WWII Sabotage Spotlight: Operation Gunnerside

During WWII a perfectly-executed sabotage operation by British Special Operations and the Norwegian Resistance put a dent in the Nazi’s quest for an atomic bomb. Today, it’s unclear how effective it really was, but it’s still a heckuva story! See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:03Speaker 03

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• 1:08Speaker 04

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:17Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And I guess it's a new year because I just had the spirit of John Strickland pass through me when I welcomed everybody. Did you hear that enthusiastic K?

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little bit of a, well, not a COA, I guess, just sort of an updating is this is our first recording of the new year.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  And we had our longest break ever, you know, I think everyone knows we take a nice long Christmas break, but this year it stretched into November.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  And so we've been gone for a long time.

• 1:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  And I'm like, do I even know how to do this anymore?

• 1:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, same here. I keep making this ear sound whenever I move.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Oh, don't do that.

• 2:00Josh Clark?

  I can't help it. It's just, I'm that rusty.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  And also, this topic, it's good, but it's, we'll try and keep it as streamlined and easy to understand as possible. There's a lot of moving pieces.

• 2:14Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  And there's a lot of Norwegian names that we've, I still don't know how to say the letter with like the null set.

• 2:21Josh Clark?

  I think it's like a umlaut.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Is it? Okay. I mean, I'm gonna treat them as umlauts.

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  I'm pretty sure it's the same thing as an umlaut.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  We're still gonna screw up some of this, but don't worry about the names too much. You know, we should just name everyone, you know, Bill one, Bill two, Bill three.

• 2:38Josh Clark?

  Right, or Leaf T.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  But anyway, we're gonna give it our best go. Welcome back, my friend. I'm glad to be back in the studio after this wonderful break.

• 2:50Josh Clark?

  Same here, man. Same here. Welcome back yourself. So yeah, we're talking today about one of the more unsung operations of World War II.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:59Josh Clark?

  Unsung, I guess, depending on where you live. If you live in Norway, it's sung all over the place. It's like a top 40 hit there. It's sung so much.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Well, it is now, yeah.

• 3:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah. It took a little while, didn't it, weirdly?

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:12Josh Clark?

  But here in the US, we don't know about it as much because we were kind of tangential to it, if at all. It was more a joint operation between the Brits and the Norwegians, the Norwegian Resistance, we should say. And the whole thing is called Operation Gunnerside. And I have to say, I want to give a big thanks to one of our listeners, Matthew Memmott Bouchard, who suggested this one, I think, back in November.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  And it got, it went right to the top of the list. So here we are, talking about it now in January.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sure you got that email and you're like, unsung saboteur story, defeating the Nazis? Be still my heart.

• 3:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So the whole thing kind of starts off, I think, back in like 1939, when some German physicists figured out that you could split the atom through fission and release a bunch of energy. And very, very quickly after that, the physicists around the world were like, this is really great. We can come up with a whole new source of energy for it. This could also be an extremely dangerous weapon. And right after that, World War II started, and the Allies started working on the bomb, and they assumed that the Nazis were also working on a bomb. So that's kind of like the mentality that was going on with this story really starts.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was sort of a race to see who could get there first. And I mean, I learned a lot researching this. I didn't know a lot about a lot of this stuff, even though we've done episodes about nuclear fission and the like. But there's more than one way to skin a cat, as it turns out. If you want to try and make a reaction big enough to cause a big boom. And one of the routes that was taken by, well, not the Americans. I guess the Germans were trying to take this route was to use something called heavy water.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  AKA, how would you say that? Deuterium oxide? Okay. D two O, which is like H two O. It's like regular water. This heavy water is except instead of a normal hydrogen atom there as an H two O. That is now replaced by a hydrogen isotope deuterium, which makes it literally heavier.

• 5:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And the reason why is because deuterium has a neutron where hydrogen doesn't. That's the only difference. I mean, it's still, you could cook with it. You could bathe in it. You probably wouldn't really notice any difference because it's two atomic units heavier. So it's not like you would like be crushed down to the shower floor if you had it running through your house or anything.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Or water balloon fight, that kid, the kid's using heavy water.

• 5:50Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Giving kids black eyes at that thing.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:53Josh Clark?

  So, but the reason that it was useful or is useful still in nuclear reactions is because of that neutron that it has, right? So when you carry out a nuclear reaction that produces an explosion, you have an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. That's the one that where it just goes kaboom and a huge amount of energy is released at once.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the whole point.

• 6:15Josh Clark?

  Yes, for the bomb part. But to make the stuff that actually blows up, usually plutonium, you have to carry out controlled nuclear reactions. And to do, to make it controlled, to kind of bring some order to the chaos and slow things down just enough that it will never explode, yet it will still produce energy that you can use to create plutonium if you bash. Uranium with a bunch of neutrons.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:41Josh Clark?

  You, you add a moderator and heavy water is moderator because all those fast neutrons bouncing around will knock into the heavy water and it will transfer energy to the heavy water's neutrons. But it slows the process down.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 6:57Josh Clark?

  In the same way, you couldn't use regular water because regular water would be like, oh, thanks for the free neutron jump. And turn into heavy water, I guess. So, um, regular water wouldn't work. Heavy water would work. The problem is, is heavy water is really, really rare.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's super rare and it's takes a long time to get just a little bit of it. I think it's, uh, like if you're just looking at a regular water source. There's one, uh, deuterium oxide molecule for about every 20 million regular ones. So it's, it's not needle in a haystack territory molecularly speaking, but it's not far off. The Germans went the route of, uh, heavy water as their moderator. Uh, the Americans looked around for a moderator. And they said, what about Josh Clark? He's a pretty level headed guy.

• 7:47Josh Clark?

  I just show up with my note cards and a blazer.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  By the way, our first sidetrack of the year. Uh, I reminded Ruby last night that we had a TV show for the probably 15th time in her life and she was like, you did? And we tried again and actually watched an entire episode.

• 8:05Josh Clark?

  Which one?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Uh, we watched the, the one with, uh, John Hodgman and also starring my neighbor, Catherine. Uh, which was the final episode of how we wrote it, um, but not the final episode in how it aired.

• 8:18Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  We won't get into that, but I have to say, dude, you were like pretty good in a lot of that as an actor and I was not.

• 8:29Josh Clark?

  I disagree. You're always so hard on yourself. You were great, man. You were, you were at least as good as I was. And that's to say you were middling.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  I think, I think you're. It's very nice of you to say, but like from, I think I had a real like outside point of view last night. I was like, you know, Josh was pretty good in a lot of this. And Emily said, he really was. And I said, I never felt that comfortable in like I was doing a good job. Like every once in a while I was okay, but I thought, and I think you had real possibilities as an actor.

• 8:59Josh Clark?

  Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It was probably from my year spent as a emo drama kid.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  It was pretty good.

• 9:06Josh Clark?

  Thanks.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  And Ruby made it through the episode and I was like, hey, that's our neighbor and that's John. You know, John. So that I think, you know, helped hold our interest a little bit more.

• 9:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was like the space one, right?

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:20Josh Clark?

  That was a good one.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  It was, it was pretty good. So, long way of saying you were not available as moderator because you weren't born yet. So the US ended up pursuing graphite as a moderator. Either one can be used. We went graphite. The Germans, I guess we'll get to their, the reason they went with hard water toward the end, right?

• 9:41Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  And tag that in the end?

• 9:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  All right. So anyway, hard water is what they're after. And as it turns out, there was a chemist in Norway named Leif Tronstad.

• 9:54Josh Clark?

  Leif T.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Leif T. Yeah, exactly. Who was, who understood how to find these molecules in the best way possible because he was doing it for a different reason there, right?

• 10:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So Tronstad was one of these early people who was like, hey, this is weird and different and new and we can figure out how to get at least very small amounts of it. And there's gotta be some cool uses for this, like scientific, non-weapon-y uses. And one of the ones that he thought of very early on was uses as a tracer, which I guess you give somebody a glass of heavy water and then, you know, look at their kidneys and see if there's heavy water coming out of them and be like, well, there's your leak.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  That's what I think.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So that's why he was pursuing it. And he was doing that for a company called Vermark-Norsk. Not Norst or Norse, Norsk with a K, Hydro Plant. And that was in the county of, of course, Telemark.

• 10:57Josh Clark?

  Right. In the country of?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  I guess Norway, right?

• 11:01Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:02Josh Clark?

  You got a word like Norsk in front of you, you're talking Norway.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he's at work producing a few milliliters of that, what, like every day or so?

• 11:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, from like liters and liters and gallons of water. They would just get the tiniest amounts because I still don't quite understand how they were doing it. But essentially, they were separating out this 1 in 20 million molecule of heavy water from regular mountain water.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Norse black magic.

• 11:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and so like the whole plant was originally a hydroelectric power plant. And then they converted to using electrolysis to, I think, create ammonia, which is very handy in fertilizers and explosives. And then it was Tronstadt who was like, we need to set up basically a separate heavy water operation. So by the time World War II broke out, the plant at Vermark, I'm pretty sure I said that right. Vermark and Vermindy.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Vermark and Vermindy?

• 12:02Josh Clark?

  Vermark and Vermindy.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  I got it.

• 12:03Josh Clark?

  Okay, it just took a second. I was like, well, I'm gonna laugh at it.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  No, I was, I was making sure I didn't screw something else up. Sorry. That's a quality joke.

• 12:12Josh Clark?

  Thank you. By that time, that plant was the world leader in heavy water production.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  That's right. All right, so park that to the side. They're producing heavy water at a rate no one had ever seen, like a cup full a day. And World War II begins in 1939. And like I said, the Germans were like, hey, we should try and get on this heavy water train. And they didn't, that's not why they invaded Norway. They invaded Norway because they were Nazis.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Norway was neutral, had declared themselves neutral. But in April of 1940, they invaded anyway and were defeated pretty quickly. It took a couple of months, even though they had help from the Allies. They were no match for the German army. And the Germans did as they do. They established a Nazi government there. And the people did not like that because they're Norwegian. They were like, no, no, no, we're going to resist. They went on strike here and there. They didn't cooperate in other ways to kind of just, you know, get in the way of progress, of Nazi progress. And so the Nazi says, all right, martial law has been declared. If you resist, you will be put to death. And so a lot of Norwegians left, obviously,

• 13:25Speaker 02

  fought from other places. And a lot of them said, you know what, we're going to stay here and maybe work with the Allies kind of undercover as moles.

• 13:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like a secret resistance, right? And one of those people was Tronstad, at least at first. And then it became clear that he basically needed to get out of Dodge. So he ditched and went to, I think he went straight to the UK. Because after the Nazis set up this program, like it was, it was not a pleasant place to be when they took over Norway. And the whole thing Chuck reminded me of, do you remember way, way, way early in the podcast, we stumbled upon Simo Haya, the White Death, the Finnish sniper, who was just like a farm boy, who like I think killed more Russians than anybody else in the war. Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Remind you of that guy?

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I just remembered Simo Haya. So I thought I'd give him a shout out.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. I'm surprised you called up that name. Nice work.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  So, but Leif Tronstad, he became like a really valuable asset because this guy is like the world leader in heavy water production.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:30Josh Clark?

  Who has all of the inside dirt on the place where the most heavy water is being produced. And it's very clear now that the Nazis have taken over this plant and stepped it up from like a few milliliters a day to like, I think a few kilograms of heavy water a day. That they have designs on making an atomic bomb. And with the Allies.

• 14:53Josh Clark?

  The three words Nazi atomic bomb was among the most frightening combination of words you could possibly come up with.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:01Josh Clark?

  And even today, you know, you're like, God, a Nazi atomic bomb, that'd be horrible. And then you remember, oh yeah, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on population centers. And that was pretty bad, too. Yet still somehow Nazi atomic bomb seems even worse.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does. So he, like you said, went to the UK. There he met up in real life with the intelligence people he'd been working with, you know, on the down low from a long distance, which I imagine was a pretty fun meeting.

• 15:29Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  They probably had some tea and caught up in person.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  And he started training these commando units to be saboteurs to eventually do their, their, you know, saboteur work in Norway. And the whole time was staying in contact with his allies at the, at the plant there, at V-Mork. And eventually, and we're just gonna say these names again, I wish we could all nickname them all to make it easier to keep up with. But one of the guys there that he kept in touch with, who will play a part in this story, is named Ainar Skinnerland. That's pretty easy.

• 16:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Swallow Blue was his code name. And that feels like a pretty good place for a break.

• 16:13Josh Clark?

  I think it is, yes.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  All right, so we do remember how to do this. And we'll be right back right after this.

• 16:38Speaker 02

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• 17:20Josh Clark?

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• 18:36Josh Clark?

  Chuck, have you seen that movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare? It's like a newish Guy Ritchie movie?

• 18:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:43Josh Clark?

  It's pretty good, actually.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  All right.

• 18:45Josh Clark?

  It's like an easy watch. Like, it's not some big, huge, sweeping epic, or something you have to really, you know, keep up with. It's just a kind of an...

• 18:54Speaker 02

  It's a Guy Ritchie movie.

• 18:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Well, I would call Snatch kind of convoluted.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Well, sure, with the accents.

• 19:02Josh Clark?

  Sure. But there actually was something called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. That was the nickname for it. It was called the Special Operations Executive officially. And they basically trained saboteurs. So that's who Leif Tronstad threw his lot in with. And one of the first things they did for the Norwegians was send them to Scotland, and have them train in like, extreme weather as much as they could. But I'm thinking like, the Norwegians would be like, "This is like, summer to us. What is this?" Like, I don't see why they would need to train in Scotland, but trained they were.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:35Josh Clark?

  And the reason why they were trained for extreme weather and extreme conditions is because of the location of the Vermark power plant, or I guess, heavy water plant. It was in a really forbidding place that you would not want to go to without like a car.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it was tough. I would say you'd need one of those cool old army Jeeps if you wanted to get there back then.

• 19:56Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  It was surrounded by a plateau, a mountain plateau called, here we go, Hardanga Vida.

• 20:04Josh Clark?

  Perfect.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  It's gotta mean danger or something.

• 20:07Josh Clark?

  I think it actually means like wide mountain plateau.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Danger.

• 20:12Josh Clark?

  I looked, I looked it up, because I thought so too. I was like, this gotta be like the name of a god that's gonna kill you or something.

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, Hardanga.

• 20:20Josh Clark?

  It means like...

• 20:20Speaker 02

  I'm not sure what that is.

• 20:21Josh Clark?

  It means high mountain plateau.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  I think Vida might be a plateau.

• 20:27Josh Clark?

  Really?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Maybe Hardanga, I don't know.

• 20:30Josh Clark?

  So, wait, so the, oh, what was the guy's name? Ricky, I can't remember, but he was saying like, living the plateau loco?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Oh, God, Ricky Martin.

• 20:45Josh Clark?

  Ricky Martin, yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Ricky Martin.

• 20:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, from Menudo.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Shout out to Menudo, who knew that was coming?

• 20:53Josh Clark?

  I did, I did not.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  I knew they were gonna make an appearance. All right, so it was surrounded by that mountain plateau. It is a very, very cold place. I think Livia dug up this kind of old factoid. It freezes flames in the fires is how cold it was there.

• 21:10Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Not literally, of course, but you know how those Norwegians are with the turn of her phrase. So, Americans came in and they said, why don't we just drop a bunch of bombs on this plant? What's your problem?

• 21:21Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  With these saboteurs? And they said, no. Tron said, it's like, we've got ammonia tanks there, liquid ammonia. You're definitely gonna kill a bunch of civilians nearby. And all this stuff is underground, under concrete and metal in these bunkers, and it probably wouldn't destroy everything you wanted to destroy anyway. He also, you know, didn't say this out loud, but was like, I don't want you... To destroy the only hard water plant we have because this is a valuable thing. And all of a sudden you would kind of own, not the patent, but the process for that.

• 21:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And after the war, who knows who's gonna need that stuff. So.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 21:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah. It was a little bit of national pride too that was driving it. So he actually talked him out of it. The Allies or the Americans, I guess, were put off for a little while and they're like, all right, you go ahead and do your little sabotage thing. Let's see how you do. So that whole group of Norwegian resistance fighters was called Company Ling. And Company Ling, I kind of made it over as the group of trained saboteurs from the Special Operations Executive. So Company Ling, they launched an operation, Operation Grouse, great operation name.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:33Josh Clark?

  But they, apparently the SOE didn't think so because they renamed it Operation Swallow.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:38Josh Clark?

  And the whole thing was led by a guy named Jens Anton Poulsen, which I think I nailed just then.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Except it's Jens.

• 22:47Josh Clark?

  Oh, man. I semi nailed it.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  No, you had it except for that, but that's okay.

• 22:52Josh Clark?

  Okay. So Jens Anton Poulsen led, I think, three other resistance fighters who parachuted back in Norway and essentially just became backwoodsmen for months, setting up like a camp, literally in like a trapper's cabin. And lived off hunting reindeer and just basically became the first little toehold of this operation of Norwegian resistance fighters coming back to sabotage the Vermark plant.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. So they're there, they set up their camp, they're eating reindeer. It's very sad for reindeer.

• 23:29Josh Clark?

  Sad but delicious.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  You've never had reindeer, have you?

• 23:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, a couple of times.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Really?

• 23:35Josh Clark?

  No.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  I was about to say, where the heck do you even get reindeer?

• 23:39Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I'm sure somebody sells reindeer meat in like somewhere weird like Missouri or something.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I'm sure there's people in Maine right now that are like, you've never had reindeer?

• 23:50Josh Clark?

  We always have some across the pond here.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Right, exactly. So about a month after that, they launched another operation, Operation Freshman, because they were like, these guys are gonna need some real, you know, some muscle behind them. So they sent in two air gliders with 39 British soldiers, and they were just kind of coming in, you know, behind them as backup. It did not work out so well, though. One of the planes crashed into a mountain and killed everybody onboard. The other one crashed into the ground, not where they were supposed to land, but, you know, a distance from that. And it didn't kill everybody, but they, you know, they saw this happen. The Gestapo found the survivors and executed them

• 24:32Speaker 02

  basically on the spot, and also found a map that showed that they were headed for the hard water plant. They didn't locate those original people, and they just sort of stayed there, you know, hunkering down in that cabin for a while and surviving undetected.

• 24:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so Operation Freshman was, like you said, it was, the idea was just storm the heavy water plant, overwhelm it, and blow it up. And they decided instead, okay, instead of sending 39 soldiers with a ton of equipment, including bicycles, I read, we'll just try a more subtle touch. So they, they went to, oh man, Joaquin Rudenberg.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 25:12Josh Clark?

  Who was 23 at the time, and they're like, you're, you're basically an old man in World War II standards. Why don't you lead a team for Operation Gunnerside? And this is finally the operation that this whole episode is, is based on. And it was a small tactical saboteur team who went to the heavy water plant to destroy the Vermaarts' heavy water production capabilities.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  I love this kind of thing. It's just the, the kind of thing, and if you're thinking, oh, man, why is there a movie about this? There was an older movie with Kirk Douglas that I don't think, you know, set the world on fire. But I think this could go for, for maybe a Guy Ritchie update.

• 25:57Josh Clark?

  Totally. Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  I doubt if he would do it after the other one, but you know.

• 26:00Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I don't think he's opposed to making a sequel or reboot. I mean, Snatch was basically lock, stock and two smoking barrels done over again.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, he made a lot of those. There are several of those Sherlock Holmes movies, I think, right?

• 26:13Josh Clark?

  No, lock, stock and two smoking barrels.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 26:17Josh Clark?

  Oh, I see. You were just kind of taking a little sidestep in the logical direction, right?

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:24Josh Clark?

  I didn't follow.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  First one back.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Yep, there you go.

• 26:29Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, I, I think the first one was pretty good. I don't know about the second one. Was that any good?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  I didn't see any of them.

• 26:36Josh Clark?

  The first one was not bad. If you, if you don't let yourself stop and think like, who would have the audacity to make Sherlock Holmes like a, like a rough and tumble action hero? And just kind of give yourself over to it. It's pretty good.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what, you know, I can also recommend for kids, especially younger girls, Enola Holmes. The Enola Holmes movies are pretty good.

• 26:59Josh Clark?

  Both of them are good.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I enjoyed those.

• 27:02Josh Clark?

  We have to do a Sherlock Holmes episode at least.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  We haven't done that?

• 27:06Josh Clark?

  No, not as far as I know.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, we totally have to, because I don't, I don't really know anything about much of that.

• 27:12Josh Clark?

  It's gonna be like our chess or soccer episode, though, I have a feeling.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Uh, are there Holmesies that, uh, get upset?

• 27:20Josh Clark?

  It's a whole hornet's nest we're gonna stick our head in.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  What are the, uh, what are the clown, uh, what's the clown band?

• 27:29Josh Clark?

  Uh, the Insane Clown Posse?

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, but what are their people called?

• 27:33Josh Clark?

  The Juggalos.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Juggalos, yeah.

• 27:35Josh Clark?

  The guy who does my hair is a former Juggalo.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think those are two words you like to hear together.

• 27:41Josh Clark?

  Former Juggalo?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's like former Holmesy.

• 27:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  After they leave that world behind, you know?

• 27:48Josh Clark?

  Hey, I don't think the other people let you leave that world behind.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 27:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  It's threatening.

• 27:54Josh Clark?

  So where were we, Chuck? Oh, yeah, Gunnerside.

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, we are at Operation Gunnerside. This guy, Runeberg, he didn't know even why that that plant was a target. They basically just said, here, old chap. We want you to go destroy some pipes at the plant. And the people that tried before you all died, and you might as well.

• 28:15Josh Clark?

  Pip, pip.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's basically it. That's all the information he had. But he was game. He was that kind of guy.

• 28:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, they accepted cyanide pills as part of this operation. And, and, yeah, they had no idea what they were doing. They just knew they had to go blow up some pipes, and that was that. Like, that's how dedicated these people were. That they were willing to sacrifice their life to try to blow up some pipes because the Brits told them it was going to help cripple the Nazi war effort. So I think there was five of them that parachuted in, just like the Operation Swallow people had before. But they were miles, miles away from the landing site. They just maybe got blown off course or something like that. And it took them five days of trudging through the snow, although I think they might have had skis,

• 29:00Josh Clark?

  to find the the Operation Swallow people who'd been sitting there eating reindeer the whole time. And even when they found them in this trapper's cabin and hooked up with them, and now there's nine people in this operation, they were still 40 miles away from the heavy water plant. And again, it's like snowy in February in Norway. You can just imagine.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, there's a, there's a suspension bridge. There's one way you could get through, but of course, they had Nazi guards there, so that wasn't the best route. The other options were like a literal minefield, or I guess mine, mine forest, that they could have crossed through at great peril. Or they could hike all the way down into the gorge, which had like a half frozen river running through it, and then go to the plant that way and then hike back up. And so they said, they took a vote, I guess. And they said, minefield, no good, Nazis on the bridge, no good. Let's just get on our skis, as we do, and hike down that gorge. And that's how they did it. We do need to mention one little side thing that we failed to mention.

• 30:06Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Uh, is that before this all happened, when Runberg was, I guess, debriefed and sort of getting his act together to go, he went into a hardware store and apparently on a whim, as the story goes, bought some heavy duty bolt cutters, like metal bolt cutters.

• 30:24Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  And so just park that right there, because you know, if you introduce bolt cutters, I guess in this case, act two, you know, they're going to cut something in act three.

• 30:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  So he's got those bolt cutters and they decide to go down into the gorge as their route to the hard water plant.

• 30:42Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And again, not just going down into a gorge, crossing a half frozen river and climbing up a cliff, get to the top of the gorge on the other side where the, the heavy water plant was. And apparently that route was such an unlikely route that the Nazis didn't even bother guarding the gorge.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  No, nobody would go down there.

• 31:00Josh Clark?

  Exactly. So, uh, February 27th, they made it, um, for the 40 miles to their target. Uh, I think it was the night, like right before midnight. Um, this team of nine saboteurs from Company Linea, the Norwegian Resistance, are sitting there outside of the Vermark power plant, um, figuring out exactly how they're going to get in. And they decided that they would split up. Um, there were five of them and as they were sitting outside, they were faced with their first obstacle, which was a fence. And apparently the Brits had said, there's a fence, so here's a handsaw. And the guy who was in charge, who was it? Runberg?

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:41Josh Clark?

  His second in command, Knut Hockleid.

• 31:45Josh Clark?

  We're like running through these Norwegian names, man.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Hey, that sounds pretty good to me.

• 31:49Josh Clark?

  Okay, so, and I know it's Knut. I always thought it was Newt, but it's Knut. Cause I watched this cool little Nova special, uh, and he was interviewed and they definitely said Knut. He said, uh, Roenberg, don't you have some bolt cutters?

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:04Josh Clark?

  And Roenberg gave him the bolt cutters and instead of this loud, tedious, laborious hacksaw that they would have tried to use and probably gotten caught using, they just snipped right through the fence in a few minutes, thanks to Roenberg's foresight back in Cambridge.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  That's right. Snip, snip. So, uh, that paid off pretty quickly.

• 32:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was still act two.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Well, I think I got the saying wrong. If you introduce bolt cutters in act two, they're gonna snip something in act two.

• 32:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  They're on the property now. Uh, five of the people, five of the nine provide cover, the other two, and they had Tommy guns, they had chloroform. Uh, they were, they were set for an attack if need, if need be. Uh, and they were keeping a watch on like the barracks, uh, cause there weren't like, you know, hundreds of German soldiers. Uh, I get the idea, if they were going in with the initial 29, that it was probably a couple of dozen, maybe. I mean, that's just a guess.

• 32:57Josh Clark?

  I don't even know if it was that many. I mean, as important as this heavy water plant was to the atomic program in Germany.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:04Josh Clark?

  It was so remote that they were just like, you know, I think it's gonna take a few people. We got mines, there's a gorge, we got people on the bridge, it's fine.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, they were keeping a watch on the barracks, they were keeping a watch on that bridge, uh, for the guardsmen there. And just sort of waiting around for any, um, you know, activity so they could get those Tommy guns out, or, or maybe silently chloroform a Nazi, which was a dream. Yeah. Norwegian saboteur.

• 33:29Josh Clark?

  You know they wanted to do that so bad.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, uh, the other four guys split into two pairs. Uh, they each had, and I get the idea they split up, uh, in case, and they each had enough to like blow it up in case like two of them got caught or killed, the other two could still complete the job.

• 33:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  Uh, they got in through a second gate and they had arranged with one of the coworkers there to, uh, I guess, you know, one of the inside moles.

• 33:55Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  To leave a cellar door open, but unfortunately that person called in sick that day. And I guess didn't seem to think like, hey, I had this important other task.

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  And Tronstad had previously told them though, like, uh, if you can't get in that way, there's a cable shaft. You can probably slip through and that's what they ended up using.

• 34:14Josh Clark?

  I just wanted to circle back and emphasize the fact that this man was a linchpin to a sabotage plan. All he had to do was show up to work and leave a door open.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  He could have gone home right after that.

• 34:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  And been like, I just threw up. I had to go get out of here.

• 34:29Josh Clark?

  Right. And my guess, this is 1943, there's an 85% chance that his illness was a severe hangover, which makes it even worse.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably so.

• 34:40Josh Clark?

  So yeah, luckily, yes, they found that that hatch was open in the cable shaft and they basically slid through. The two who made it through the cable shaft was Runberg, the leader, and a guy named Frederick, Frederick, yeah, Kaiser.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, Frederick.

• 34:55Josh Clark?

  Frederick.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Not Frederick.

• 34:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Eat your heart out, Fredericks.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  It's probably Frieduk.

• 35:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Would be my guess.

• 35:04Josh Clark?

  I like Frederick. That's how we say it in America. Anyway, Kaiser and Runberg, they were the ones who went down this cable shaft and they start getting busy. I think Kaiser was holding it going.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?

• 35:16Josh Clark?

  They're like, we have some extra time.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Sorry, go ahead.

• 35:22Josh Clark?

  So they, yes, and they went down a shaft even as well.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  You're right.

• 35:26Josh Clark?

  And so almost immediately, they found a watchman. I take him to be a Norwegian watchman, maybe? And they were like, you know, you're now our hostage. Sit there and be quiet. And he's like, no problem. You guys do whatever you want. And despite his complicity, Kaiser was like, this is my one chance. And so he chloroformed the watchman anyway.

• 35:49Josh Clark?

  And so as he's doing this, Runberg went and planted the explosives on the pipes just as he was told to do. And right about then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there's a explosion of glass as a window shatters. And Runberg and Kaiser and the chloroformed guard all turn and look. And the other two men from the other explosives team come in through the window.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  That's right. They're like, it's just us guys. We're all here together so we can get this thing bombed up quicker. They set up those explosives, the four of them, I guess at this point. And the fuses at the time were two-minute fuses. That would have given enough time to get the heck out of there. Runberg said, no, I really want to make sure we hear this thing go off. So we're going to go down to 30 seconds. I imagine everyone said, oh, how about a minute? He said, no, 30 seconds is plenty. So they're getting ready to light the fuses. The guard that they had at gunpoint said, can I get those glasses?

• 36:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  You know, if they blow up, they're, my optometrist has quit and retired. I'm not going to be able to replace those things very easily. So they said, sure, get your glasses. And at that point, another civilian employee, Norwegian, obviously, comes into the room and is now another temporary prisoner. Rundeberg lights those fuses, counts to 10, which means they only have 20 seconds, and then says, run to the two civilians. They get the heck out of there as well. I reckon in the movie, Guy Ritchie would really have to sort of fudge things because what is not exciting in a movie like this is when, is all you hear. And that's kind of all they heard. It wasn't a huge explosion.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  It's not like they were blowing up this entire plant like you would probably do in a movie. They were just trying to damage these pipes. And he said that, later on, he said, they heard a tiny insignificant pop. Also because it was underground, under that concrete and stuff. Windows did break, though, enough at least to rouse some sleeping Nazis. This part is very movie-like because the four that were guarding kind of watched as a half-dressed Nazi gets out and was like, oh, do I hear anything? Do I hear anything? But apparently that was a pretty noisy plant, so he just goes back to bed.

• 38:06Josh Clark?

  I can't help but imagining like a Sergeant Schultz-type stumbling out.

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 38:13Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, it wasn't a big deal. And as a matter of fact, I mean, it turned out to be a big deal, but like, yeah, it didn't cause like that huge explosion where guards start coming out of nowhere and, you know, there's alarms going off and searchlights coming on. It wasn't anything like that. And in fact, all nine people who were the saboteurs in this operation got away. They escaped scot-free. And in retrospect, not a single bullet was fired and not a single person died in this highly successful, amazingly daring sabotage operation.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  That's right. But that is not the end of the story, so maybe we should take our second break.

• 38:48Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  And we'll come back and finish up right after this.

• 39:06Speaker 05

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• 39:11Speaker 02

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• 39:25Josh Clark?

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• 39:53Josh Clark?

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• 41:39Speaker 02

  All right, so as you said, the saboteurs got away. I think one of them, Poulsen, took off to Scotland by sea. Runberg and the rest of the gang stayed on their skis, as the Norwegians do. They skied about 200 miles, which is like, nothing for them. They skied to Sweden, in fact. With Nazis chasing them, they had planes above trying to locate them. Like, that part would be a pretty good part of the movie, I guess. But they got away, and there was a German, head of the German special forces in Norway, who called it "the most splendid coup." However, it only took a few months before the Nazis were able to restart production at the plant.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  I think this happened in February, so in May of that same year, they had ramped back up to full capacity, which seems like a big disappointment. But, no, because here come the Americans with their initial plan to just bomb the plant, and just like they were warned, it did not do a ton of damage to anyone but the 22 Norwegian civilians who were killed.

• 42:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like, this heavy water plant was in this basement of a power plant, so it was not easy to get to, as far as, like, aerial bombs are concerned.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, especially the bombs back then, you know?

• 42:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for real. But the thing is, it did show the Nazis that, like, hey, this remote, isolated, actually surprisingly vulnerable plant, that's like, the one source of our heavy water, we should probably stop creating heavy water there and move the operations to Germany.

• 43:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:19Josh Clark?

  So they did. And remember, the Nazi heavy water program is set back a few months, and this is at a time where the Allies are racing in the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb, assuming the Nazis are in the same race as them. The Allies understand that, like, we can do this in, like, two, three years. So to set back a Nazi atomic program three months is an enormous setback in a two- or three-year race to become the first to come up with an atomic bomb. So from that standpoint, even at the time, they were like, that was a very successful operation, even though, like you said, the Nazis got back up to full capacity in just a couple of months. But as we said, they were moving everything to Germany.

• 44:04Josh Clark?

  And I guess the Kompanie Linga crew, the Norwegian Freedom Fighters, they were keeping an eye on all the movements of the heavy water from, I guess, their moles inside the heavy water plant. And they knew that the Nazis were going to move the heavy water and when they were going to do it and how they were going to do it.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  That's right. So they come up with another plan to further thwart their efforts. And they determined the best way to do this was to sabotage the ferry that's going to be ferrying everything over to Germany. So they knew it would cost some civilian lives, but they figured that was their best chance to get it before it even had a chance to get, you know, set up again. An old Knut is back on the scene. He was the second in command there at Gunnerside, if you remember. And he was leading the team this time. He had been promoted, I guess. And in February 1944, they set off explosions on the bow of that ship. It was a ferry called the Hydro. And 14 Norwegians sadly were killed, along with four Germans.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  And this, again, was a big success. They, for a long time, they weren't even positive that there was heavy, or they couldn't prove at least that there was heavy water on board. And there was a German heavy water expert after the war that said, no, those were just, "Those were dummies, dummy." And I guess to try and undermine the idea that it was a success. But PBS Nova to the Rescue in 2003, they organized a salvage of one of those barrels from that sunken ferry. And they proved that it contained heavy water. So it was a great success after all.

• 45:39Josh Clark?

  That was the Nova mini-documentary I watched. It was really good.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:42Josh Clark?

  But one of the things that they cover in that, the reason why the Allies were like, maybe those were dummies, is that there were reports of survivors of that ferry sinking, that barrels had been floating. Like, some people were trying to like climb onto the barrels to survive. They're like, "Heavy water's not supposed to float in regular water." And so they they were like, it's possible that this this was a decoy because also intelligence showed that some heavy water did arrive in Germany. Well, it turns out, thanks to this Nova special, I'm about to spoil it.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 46:14Josh Clark?

  That the those barrels that floated were the most pure form of heavy water that they had at Birmark. The barrels weren't full, and so the air inside the barrels was making them float.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 46:25Josh Clark?

  Yes. So it was heavy water that they sabotaged. They did put a dent in the amount of heavy water. I think there was a 15-ton shipment and the Germans were only able to to collect, I think, the four that were floating. So it was a big deal, too. But again, 18 people lost their lives for it, 14 of them innocent Norwegians.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:46Josh Clark?

  Um, yeah, and I think that's that's actually something they wrestle with in the Nova documentary because they interviewed some of these people we've talked about. And they're, you know, they're trying to reconcile their guilt with, you know, the how impactful the mission was, especially living for decades with that gnawing rumor in the back of their head that those had been dummy barrels.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it resulted in the loss of so many, you know, civilian lives.

• 47:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so I think they were quite relieved to find that it really was heavy water. And still, there's debate today over even with the success of Gunnerside, even with the success of that swallow group sinking of the hydro ferry, how much of an impact it really had on Germany's atomic program. And in fact, how much of a program Germany had during World War II to build an atomic bomb.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. The official historian of the SOE, M R D. Foote, great name, said that it changed the course of the war. The fact that they were denied that that regular steady supply of heavy water really put a dent in their operation. Livia very astutely points out another factor was that key scientists were, a lot of them were Jewish scientists that the Nazis were using, and they either escaped or were murdered, which also slowed down the, you know, the Germans' pursuit of the bomb. But also, I think you found out, too, that

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Was it the Germans regretted pursuing heavy water? Was that what it was? Instead of graphite?

• 48:21Josh Clark?

  So they were basically, they took a wrong turn right out of the gate with what they chose as a moderator. I think like, did you say earlier that the United States chose graphite, right?

• 48:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, we used graphite. They went with heavy water, which was a mistake.

• 48:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well, they're both really great moderators, but graphite is available in abundance. You can find it anywhere, right?

• 48:42Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  Heavy water is really hard to come by. So right out of the gate, the Germans chose a moderator that was really difficult to get and that there was only one place basically in the world that was producing it. Whereas the Americans just went out and bought a bunch of graphite at the grocery store, basically, to use as their moderator. So right away, that first hurdle the Americans overcame, the Germans ran into. And the most interesting thing is it was based on a miscalculation.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. If they had have calculated correctly, then they would have known from the beginning, right?

• 49:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so I think whoever conducted, I can't remember their names, but they conducted experiments on the viability of graphite as a moderator. And they basically forgot to carry a one or something. I think what it really was is they didn't factor in the influence of impurities in their graphite sample. And they concluded that graphite wasn't a very good moderator, so let's use heavy water instead. So essentially, even before the program started, the Nazi atomic program was just dead, like dead in the water, basically.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, got to carry that eins.

• 49:52Josh Clark?

  Yes, but the Allies didn't know this. And it turns out that just the idea that the Nazis were involved in heavy water production suggested that they were after an atomic bomb and that the Allies then were in a footrace against them. And that led to the creation of an actual atomic bomb. So the Nazis directly influenced the production of an atomic bomb, even though it wasn't theirs.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  The Nazis being involved in heavy water production sounds like some sort of weird Oktoberfest slogan.

• 50:22Josh Clark?

  It'd be like, what does this mean? And they'd be like, just drink this huge gallon of beer.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  I mentioned that film, 1965's The Heroes of Telemark, with Kirk Douglas as sort of a mashed up fictional character based on both Ronenberg and Tronstadt.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  That, like I said, wasn't like the biggest film ever, but it was an American film, so we did know about this operation more than they did in Norway until like 2015. A state broadcaster, NRK, ran a mini-series called The Heavy Water War in 2015, and that's when a lot of Norwegians kind of first learned of this operation. And if we're talking Tronstadt, if you want to button up his story, you feel bad for this guy because he didn't get to parachute in and actually have feet on the ground for this kind of thing. He finally got to do that kind of thing in October of 1944. He got under that parachute for Operation Sunshine, which was protecting Norway's, some of their industrial

• 51:26Speaker 02

  assets and infrastructure from German saboteurs as the Nazis were on their way out. So he got his hands dirty, which he'd always wanted to do. But very sadly, the following May, I believe, in 1945, he was shot dead by the brother of a Norwegian collaborator who he was questioning. So he tragically died as well.

• 51:48Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is sad. At least he did get to oversee and fly in on Operation Sunshine.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  I wonder if he got to use any chloroform.

• 51:58Josh Clark?

  Maybe. So Chuck, I think that's it for the Norwegian sabotage operation Gunnerside. We haven't figured out what we're going to name this episode.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  I like Olivia's title.

• 52:08Josh Clark?

  Oh, man, it's one of the better ones.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  You want to go ahead and tell everyone?

• 52:12Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  She titled this article, Like Water for Nazis.

• 52:18Josh Clark?

  Pretty great stuff.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  A sense of humor, really good.

• 52:21Josh Clark?

  Well, thanks to Olivia for that, and thanks to you for listening. And how about we set up a listener mail so I can thank that person, too.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  That's right. This is from Justin Meeks about Tavern on the Green. Hey, guys. And this shows you how long we've been off because I've been holding on to this one. My grandma had a wonderful related story to Tavern on the Green. She was from rural Montana and traveled to New York in the late 90s with a group of old ladies over Thanksgiving. One of her traveling group actually had sold David Letterman his Montana ranch. So they went to a taping of a show and he invited them backstage. He found out they were going to be in town for Thanksgiving and invited them to have Thanksgiving dinner with him at Tavern on the Green.

• 53:03Josh Clark?

  What? Wow.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Grandma said that was one of the first Thanksgivings she could remember that she didn't eat turkey dinner because at Tavern on the Green, they had to order the steak and lobster, especially because Letterman was paying for it. Grandma never missed an episode of Letterman even before this, certainly never did afterwards. Letterman is seriously a great dude and love that grandma got to meet one of her heroes like this. Thanks for the many years of the podcast. Keep up the great work. Come back and see us in Denver. That is from Justin Meeks and Justin, we're going to head back to Denver at some point. But we should probably tell people, since we're getting emails, that we are not doing live shows in 2025.

• 53:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, including Sketch Fest. We've gotten a lot of emails from people who's like, "The Sketch Fest schedule's wrong because it doesn't have Stuff You Should Know on there, right?" And yes, we're sorry to inform you, we're not going to be at Sketch Fest for, what, the first time in like-

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Many years.

• 53:54Josh Clark?

  10 years, maybe, or something?

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're just taking a down year from doing live shows. We're gonna, we're gonna be back out there again, so fear not. We're just taking a down year. And that's like four less trips that we're gonna take and we're gonna be with our family. And, uh, and that's a decision we made that we feel good about.

• 54:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And ironically, I just reached Diamond status for 2025.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Oh, I've never been Diamond.

• 54:19Josh Clark?

  I couldn't believe it. I got the email and I forwarded it to Yumi. I was like, well, now I know it's gonna be written on my headstone.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I'll be buried next to you and it'll just say sadly peaked at Platinum.

• 54:33Josh Clark?

  What else, man?

• 54:34Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 54:34Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, thank you very much to-

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Justin Meeks.

• 54:38Josh Clark?

  Justin Meeks, whose grandma has a great story and who I assume did not go on to become Letterman's stalker.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Right. I don't think so.

• 54:46Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Justin and email us a pretty cool story about David Letterman or otherwise, you can send it off to [email protected].

• 54:58Speaker 04

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 55:14Josh Clark?

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• 56:41Speaker 00

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