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Witness History

Norway's WW2 railway sabotage plot

Witness History

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, History

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In May 1942, a team of Norwegian resistance fighters in occupied Norway were getting ready to blow up a railway carrying materials crucial to the German war machine.

Led by Lieutenant Peter Deinboll, a local from the area, they set out to execute what the Allied forces saw as the top priority sabotage operation in Norway at that stage in the war. Should they fail, allied planes would carpet bomb the village, including Deinboll’s hometown.

Lars Bevanger speaks to Lieutenant Deinboll’s nephew, Gunnar Deinboll Jenssen.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.

(Photo: Lieutenant Peter Deinboll Jr. Credit: Gunnar Deinboll Jenssen)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

0:10.6

Hello, this is the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service.

0:15.9

I'm Lars Bavanger.

0:17.3

We take you back to fascinating moments in history by hearing from one key witness.

0:23.1

New episodes come out every weekday and are just nine minutes long.

0:26.9

If you like the sound of that, make sure to subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a show.

0:36.3

Today I'm taking you back to the early hours of the 5th of May 1942

0:41.4

and a Norwegian village near Trondheim.

0:44.6

The country's been under Nazi German occupation for two years.

0:48.5

Now, a team of Norwegian resistance fighters are about to carry out

0:52.5

what the Allied forces see as the top priority

0:56.3

sabotage operation in Norway at this stage of the war. One local family will become central to the action.

1:04.5

The first sabotage was planned by my grandfather because he was an electrical engineer.

1:15.9

He was responsible for the maintenance of all the electrical equipment for everything around the mining industry up there.

1:21.2

That's Gunnar Dainball Jensen.

1:23.0

He grew up hearing how his uncle, Lieutenant Peter Dainbol, his mother Lita and his grandfather, Peter Sr.,

1:31.5

all became instrumental in trying to stop the Germans from extracting copper and sulphur from a mine

1:37.7

near their village of Urganger and shipping it to Germany.

1:41.3

Both minerals were needed in weapons production.

1:44.0

The Norwegian government in exile and its minerals were needed in weapons production. The Norwegian government

1:45.2

in exile and its British allies were in no doubt what needed to be done.

1:50.3

This was ranked as number one. It was the most important target for the Allies. It represented

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