The commando raid disaster and the lone survivor miracle: Review of David Howarth: We die alone

Review of David Howarth: We die alone
©1957 Collins, sons & co. ltd. Hard back, 216 pages, including 5 pages of appendices, b/w ill. First published in 1955. Translated to the Norwegian 1955 by Odd Bang-Hansen: “ Ni liv” (=Nine lives)

Summary of story

Operation Martin Red was a combined operation arranged by the SOE. By the middle of March 1943 the Norwegian fishing vessel Brattholm left Scotland bound for Senja in Northern Norway. The vessel carried 12 men, all in uniform, from the NORIC1 (Norwegian Independent Company 1, nicknamed the Linge Company.) Eight were the crew of the vessel and the mission was to land the four commandos who were to arrange sabotage groups along the coast and above all, to perform extensive sabotage actions on the new German airfield Bardufoss.

After landfall they found a quiet bay and let go the anchor. They went ashore to find the shop-keeper, who had been chosen as a reliable contact. Unknowing to Allied Intelligence, the reliable shop-keeper had been substituted. The new one was nervous and feared that the Linge-men had been sent out as provocateurs. He reported them to the authorities.

The author’s comment on this is as follows:

So when the shopkeeper played for safety, and the official did what he afterwards claimed was his duty, their actions cost fifteen lives. Yet it is not for an Englishman, who has never lived under the rule of the Germans, to pass judgement on what they did. Their own countrymen judged them hardly. In a few moments of panic, they both threw away their peace of mind for ever. For the rest of the war, their lives were made a misery by their neighbours, and after it ended, the shopkeeper was sentenced by a Norwegian court to eight years’ hard labour and the official to sixteen.

The next day Brattholm was attacked by a German patrol boat. Three of the men were mortally wounded and the remaining eight taken to the town of Tromsoe were they were tortured in the most barbaric ways before they were shot.

Only Jan Baalsrud managed to swim ashore in the ice-old water. He was wounded, had lost one boot and was soaked to the skin and severely chilled. To escape German soldiers shooting after him, he swam over another channel to reach a new island. Here he for the first time received some help. Women and children risked their lives – and worse, capture and torture – to provide him with dry clothes, new bots, hot food and a dressing for his wound. When the men returned from their fishing, a young boy rowed him over to the neighbouring island. The plan was to get over to Sweden. That would be a journey of over 200 kms, in a wild and unforgiving terrain in the winter of Northern Norway and with numerous steep ascents.


Example of similar terrain in same area

Everywhere he asked for help, help was provided, even as everybody knew that helping men like him could be rewarded with the death penalty. After some days by foot, on skis and by boat he reached a place where he was skiing down a steep road and approached a bend:

Fifty yards ahead was a crowd of German soldiers. They straggled across the road and filled it from side to side. There was not time to stop or turn and no place to hide. […..] He shot in among them, and they stood back to right and left to let him pass […..] Then he was past, so acutely aware of the flag and the NORWAY on his sleeves that they seemed to hurt his shoulders. He fled up the road, expecting second by second and yard by yard the shots and the hue and cry.[….] A second later he was out of sight.

He now went up the mountains to escape his pursuers, but was caught in a storm, got lost, went snow-blind, was taken by an avalanche and fell down the edge of a glacier. After 60 hours constantly on the run he staggered towards a house and was again helped. At this point he was more dead than alive and could no longer walk.

Local people managed to pull him up the mountain side on a sledge. They tried to transport him further, but it was extremely difficult and a storm was also approaching the mountain plateau. They were forced to leave him in a cave, where he had to wait for more than a month.

The locals regularly visited him with food and other provisions. Their courage and unselfishness cannot be over-esteemed. The Germans shouldn’t have him. Storms and cold weather would not be allowed to break him down. Somebody had to help him.

Nevertheless, Baalsrud was steadily more weakened and exhausted. The cold injury to his feet was complicated by necrosis. To save his life he had to amputate nine of his toes with his pocket-knife. In periods he was unconscious and hallucinating. He was severely disheartened and tried to take his own life with the aid of his pocket-knife, but at that point he was too weak to succeed.

On the 1st of June 1943 finally a group of Laps got him over the Swedish border, his sledge hidden in a flock of reindeer, and under German fire. At this point he had been evading for over two months.

Evaluation of book
This book stands out among the main body of WW II literature, in that it basically is the sad tale of an operation where everything went wrong. In reality it’s the story of one man who refused to give up, but most of all a tribute to all the men and women who helped him, regardless of the great risks they were taking on behalf of themselves and their families.
Notably, the book was first written by the Englishman David Howarth and only later translated to the Norwegian. It is still on the curriculum in Norwegian schools.
The story is very well told. In the last part of the book, when odds seem overwhelming, the writing takes on an urgency which adds to the excitement. You won’t finish this book before you have read the last sentence.

Conclusion
I recommend the book as an example of war literature out of the ordinary. It describes quiet heroism and the triumph of human courage over forces of oppression.