story.". He spent five days under the open sky, growing confused, despondent and finally hopeless. It's a silent, tiny bay, bordered on three sides by stark moss-green outcroppings. He grew to be bigger than himself.". Baalsrud tumbled some 90 metres down into the valley, destroying his skis and losing his poles and satchel. nazi'lerin norve'i igal etmesiyle birlikte lkelerinin bamsz bir alman eyaleti gibi ynetilmesini kabullenemeyen norveli askerlerin bir ksm . Source: Anders Beer Wilse / Galleri NOR. After escaping the Nazi occupation of Norway in 1940, he had just returned, alongside 11 compatriots, as part of a sabotage. He joined the Norwegian Company Linge. When he noticed a soldier gaining on him, he pulled it out and fired a handful of failed shots before a final successful one killed his enemy. However, as was also true of other legendary wartime survivors, he was not content to live this sedentary life while his countrymen were still fighting. He died in Norway, however. The 12th Man is the story of Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian resistance fighter, one of a dozen saboteurs trained by British intelligence to carry out a raid on an air traffic control tower in the . He devised a technique to keep from falling: he threw a snowball, and if he didn't hear it hit the ground, he went in the other direction. He headed south, knocking on doors when he was out of strength or in danger of freezing to death, never knowing if the people on the other side of the door would turn him in. Jan Baalsrud was the only survivor. Jan Baalsrud was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway and moved with his family to Kolbotn in the early 1930s. He married an American woman, started a family, and served as Chairman of the Norwegian Disabled Veterans Union. 1000s of new photos added daily. Before he died on December 30, 1988, he was moved to a rehabilitation centre near Oslo that his own donations and support had helped to create. richard matvichuk wifeinternational service dog laws. Now a prime target for the Gestapo forces, Baalsrud took on his most important assignment yet: protecting his own life. Tollbugata 13, Bod A normal man in many ways, he had a genius for survival. Kolker summarises what happened next as follows: What happened over those nine weeks remains one of the wildest, most unfathomable survival stories of World War II. He returned to Norway during his final years. BAALSRUD HIMSELF REJECTED that myth, time and again. Their mission that March was to establish a presence near the northern port city, Tromso, where they would sabotage anything the Germans were using to fortify the Axis troops on the Russian front. Then he fired again, twice. Publicity Listings Baalsrud operated on his feet with a pocket knife, as he suspected he had gangrene in two toes, resulting from the frostbite. He was put in the care of some Sami (the native people of northern Fenno-Scandinavia). He had just one boot, having lost the other in the water. Geni requires JavaScript! In 1941, Baalsrud reached Great Britain after having travelled through the Soviet Union, Africa and the US. Baalsrud relocated to Sweden where he re-trained in spy tactics. Jan Baalsrud and the Norwegian Coast Norwegian World War II soldier Jan Sigurd Baalsrud found himself in quite the predicament during the German invasion of Norway. www.opendialoguemediations.com. As the Germans opened fire on the dinghy, Baalsrud dove into the frigid Arctic water and swam to shore. After a long struggle to learn to walk without his toes, Baalsrud eventually was sent to Norway as an agent at his request. Su nombre era Jan Baalsrud. Norwegian Jan Baalsrud: A Incredible Survivor In WWII War History Online, Following in the Tracks of Jan Baalsrud Nord Norge, RECOILweb: Behavioral Cues for Avoiding a Fight , Video: Knife Expert Analyzes Movie Knife Fights, Letter from the Editor: All Restraints Are Temporary, Outlast on Netflix: New TV Show Blends Alone with Lord of the Flies. Eventually, he arrived in Britain, where he was recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and trained in sabotage operations. A small museum in Furuflaten commemorates Baalsrud. By Dagney McKinney. Mini Bio (1) Jan Baalsrud was born on December 13, 1917 in Oslo, Norway. Today, there is no evidence to indicate what happened here, but many people have written in the notebook which is used as a visitors book. The Sami harnessed the sled to a team of reindeer and, racing through a corner of Nazi-aligned Finland, they finally crossed over into neutral Sweden by way of a frozen lake, with the Germans following close behind. When he did, he moved to Scotland and trained resistance fighters. Norway has a mild reputation, now, as a beneficent social democracy, so rich with oil that it's almost unseemly, its finances largely walled off from the calamities within the European Union. Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 World War II 1.3 Later years and death 2 Books 3 Movies 4 References 5 External links Biography Early life He joined Linge Company, a group of young Norwegians who trained with the Allies in special ops and then sailed back on stealth missions, across the North Sea from Shetland, Scotland, and into occupied Norway, using the maze of fjords as cover. He lived there until the 1950s. The rudder of the MS Bratholm is also on display. Han var fenriki Kompani Linge. It remains all but impassable in winter. SOLUND (NRK): 1. juledag er det premiere p den nye filmen om krigshelten Jan Baalsrud. +47 907 89 699) can provide advice about the road and also organises kayak trips to the island. Sometime during those days, Baalsrud took the knife and cut into several of his toes, hoping to bleed out the frostbite-caused infection that he feared would spread up his legs. The trail begins in Toftefjord, then zigzags south up and down mountains, across rivers, before finally ending at the border shared by Norway, Sweden, and Finland. He even boldly whizzed past a group of German soldiers on their way to breakfast, vanishing from view before they thought to wonder who he was. Toftefjorden, on the island of Rebbenesya, where the dramatic escape began, is uninhabited today. The boat was discovered; three of them were shot and eight arrested and later executed in Troms. P.O.Box 434, 8001 Bod, Storgata 69, Troms The morning after their blunder, on 29 March, their fishing boat Brattholm containing around 100 kilograms of explosives intended to destroy the air control tower was attacked by a German vessel. He wandered in a snowstorm for three days. Only he had managed to escape and he would certainly be killed if caught. Baalsrud, 25, had three years of military experience behind him when he set off with 11 other men on a covert mission to Norway. With the help of many locals, he managed to reach Sweden, but not entirely intact, as he was forced to amputate most of his toes because of frostbite he developed while in a snow cave. jan baalsrud--a norwegian patriot during wwII--captured my imagination in the page's of david howarth's riveting book, and his story of survival under the relentless pursuit of the nazi's, is maybe the best to come out of that war.