O.S.S. Operation RYPE: Cutting the Nordland Rail Line in occupied Norway at two points in the north Trondelag area, April, 1945

This thesis investigates unconventional warfare as performed by one of the many teams of Allied saboteurs parachuted deep behind enemy lines in German-occupied countries during World War II. The team studied as an example was the Office of Strategic Services Norwegian Special Operations Group in Operation RYPE. Its mission was to disrupt German troop movements in Norway. Its effectiveness will be judged tactically and also in the strategic environment of the Allied war effort, of which it was a part. In conjunction with other Allied sponsored teams in the area, RYPE helped prevent 150,000 German S.S. mountain troops, then retreating in the face of Russian attacks, from returning to a beleaguered fatherland where Nazi Germany was about to collapse. Important lessons were learned by the O.S.S. for future operations and they are still evident in special forces doctrine as we move into the 1990s.