35 Facts About Leif Tronstad

Leif Hans Larsen Tronstad was a Norwegian inorganic chemist, intelligence officer and military organizer.

Leif Tronstad graduated from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1927 and was a prolific researcher and writer of academic publications.

In 1943 Leif Tronstad planned Operation Gunnerside, in which the German access to heavy water processing at Vemork was severely impeded.

Leif Tronstad thus grew up in Sandvika with his mother and four siblings.

Leif Tronstad graduated from middle school in 1918, with top grades in mathematics.

Leif Tronstad then embarked on thirty months of professional practice in two local electricity companies, which was a requirement to enrol at Kristiania Technical School, a predecessor of the Faculty of Engineering at Oslo University College.

Leif Tronstad graduated in 1922, the best chemistry student; a fellow student recalled that he "did not have to read anything more than once" in order to remember it.

Leif Tronstad was ready to enroll at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, but waited one year, possibly wanting to strengthen his personal finances.

In 1924 Leif Tronstad moved to Trondheim to study at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, graduating in 1927.

Leif Tronstad had taken various stray jobs while studying, and finished his military service, reaching the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Norwegian Army Corps of Weaponry in 1927.

From 1927 to 1928 Leif Tronstad worked briefly as an assistant at the Norwegian Institute of Technology as well as in a private company in Kristiansand.

Leif Tronstad spent the first year of a research period as an assistant to Herbert Freundlich in Dahlem, Berlin.

Leif Tronstad studied the passivity of metal surfaces, and made a breakthrough when he managed to measure extremely thin oxide surface coatings, thus solving a problem dating from the time of Michael Faraday.

Leif Tronstad continued to Stockholm to study metallography under Carl Benedicks, and to elaborate further on his results from Berlin.

Leif Tronstad was hired at the Norwegian Institute of Technology as a lecturer in the summer of 1931, although he spent the first year at the University of Cambridge, conducting further research with a scholarship from a memorial fund of Christian Michelsen.

Leif Tronstad was a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, and in early 1940 he became vice president of the Norwegian Chemical Society.

Leif Tronstad, holding a military rank, had a standing order to report to the Norwegian military headquarters in Oslo in the face of a military peril.

Leif Tronstad brought his wife and children with him, but having no intention of taking them to a possible theatre of war, he left them in the Drivdalen valley.

Leif Tronstad continued alone but shortly after, upon learning that Oslo was the first city to fall to the invaders, he stopped at Dovre.

Leif Tronstad was associated with the radio agent group Skylark B, which had regular contact with London from January 1941.

Leif Tronstad already had a broad network of contacts there, stemming both from his academic career as well as from his radio operations.

Leif Tronstad maintained several contacts abroad, including scientists whom he knew from the Norwegian Institute of Technology: Harald Wergeland and Njal Hole.

Leif Tronstad even wanted to enrol in active duty, but was stopped by the Norwegian military command, who considered him "too valuable" for the war theatre.

Leif Tronstad's section was responsible for the special operation towards industry and shipping; training of the Norwegian Independent Company 1 ; technical advice on sabotage, and towards the end of the war the protection of Norwegian industry.

Leif Tronstad established the Norwegian High Command Technical Committee, which included other Norwegian scientists-in-exile such as Svein Rosseland, Helmer Dahl and Gunnar Randers.

Already in 1941, Leif Tronstad was aware that heavy water production at Vemork had greatly increased.

The idea of subjecting the heavy water facility at Vemork to heavy air bombing surfaced, but Leif Tronstad was a staunch opponent of such an idea, which he saw as too hazardous.

Leif Tronstad warned of the presence of civil housing, and argued that bombing was not even guaranteed to succeed, given that the heavy water facility was located in the armoured basement of the electrolyzing plant.

Leif Tronstad had wanted to take an active part in the sabotage mission, but again he was stopped by his commanders, who regarded him as inexpendable.

Leif Tronstad had given his consent to the latter operation, reportedly with a "heavy heart".

Fellow scientists Rideal and Evans later wrote that Leif Tronstad "contributed directly to the speedy victory of the Allied Nations, besides saving the region which came to be known as 'Southern England' from an even longer and more severe ordeal than it actually endured".

Consequently, Leif Tronstad started to plan how to organize a defence of industrial sites in Southern Norway.

Leif Tronstad was parachuted into Hardangervidda on 4 October 1944, together with eight Norwegian Independent Company 1 members.

Leif Tronstad's coded diaries from 1941 to 1945 are preserved, and the 13 original books are kept by the National Archival Services of Norway.

Leif Tronstad had a military funeral on 30 May 1945, being buried at Vestre gravlund in Oslo.