大象传媒

Part 1b
Jack Nissenthall - The VC Hero who Never Was
by Martin Sugarman

3.
As pressure rose from the Russians to create a "Second Front", however, the raid had to be re-mounted. "Operation Jubilee", as it was now known, was set for August 19th. Jack was recalled to London from Devon but in his haste, put on a blue RAF shirt under his khaki Army battledress. Further, he had still his blue RAF pack, which stood out against his Army khaki, and no Divisional signs on his uniform, which made him look even more out of place. In the event of capture, this would make him suspect as something more than a member of a raiding party.

At a second talk with Maury, he was again offered the chance to withdraw, but refused On arrival at Combined Operations HQ at 1a, Richmond Terrace, London, he was handed a tin helmet and revolver and briefed as before, and then driven to King George V dock at Southampton by another SOE officer.
The same ships and men then set sail for Dieppe. Uppermost in Jack's mind - beside his mission - were thoughts about home and childhood, Friday night candles, Kiddush, chicken soup and lockshen, and his cheder(religious school) teacher, a Polish rabbi who took snuff!

When he reached the SS Invicta, the Canadian troops were making a tremendous din banging their tin helmets on the metal deck. The sight of a staff car with Jack in it brought the noise to a great crescendo, for "A" Company knew that Jack's presence meant the raid was on; a huge cheer went up as went aboard.

On the journey across, Frenchie - one of his escort - blessed Jack with his rosary. When Jack said he was Jewish, Frenchie said, "it was the same God and he was on our side".

Twelve miles out in the dawn half light with a chill wind, the men were transferred to the Landing Craft (LC's). At one point a Navy NCO tried to tell Jack he was in the wrong LC with his escort. A fierce argument ensued but Jack stayed put. They were still two hours journey to the beaches.

Warned by the unlucky chance meeting by the invasion flotilla section of No. 3 Commando with a German navy patrol and two "E" boats from Boulogne, the Nazis around Dieppe were waiting for the Allied troops. However, the Germans were expecting an invasion along the Channel coast in any case as they were perfectly aware of the Russian pressure on the Allies , and which tidal periods would be most suitable.

In Jack's LC a canteen of rum appeared and was passed from man to man; then suddenly they hit land. As the SSR and Canadian Cameron Highlanders came ashore at Green Beach in Pourville between 4.50 and 5.30 am, there was chaos, added to which Jack realised that they had been landed at least a quarter of a mile too far west of the radar station (code named "Study"), which was his particular target. This meant that Merritt had to fight his way across the bridge first before getting to his targets.

With Canadian casualties mounting horrifically in bitter close fighting, Jack and his team raced up the beach and along the road east towards the bridge over the river Scie, to get to the cliff-top radar. The bridge was raked with fire and by then covered with Canadian dead, but encouraged and led by the remarkable Col. Merritt, who won his VC here as he exposed himself constantly and fearlessly to enemy fire,the men rushed the bridge and found cover on the other side.

Three of Jack's escort (including Mavor and Sawden) by this time were already killed and one wounded, as well as the CO, Osten, but the group and others had reached the slope approaching the radar and began the ascent, surrounded by wounded and dead Canadians. It was now morning and getting warm. "A" Company's 100 men were already down to 25.

(A few weeks before his death in 1997, Jack saw a documentary on TV which alleged that many of A company hid in some houses near the beach and because they did not press home their attack, he was unable to break into the Radar Station. He wrote a bitter letter to Col Merritt about this, but no reply came back - source, Linda Samuels nee Nissenthall).

From the roadside viewing point (there to this day) Jack was now only 100 yards away from his objective and could now see the radar station clearly, surrounded by open, short grassland and masses of barbed wire, sandbags and trenches. But the German firepower was too great and the site too impregnable for an attack and so Jack volunteered to take a narrow path a mile back again, with Frenchie and Thrussel, to the invasion HQ which was in the cassino near the beach, to try and get a radio message out, for a destroyer to shell the radar area, and extra men to rush the radar defences. Try as they might, they could not find one working radio among the fighting troops!

Blown off their feet by a mortar bomb on the return run, they somehow eventually made it back yet again up to the wounded Osten near the radar (minus Thrussel), where Jack decided smoke cannisters were needed to allow them to break in. He and Smokey rushed again down to the town and at the bridge met an exhausted Col. Merritt still rallying his men across the Scie. The CO gave Jack some reinforcements and they returned again to the hill, losing many on the way through intense German sniper and mortar fire.

By now, the mission appeared hopeless so Jack decided he would go around the rear of the station and obtain the secrets of the radar alone. He knew British listening centres on the South coast had often picked up coded messages being sent between the German radars by radio and morse. Cryptographers in Britain then decoded these messages and thus were able to determine the capabilities and strengths of the radar stations. However, now the stations used land line telephones which could not be intercepted. If Jack could cut these lines and force the use of radio again, then the German transmissions could again be picked up in Britain, and the latest secrets revealed, including the possible whereabouts of other yet unknown German radars.

He told Osten to give him covering fire explaining that whatever risk he took, either the Germans or Canadians would get him. He took two grenades from a dead Canadian ( he related how he was determined to blow himself up if in danger of capture), his own tool pack and pistol and rushed the rear wire, getting under it. He still had 50 yards to go and so far was not spotted. He crawled closer over very rough, hard ground and at last saw the wires he was after, leading out of the rear of the station via a short mast on the sloping hill and thence disappearing underground. With his wire cutters (and a spare set in his pocket), he dropped his pack - with the precious avometer given him by his father many years before - and climbed the mast, slowly cutting all eight cables as bullets flew about him - both Canadian and German! By the eighth cable he was suspended 15 feet by one hand and as he snipped it, he fell to earth, rolling away down
the slope towards the Canadian positions. He had done it!

4.
At that moment, by a twist of irony, in a camouflaged caravan listening station on the Sussex coast near Birling Gap, a Jewish WAAF Sergeant and her Jewish RAF Sergeant colleague - both German speaking - picked up signals from German radar stations on the French coast. At the same time, radar expert Ken Dearson aboard the navy Command warship "Prince Albert" offshore from Dieppe, also picked up the German signals. Jack's ploy had worked and valuable German radar information reached British Intelligence for days after.

5.
It was 10am and Jack now decided there was one last chance - to try and get a tank which would be coming from the landings at Dieppe, up to the radar and blast the wall and get in. He instinctively took command and with his escort (Roy, Jim, Lofty, Smokey, Silver, Bud and Frenchie) they returned to the church in Pourville - now a wrecked town - yet again, and dashed up the road to Petit-Appeville where they expected to meet some allied tanks.

Suddenly they heard a distinct and distant rumble , but when vehicles came into view they saw to their horror that they were Panzers. With bullets flying all around them they back-tracked at once for the beach at Pourville, with Germans barely yards behind them. Two more of Jack's escort were lost in the flight back (Silver and Frenchie). He himself was hit on the back of his helmet, leaving a huge dent which punched the metal onto his skull. At the church, not one minute from the beach, they met a German patrol and a fire-fight began as they were now shot at from both front and behind. Suddenly in the midst of this, three elderly French World War 1 veterans in berets appeared on the road wearing their medals.

Summing up the situation at once,one of the veterans deliberately stepped out into the line of fire, calmly walking down the road puffing on his Gauloise.

A German officer ordered cease fire, for shooting a French civilian could lead to disciplinary action. As the Frenchman came close to Jack and the Canadians, he glanced at Jack, as if to say, "I am holding their fire; now get out!" Within a few minutes they had reached the beach HQ safely thanks to the great courage of a gallant ally.
In and around the cassino - now the casualty clearing station - Jack and his escort now joined in a desperate last stand in order to gain time for Landing Craft to come and take them all off. Here, Lofty was killed. Dozens of wounded Canadians littered the building and the courtyard outside whilst dozens of others fired at the advancing Germans. Jack himself was firing a bren gun and then when the magazines ran out, an anti-tank rifle, especially at the German machine guns on the cliffs above them. Added to this cacophony, the RAF and Navy were shelling German positions trying to give support and covering fire to the survivors in the beach area.

It was now 11.30am. Putting the cyanide pill in his pocket ready for use in case, Jack, with Roy Hawkins, decided after a long discussion with the officers and men in the cassino, to make a run for a Landing Craft lying several hundred yards off the shore. Smokey, one of the escort,at first threatened Jack with his knife if he tried to leave, but Jack convinced him that they, with Bud, Jim and Roy could form a group and make a run for the LC. At that moment a Navy smoke shell landed nearby and Jack knew this was the moment. The group, plus several others, on Jack's command,amid all the chaos and smoke and debris, vaulted through a rear window and were away, racing towards the sea wall and the shingle, and jumping barbed wire as bullets whined all about them. Smokey and Bud disappeared. Jim was killed on the wire but Hawkins kept up with Jack, who was quietly reciting the Shema ( a Jewish prayer) to himself as he ran. He now discarded his helmet and jacket, but this revealed his blue RAF shirt and made him a particular target. Within seconds they were in the sea, half crawling, half swimming. About fifty yards ahead they saw an LC in the smoke screen. In one last great effort, they swam, exhausted, to the half open ramp and grabbed the side; two sailors grabbed Jack and pulled him in. "Pick up my mate!" blurted Jack. "What do you think this is, the No. 8 bus?" quipped a cockney sailor, hauling Roy in too. The LC turned north and made for England.

At Pourville, firing slowly stopped, as the Canadians ran out of ammunition and a ceasefire was agreed. By 1pm it was all over. They were lined up outside the Hotel de la Terrasse and Col. Merritt, now wounded, watched with pride as his surviving men marched away, in disciplined ranks, to become POW's.

6.
Holed by Luftwaffe strafing, the LC made for a nearby flak ship and transferred all the passengers, just as the LC itself finally gave up the ghost and sank.
Like the sailors on the LC, the Royal Marine crew on the ship were Cockneys, and this cheered Jack enormously.One of them gave him an old RM jacket to keep warm.
They made for home. Jack had survived and at 2am they reached Newhaven, where he and Hawkins found a warehouse and fell into a sleep of the dead.

Next morning Jack and Roy parted company, without knowing they would not meet again for 25 years. Of the eleven men who had set out for the radar station on the hill at Pourville, only these two got back to England.

Jack was taken by two MP's to Canadian Army HQ in Reigate where he had some difficulty persuading the Intelligence de-briefers who he was, with his army trousers, RAF blouse and RM jacket! German prisoners had been brought back and it was possible some could have got into allied unifroms to pass themselves off as friends! Eventually he made his way to Waterloo, London, thence by tube to the Air Ministry and at last met again with Air Commodore Tait.

There he was told of the success of his work. Prof Reginald V Jones (who died in Dec 1997), a leading member of Air Intelligence and a radar expert, told Jack that because he had cut the wires as he did, the German radars as expected had communicated by radio and all the signals had been intercepted in England and analysed. As a result, it was now clear that there was no second standby radar system being used by the Germans across North West Europe and that they used several different call signs for the same fighter squadron, so deceiving the Allies into believing that they had far more air power than in fact existed; it was also clear how long it took them to calculate that an Allied air attack was incoming, for scrambling their aircraft - especially the night-fighters which did so much damage to Bomber Command - so giving them very early warning. In addition much was being learned about the technical capabilities of the German radar system itself which in turn meant that jamming devices could now be used to saturate the radars, undoing all the German deception work and so make all future air attacks against the Germans more efficient and so save Allied lives and eventually shorten the war. One result was that at the Normandy landings later, whilst the Allies could see everything with their radar, the German radar was completely jammed.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.