[1] According to Reed Olsen's memoirs, the saboteurs had been recruited by British intelligence and were part of a coordinated action against four bridges north of Oslo.
The action, using some 30 kg of stolen dynamite, blew a hole in the roadway of the bridge and rendered it temporarily impassable for traffic.
The actions against the other bridges, one between Drammen and Hønefoss, and two more at Sandvika, were exposed in the preparatory phase and two men arrested by the Germans.
[2] The incident was linked to a speech made by J. H. Marshall-Cornwall in BBC the day before, in which he encouraged Norwegians to destroy telephone and road connections.
This council consisted of a group of prominent men who had come together already on 12 April to discuss a Norwegian administration without Vidkun Quisling.
Then, on 14 April, Supreme Court Justice Paal Berg, County Governor Ingolf Elster Christensen and Bishop Eivind Berggrav appeared in the now Nazi-controlled Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation radio to lament the sabotage.
The official Broadcasting Corporation policy since the Nazi usurping was similar: to spread a calm attitude in the people.