OPERATION RYPE

OPERATION RYPE
by Frode Lundgjerdet.

The author works for Norwegian Armed Forces Museums and  information has been collected from four different countries.
During his extensive research he has found a lot of new material making this the first complete history of this sabotage operation.
He provides a lot of other interesting information on earlier sabotage raids and some stories of Norwegian resistance that ties in with this operation.
It was estimated that up to 25000 Norwegians were in the resistance!

The operation itself was the idea of the American OSS which would later become the CIA. The leader of the OP was Major William E. Colby who would later be the Director of the CIA.
The plan was to sabotage strategic points on Norway's railway & prevent, or at the very least slow down, German forces from travelling south from Narvik & Tromso & returning home to defend Germany.

The majority of the men were a mix of Americans with Norwegian descendants & Norwegians who had escaped & ended up in the US via various means.
The book describes their transfer to Scotland & the additional training before the hazardous journey across to Norway to drop the men by parachute, in seperate drops.
As the book reveals, due to adverse weather over the Norwegian mountains, this part of the operation did not all go according to plan & success would mix with tragedy.

As I never wish to reveal the full story in my reviews, I shall leave readers to learn what happened next.
It was a story I hadn't heard of before, coming so close to the war's end. 

The author describes this as a academic book & while it is a very comprehensive account, he deserves a great deal of credit for providing a full & very interesting story of a lesser known raid. As books on Norway often focus on its invasion, I enjoyed learning more on their later resistance, after years of occupation. 

The hardback book is available now & published by Casemate. 
I thank Casemate UK for this review copy.




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