Neal Bascomb > Quotes

“A man who sets out to become an artist at the mile is something like a man who sets out to discover the most graceful method of being hanged. No matter how logical his plans, he can not carry them out without physical suffering.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It

“Finally, Rønneberg, the leader of Gunnerside and the last surviving saboteur, who was ninety-six years old in 2016, often spoke eloquently about why he braved the North Sea to be trained in Britain and why he then returned, twice, by parachute, to Norway. “You have to fight for your freedom,” he said. “And for peace. You have to fight for it every day, to keep it. It’s like a glass boat; it’s easy to break. It’s easy to lose.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Our memory reaches back through recorded history. The memory book lies open, and the hand still writes.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi

“We will bring Adolf Eichmann to Jerusalem,” Harel said, striking the table, “and perhaps the world will be reminded of its responsibilities. It will be recognized that, as a people, we never forgot. Our memory reaches back through recorded history. The memory book lies open, and the hand still writes.”
― Neal Bascomb, Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi

“much like a fingerprint, the size and shape of the ear, as well as the angle at which it joins the face, are unique to each individual.”
― Neal Bascomb, Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi

“Our home villages with the hills, mountains and forests, the lakes and ponds, rivers and streams, waterfall and fjords. The smell of new hay in summer, of birches in spring, of the sea, and the big forest, and even the biting winter cold. Everything . . . Norwegian songs and music and so much, much more. That’s our Fatherland and that’s what we have to struggle to get back.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Since the Allied thrust into France just over a week before, it had become clear that there would be no invasion to free Norway. His countrymen would have to do it themselves.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“They had been told that the plant produced something called heavy water, and that with this mysterious substance the Nazis might be able “to blow up a good part of London.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Running had become more of a competition to draw out the best that was in him, as if he were plumbing the depths of his will.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It

“Rønneberg was suddenly lifted up and back, as if a giant had grabbed the back of his jacket. Then he was flying, head over heels off the roof, tossed away by a gust of wind. He landed in a snowbank. When he staggered to his feet, the cabin had vanished. All was white, swirling white, around him. Heading into the wind that had knocked him away, he eventually found the cabin. Climbing onto the roof a second time, he managed to fix the chimney pot, only to be hit by another gust of wind that sent him flying into the snow.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“There was a danger that the Germans would implement a scorched-earth policy when they withdrew their 350,000 troops, as they had done when leaving Italy.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“The Uranium Club would require a steady, robust supply of the precious liquid. Unfortunately, the world’s sole producer, Norsk Hydro’s Vemork plant, was far away in an inaccessible valley in Norway, a country whose neutral status in the war made it an unreliable partner.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“In August 1939 Albert Einstein, in contact with a group of scientists who had recently emigrated from Europe, sent a letter to Roosevelt warning of the need to exploit the explosive potential of fission before the Germans did.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“From the start, they had known that the odds of their survival were long. They might get inside the plant and complete their mission, but getting out and away would be another”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“BEFORE STOPWATCHES, cinder tracks, and perfect records, man ran for the purest of reasons: to survive. The saying goes that “every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or an antelope—when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” There are few instincts more natural than the body in full motion as it races across a field or through the trees. From the beginning, we were all made to run. In days past, when “survival of the fittest” meant exactly this, the only measure of the race was whether the hunted reached safety before being overtaken. Seconds and tenths of seconds had no meaning.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It

“The best intelligence the British received came through German activity at Vemork. As early as April 1940 Jacques Allier had alerted his British allies to Nazi efforts in uranium research using heavy water from the plant.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Other reports chronicled a mysterious September 1941 meeting where Werner Heisenberg admitted to Niels Bohr, who was living in Nazi-occupied Denmark, that a bomb could be made, “and we’re working on it.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“By Heisenberg’s calculations, he was sure to have a self-sustaining reactor if he could only obtain 50 percent more uranium and heavy water. He would get neither.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Tronstad returned to Trondheim, where he had resumed his teaching and studies at NTH. He channeled most of his prodigious energy, however, into his activities with the underground resistance, working particularly closely with several bands of university students who were pushing back against the German hold on the country.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Making history was never the aim of the Norwegian saboteurs, nor of the British sappers who were sent before them. After the war, the sacrifice of the British Royal Engineers and RAF crews of the ill-fated Operation Freshman was not forgotten. Thirty-seven bodies were recovered and buried at gravesites in Norway. Bill Bray’s headstone reads, "To live in the hearts of those that loved me is not to die.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“A month passed before Tronstad gained passage to Britain, from where he hoped to continue his fight to free Norway.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Since the day Hitler invaded Poland seven months earlier, it was plain to Tronstad that Norway would not be allowed to maintain the neutral stand it had held during the Great War.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“What nature and time could not mend, their friendship supported them through. Until the end of their lives, Kompani Linge members gathered often to share experiences that few others could understand.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Some, like Heisenberg, were already putting together the framework of their own defense, conveniently justifying the failure of their efforts as a calculated strategy to keep Hitler from obtaining the bomb.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“In Farm Hall, a quiet country house outside Cambridge, ten Uranium Club scientists were waiting for a decision to be made about their fate. They had been held there since July 3, 1945, rounded up when the Nazi regime fell, along with their papers, laboratory equipment, and supplies of uranium and heavy water. Among them were Otto Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, Walther Gerlach, Paul Harteck, and Kurt Diebner.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“Beside the Columbia River in Washington State, construction had commenced on reactors that used two hundred tons of uranium moderated by twelve hundred tons of graphite. Working with their Canadian ally, the Americans were building a massive heavy water plant at a hydropower station in Trail, British Columbia. At the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, a small city of physicists was working to build a functioning fission bomb.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“In mid-1944 Hitler, increasingly deluded and desperate, proclaimed Axis victory was imminent. “Very soon I shall use my triumphal weapons, and then the war will end gloriously . . . Then those gentlemen won’t know what hit them. This is the weapon of the future, and with it Germany’s future is likewise assured.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“In the hills of Tennessee, monumental plants were being built to separate the rare isotope U-235 from U-238 using two different methods. Beside the Columbia River in Washington State, construction had commenced on reactors that used two hundred tons of uranium moderated by twelve hundred tons of graphite. Working with their Canadian ally, the Americans were building a massive heavy water plant at a hydropower station in Trail, British Columbia. At the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, a small city of physicists was working to build a functioning fission bomb.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“The winter fortress was prepared for an all-out assault. All these heightened defenses signaled the importance of the atomic program to the Nazi war effort,”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb

“The Allies had broken their word. Without consulting the Norwegian government, they had sent a fleet of bombers to strike Vemork. Many civilians had died. Much needless destruction had been wrought, especially on the nitrate plant in Rjukan. That site had never appeared on any target list and only produced fertilizer for Norwegian agriculture. Hardest to accept was the fact that the primary target, the heavy water plant, had not even been damaged, just as Tronstad had warned it would not be.”
― Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb