392 • NORWOOD, MELITA
while they embarked on barges in anticipation of an invasion of En-
gland. Surprisingly, this ambitious contingency plan, which was in-
tended to incorporate similar arrangements in Sweden andDenmark,
was not shelved until 1942. Chaworth-Musters’s section was ex-
panded in November 1940 to encompass a Scandinavian Section
under the leadership of Harry Sporborg, withCharles Hambroact-
ing as regional controller.
In January 1942 a separate Norwegian Section, designated SN
Section, was created under Colonel John Wilson, formerly of theBoy
Scout movement. SOE was only able to operate in Norway with the
sponsorship of the resistance organization Milorg, which proved very
demanding despite regular liaison meetings held at Chiltern House,
the Norwegian Section’s headquarters inBaker Street. Altogether
230 agents and 1,047 tons of stores were dropped in 689 successful
sorties. Among the best-known operations wasgunnerside, the sab-
otage of the hydroelectric installation at Vermork in 1943.NORWOOD, MELITA.A lifelong Communist and spy codenamed
holaandtinaby theKGB, Melita Norwood was exposed publicly
byVasili Mitrokhinin September 1999 as having been in contact
with the illegalrezidentin England until 1961. Born in London in
1912 of an immigrant Latvian bookbinder named Sirnis, Norwood
had been a member of theCommunist Party of Great Britain
(CPGB) and was linked toPercy Gladingin 1938 when the former
CPGB national organizer was imprisoned for espionage. Her name
and her family’s address in Hampstead were found in a notebook
owned by Glading at the time of his arrest, when he was charged with
stealing secrets from theWoolwich Arsenal, butMI5did not pursue
the clue. Later she had joined the headquarters of the British Non-
Ferrous Metals Association in Euston as a typist for one of its direc-
tors, G. J. Bailey, and this gave her access to nuclear secrets, as the
organization was a component of the Anglo-American project to de-
velop an atomic bomb, which theNKVDhad dubbed Operation
enormoz.
In 1964 Norwood was tentatively identified as the spytinawho
had been mentioned in a singlevenonamessage from Moscow
dated 16 September 1945. According to the text transmitted to the
rezident in London, ‘‘Her documentary material onenormozis of