大象传媒

In the spring of '42 the war had been going uniformly badly. The battleship Hood had been sunk, Japan had destroyed most of the American Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. Singapore had fallen most ingloriously, the battle of the Atlantic was not going at all well and German bombers were operating apparently at will. If the war was ever to be won then the Atlantic had to be kept open for our survival and eventual reinforcement. Churchill, like some others, wanted something done about it, but our forces were stretched.

At this time, at the very apex of power were men whose main concern was the battleships. This was true throughout the warring nations. Everything depended on where these ships were. They didn't need to do anything, they just had to be somewhere and the balance of power shifted. And now there was the Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord. It was 10,000 tons bigger than anything we had, and could outgun and outrun any of them. Should it get into the Atlantic it would alter the course of the war there, and perhaps the Americans could never come to our assistance, and Britain could starve to death.

The Navy felt that, even with such force as they had, they might manage to damage the monster, but to kill her was unlikely. The ship would stagger back to St. Nazaire, get repaired there and sally forth again and again. If the great dock at St. Nazaire could be knocked out then the great ship would have to return to Germany via the North Sea and that would give the navy at Scapa Flow a real chance to finish it off. Admiral Mountbatten was then in command of Combined Operations. and he devised a plan to do just that. He took it to the 1st. Lord of the Admiralty, who blew up and told him not to be daft for the ships would be blown out of the water before they could reach there. However Mountbatten went over his head to Churchill who liked it and urged him to get on with it.

Now just before Christmas 1941 there was a young RAMC officer who had been living the life of Riley at Catterick Garrison. He had a car with petrol for essential services, an officers quarter and a wife of six months who was adjutant to the ATS there. But he had a difference of opinion with a senior officer's wife and he suddenly found himself in the Orkney Islands. Proceeding there in the steamer, the weather was too rough for the ship to get in through the normal channels and instead he was taken through the entrance reserved for the Royal Navy. To his amazement he found himself travelling between the entire might of the navy.

He counted no fewer than five battleships, the Prince of Wales, the George V, the Ramilies, the Royal Oak, resting on the bottom, where it had just been put by Commander Prenn and his submarine, and another which he has forgotten; all waiting for the Tirpitz to come out. While in Orkney, a month later, a War Office Priority telegram came for him to report at once to Ayr in Scotland and be attached to No.2 Commando. This he did and was surprised on arrival to find that the entire unit was away for the week-end. This commando had just emerged from being a Special Service batallion, and indeed I still have the insignia SS in silver on black, but this was becoming a dirty word and the name was soon dropped! It was organised, if such it can be called, to do without a baggage train, ignoring such luxuries as mess tents, cook houses and latrines, etc.

They were just fighting men for fighting, not for your parade drill and none of your office work or regimentals. Trouble was, the only thing they could get to fight was the Polish army. But in January we went on training to the Western Isles in a Cross Channel Packet, the Princess Josephine Charlotte at about 6,000 tons. We practised landings at dawn for a fortnight, the idea being that when Hitler went to Norway we would sail across and nick him (Well Roger Keynes very nearly pinched Rommel in North Africa). When that was over we all went back to Ayr, however the C.O. kept going up to London to see Mountbatten and Churchill.

Then one fine afternoon the Josephine Charlotte called again at Ayr harbour and nearly all the Commando left for an unknown destination which turned out to be Falmouth. We depended on our speed as we dashed through the Irish Sea in the dark. The weather in the South was lovely. Clear skies and warm for the end of February, as we lay in the bay, forbidden to talk to anyone.

The model of the dockside at St. Nazaire was displayed and the plan developed. I was told I could have a blockhouse at the Old Mole as an Aid Post, but I protested that it had an AA Gun on top and would obviously have a crew inside. I was over-ruled by a WAAF specialist in air photography. How wrong she was!

For a month we lay in the bay at Falmouth, in gorgeous spring sunshine until one day, into the bay steamed sixteen of the most lovely craft, in two lines ahead. Two petrol engines and two Oerlikon guns each. 110 feet long and with a speed of up to about 20 knots. Soon they took us for a sail out to the Scilly Isles, but the weather was so rough that the wooden gun platforms began to break up and we had to run for home.

An Air Vice-Marshal visited us to explain how to escape through France if left behind, but his only good advice was to take a compass, and these were reserved for the RAF. Colonel Newman asked if there was anything more I wanted before the operation, then told me to go and get it. If I lifted the red phone at Naval H.Q. and asked for the "Cabinet Annex" I could have anything I desired. I wanted a pounds-weight of Sulphanilamide powder and sure enough it came on the next train from London! This was in the days before penicillin.

We made a practice attack on Plymouth, at night, more or less up the barrels of two fifteen inch guns on an old battleship there. On 26th. March we were off, in brilliant sunshine, cruising slowly down the channel while behind us our parent ship's crew were busy painting the ship a Mediterranean blue as part of the cover plan. We were arranged as two lines ahead, each of 8 MLs, and between the two lines were a command gunboat, a motor torpedo boat and the old U.S. destroyer Campbeltown. This last looked a bit odd for she had had two of her four funnels removed to make her look a bit Hunnish, and she had just taken on board as cargo, 36 Depth Charges!

We hadn't been going long when a Spitfire appeared and circled round, but only to pass a message, by Aldis lamp, for we were on wireless silence. The message read "For five German destroyers in harbour, read seven destroyers in harbour!" But the engines of the torpedo boat gave trouble, it would only do either two knots or 40 knots and so couldn't keep station. Mickey Wynne, it's Commander refused to take his two torpedoes home and so had to be towed all the way, by the Campbeltown.

That night we all slept without alarm. As dawn broke we found two French fishing boats with wireless masts. So we took the crews prisoner and sank the two boats, just to be on the safe side. It was just after that that I spotted a submarine on the port side, at least the periscope of one, having a good look at us. We reported this to the Campbeltown by Aldis and got the terse reply "Shut up! I'm bigger than you."

As the light began to fade, the attack was planned for 01.30 hours. I went forward and found two of my chaps changing their uniforms from trousers to kilts. They explained that as they were probably going to die they preferred to die in kilts. Going aft again I found there was a submarine on the water ahead, and as we passed it the commander gave me a personal salute and a shout of "Good luck"! He was our marker and from now on it was straight in to the docks. Darkness everywhere now and only the phosphorescence of the sea to see by.

..... Contd.

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