Knut Haugland

Infobox Person
name = Knut Haugland

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caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1917|9|23
birth_place = Rjukan, Telemark, Norway
death_date =
death_place =
other_names =
known_for = Explorer working with Thor Heyerdahl and a resistance fighter during WWII
occupation = Museum director (ret.)
nationality = Norwegian

Knut Haugland (born September 23, 1917), is a former resistance fighter and noted explorer from Norway who accompanied Thor Heyerdahl on his famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. He was born in Rjukan, Telemark.

World War II

During World War II, Haugland, with nine other Norwegian resisters organised and carried out the famous raid on the Norsk Hydro plant in Rjukan, Norway, which was producing "heavy water" (deuterium oxide) for the German nuclear weapon research programme. He then narrowly escaped capture by the Gestapo when his transmitter, hidden in Oslo Maternity Hospital, was located by DF. He was awarded Norways's highest decoration for military gallantry, the "Krigskorset med Sverd" or War Cross with sword. He was awarded this decoration twice, in 1943 and 1944: the War Cross with two swords. In addition to his Norwegian decorations, Haugland was awarded the DSO and the MC by the British.

Haugland was a Lieutenant at the time of his first mission. He was a Lieutenant Colonel by the end of the war.

Kon-Tiki expedition

Haugland first met Thor Heyerdahl in 1944 at a paramilitary training camp in England. It was here that Haugland first heard of Heyerdahl's theories about Polynesian migration patterns, and his plans to cross the Pacific on a balsa wood raft. In 1947 Haugland was invited by Heyerdahl to join the "Kon Tiki" expedition as a radio operator. On the expedition Haugland and Torstein Raaby were in frequent radio contact with American amateur operators, sending meteorological and hydrographic data to be passed on to the Meteorological Institute in Washington, DC. Despite the tiny radio which had an output of only 6 watts — about the same as a small battery-powered flashlight — they managed to contact radio operators in Norway, even sending a telegram to congratulate King Haakon VII on his 75th birthday.

Later life

Haugland served as J. S. Wilson's attaché at the 1949 12th World Scout Conference in Elvesaeter, Norway. Five of the six men in the Kon-Tiki expedition were Scouts.

In later years Haugland was the director of the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.

References

* Heyerdahl, Thor (1950). The Kon-Tiki Expedition. George Allen & Unwin. (Translated by F.H. Lyon)
* "Scouting Round the World", John S. Wilson, first edition, Blandford Press 1959.

External links

* [http://www.kon-tiki.no/ The Kon-Tiki Museum]
*imdb name|0369363