At the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Norway tied the mighty US to win an impressive nine gold medals. The Scandinavian country has produced incredible winter athletes over the years winning more medals, overall, in Winter Olympic Games than any other nation. According to an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, the resilience of the Norwegian athletes can be traced back to Jan Baalsrud, a commando in the Norwegian resistance during World War II.
In early 1943, Baalsrud, three other commandos and a boat crew of eight Norwegians embarked on a dangerous mission to destroy a German air control tower and recruit for the resistance movement. This mission was compromised when he and his fellow soldiers accidentally made contact with an unaligned civilian shopkeeper who betrayed them to the Germans. The morning after their blunder, on March 29, their fishing boat The Brattholm — containing 8 tons of explosives intended to destroy the air control tower — was attacked by a German vessel and even their little escape boat was sunk by the Nazis.
Baalsrud was the only soldier to withstand the ice-cold arctic waters and, soaking wet, he escaped up into a snow gully, where he shot and killed the leading German Gestapo officer with his pistol. He evaded capture for roughly two months, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots. He was then left on a high plateau on a stretcher in the snow for eighteen days due to weather and Nazi patrols in the town of Mandal, his life hanging by a thread. It was during this time, while he lay behind a snow wall, that Baalsrud amputated nine of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene to his feet. Over the next weeks, different groups of men tried to haul him to Sweden but were forced back — again forced to seek shelter in ice caves. He was then transported by stretcher to the Finnish border and put in the care of some Lapps Sami (the native tribe of the Scandinavian arctic) who, with reindeer, pulled him on a sled across all of Finland and into neutral Sweden, where he was safe at last.
This is much more than a war story. It is the story of an ordinary man placed into an extraordinary situation where he was able to brave the worst elements the world could throw at him. Moreover, it’s the story of the ordinary people who rose to the occasion and risked their lives to save a single man. Only a country with the ability to excel in these harsh winter conditions, using skis and sleds, could achieve such an amazing test of loyalty. This culture has the ability to come together and achieve greatness, as seen in the story of Jan Baalsrud and the Winter Olympic Games.
Photo by Magnera via Flickr.