Knut Haugland, the Norwegian commando and explorer who died on Christmas Day aged 92, took part in two of the most adventurous and celebrated exploits of the last century – a daring raid on a suspected Nazi atomic weapons plant in war, and Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition in peace.

Haugland, who was the last survivor of the six-man Kon-Tiki crew, had met Heyerdahl in 1944 at a special forces training camp in England, and was selected to join the expedition on the basis of the experience he acquired during the conflict as a radio operator.

In typically nonchalant fashion, Heyerdahl had written to Haugland, whom he thought was bound to be “fed up hanging around at home by now, and would be glad to go for a little trip on a wooden raft”, to invite him on board.

“Am going to cross the Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the South Sea islands were peopled from Peru,” the invitation ran. “Will you come? Reply at once.” The response was positive”.

The six man crew set off from Callao, Peru, on April 28 1947 and sailed westwards along the Humboldt current. Their vessel, built using only the materials and technologies available in the pre-Columbian period, was the Kon-Tiki – a raft composed of nine balsa tree trunks, each 45ft long by 2ft in diameter, lashed together with hemp ropes.

The explorers lived off water stored in bamboo tubes, coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds and fruit, and the fish, dolphins and sharks they caught. After sighting islands in French Polynesia, the raft struck a reef on August 7 and was beached on an uninhabited islet off Raroia in the Tuamotu group. Kon-Tiki had travelled a distance of some 3,770 nautical miles in 101 days at an average speed of 1½ knots.

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