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This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Nottingham on behalf of Henry Scott with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was an ordinary signalman in 1942 at the time of the St Nazaire raid. In March 1942 I was sent down to Devonport to pick up the destroyer HMS Atherston, which was to be part of the fleet assigned the task of blowing up the dock gates at St.Nazaire. St Nazaire was an important port for the Germans because it was the only dock available on the Atlantic seaboard, which was able to accommodate the Tirpitz and also U Boat pens were located there from where U-Boats would attack our shipping in the North Atlantic. St Nazaire lies at the mouth of the river Loire and in March 1942 the two destroyers Atherstone, which I was to sail on, and Tynedale joined the rest of the fleet at Falmouth. As far as I can remember there was a motor gun boat, a number of motor launches full up with troops and a ship called a block ship which was a converted American destroyer. Most American destroyers have 4 funnels and we noticed once coming into Devonport a ship alongside a jetty being converted and it had originally 4 funnels but they took two off to make it look like a German destroyer. We later found out that this altered destroyer was to become the block ship, which would be used to ram the dock gates at St Nazaire and later explode. Before we set sail there were a terrific number of signals going from one ship to another and a sense of excitement and also a certain amount of nervous anticipation of just how successful the raid would turn out to be and how many of us would be coming back in one piece. Eventually on a Sunday afternoon at about 2pm we set sail from Falmouth, crossed the channel and headed into the Bay of Biscay towards St Nazaire. Now in the Bay of Biscay we saw a fishing boat and we sent a boarding party to interrogate the sailors. I remember seeing a fisherman coming out of the hold of the boat with a brand new suit on a hanger and I thought whatever happens he’s not going to lose that new suit! So we took all the crew off and sank it. Sinking it was necessary because we could not be sure that whoever was on the little boat would not have got in touch with the Germans and given our position away. We also saw a conning tour of a U-Boat so dropped depth charges where we thought the submarine was but we could not locate it. So we sailed on and reached the mouth of the Loire and all the motor gunboats/launches went on up the mouth of the Loire while the destroyers waited outside the entrance to the Loire, standing by ready to pick up any survivors. At one point during our wait I was on the bridge of the Atherstone when I heard a whistling sound. Suddenly German shells from destroyers went flying over our heads and dropped a little aft but fortunately missing the Atherstone!. Our captain, Lieutenant Commander Jenks laid a smoke screen, which involved pouring oil on the fires down below, which created thick black smoke which concealed our position.
After a few hours, once we had picked up survivors from the raid we left the mouth of the river Loire and headed for home. I remember being on the bridge and looking back as we sailed away and seeing a solitary motor launch, empty fortunately, with a German plane hovering over it. Suddenly the Germans dropped a bomb smack on it and blew it to smithereens. We returned to England with the Tynedale, both of us carrying wounded men. There was one memorable incident on the journey home in the Bay of Biscay when German planes came across and one bomb fell incredibly near on our port side. Then a Heinkel plane came down our port side and the plane turned in to drop a torpedo. The Yeoman said to me ‘right Scottie, man the port Lewis’. So I went over and opened up with tracer bullets, which went dead on the plane. ‘Good shooting Scottie!’ the Yeoman said to me and the plane turned away. It probably wasn’t my shooting which turned him off us of course, rather the larger guns, the Pom Poms and Oerlikons which were all having a go at him alongside my Lewis gun. All the same I was proud of my effort and surprised at how accurate I was! We then returned to England as quickly as possible to get the wounded to a hospital.

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