Army Experiments In Train Derailment & Sabotage - 1944

[rickshaw]

Army Experiments In Train Derailment & Sabotage - 1944 - harder than it seems...

[scooter]

Army Experiments In Train Derailment & Sabotage - 1944 - harder than it seems...

Indeed.  And ya gotta kinda feel for the Army track crews who have got out and fix the rails just for the OSS to blow them out the next day.

[Pellson]

My wife is half Danish, and her maternal grandfather was leading in an underground resistance team employed in sabotage during WW2. They blew up factories involved in the German war effort as well as railroad and other infrastructure. In 1944, Gestapo came too close and he was evacuated to Sweden until the armistice when he promptly returned.

After the war, he rarely spoke of his experiences until very late in life, and then, his main concern was the lives lost, on both sides. In retrospect, I would say he suffered from PTSD, but that wasn't a recognised diagnosis by then.

I had the opportunity to talk to him about rail sabotage on a few occasions, under the auspice that I at the time was working on the rail. He always emphasised that calculating the charges was a matter of precision rather than amount in getting the desired effect, and that they generally got it right. One interesting fact is that the team without exception stayed behind to make as sure as possible to minimise loss of life by warning bystanders and factory workers before vanishing in the panic. 

Today, his story lives on in the Danish "Frihedsmuséet", or Museum of Freedom, in Copenhagen, where he, some of his comrades and many other resistance fighters tell their memories in taped interviews. An enormously exciting and at the same time in many ways moving testimony.
My wife and I are repeatedly telling our kids about their great grandfather's experience, making certain that they understand the value and cost of independence and freedom.  Living in long time neutral Sweden, we find this too often being taken for granted.

[PR19_Kit]

It would have been much more effective if they'd have blown up a chunk of rail on a curve.................

[rickshaw]

It would have been much more effective if they'd have blown up a chunk of rail on a curve.................

I think their problem really was that they used too little explosive and only removed chunks of rail.  They should have aimed to remove a whole rail.  No jumping over the gap then!  What interested me was how precise the chunks removed were cut, almost as if with a saw... 

[tigercat]

Very interesting 

Of course when you don't need to be discreet about it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_plough

Recently learnt some about brave  Danish resistance

http://ftr-wot.blogspot.com/2013/04/improvised-armor-v3-holger-danske.html?m=1

[NARSES2]

Today, his story lives on in the Danish "Frihedsmuséet", or Museum of Freedom, in Copenhagen, where he, some of his comrades and many other resistance fighters tell their memories in taped interviews. An enormously exciting and at the same time in many ways moving testimony.
My wife and I are repeatedly telling our kids about their great grandfather's experience, making certain that they understand the value and cost of independence and freedom.  Living in long time neutral Sweden, we find this too often being taken for granted.

Very brave man, as were all resistance fighters and behind the lines operatives. You get caught there's no Geneva Convention.

Until the 90's I'd always assumed most of the Danish resistance was in a passive form, non co-operation etc . It was only when I went to Denmark for a conference, yes Denmark does, or did as I'm not sure if they are still going, have a steelworks, that I got chatting with one of the attendees in the bar and found out his uncle had been a member of the resistance.