O
O.C.
Guest
In one of the books I have called The Blocking of Zeebrugge I have a small cutting from the Times from Sat. April 22nd 1967 (See snap below)
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes was the founder of the British commandos, and the soldiers who form the personnel of these select bodies are picked men and they go through a very rigorous training. Swimming with full kit, wrestling, climbing, and various methods of individual fighting are all included in the physical training course through which they have to pass. Each man must also be an individualist. He must be able to carry out with perfect precision and without unnecessary orders the task allotted to him, so that during a raid the soldiers or parties of soldiers forming the commando will go about their various tasks like the wheels of a well-made machine, each one working in perfect harmony with the others.
It was early in 1941 that the first British commando made history by carrying out a successful raid on the four principal fishing ports of the Lofoten Islands off the Norwegian coast. In these ports there were large fish-oil factories, the produce of which was used by the Germans in the manufacture of explosives. They were therefore an important cog in the enemy's war effort, and their destruction was one of the chief motives of the raid.
This was carried out on Tuesday, March 4th, and the northern dawn was about to break when the vessels, carrying the troops, steamed slowly up the fiord's towards their objectives, and under the guns of the protecting warships prepared to land their men. Silently and with perfect precision the soldiers entered the boats and made for the shore, the spray freezing upon the sides of the craft as they clove through the ice-cold water. The men were armed with tommy guns, Bren guns, rifles and grenades, but their arrival was so unheralded, the surprise so complete, that the Germans had no time to-organise resistance, and within fifteen minutes of landing the British had occupied the strong points of the small towns, and the work of destruction had begun. The fish-oil factories were set on fire, petrol storage tanks went up in flames, a power station was destroyed, and from all directions came loud explosions, while huge clouds of black smoke, billowing up into the cold, clear air, told of the immensity of destruction which was being wrought.
While these things were happening on shore, on the smooth waters of the fiord's the Navy was equally busy. So great was the dismay caused among the Germans by the raid that the only opposition came from an armed trawler, which was soon disposed of, one German officer and six men being killed during the short engagement, and then, in quick succession, ten other merchant ships belonging to the enemy were sent to the bottom, while in another part of the fiord a great floating fish oil-factory of 10,000 tons was sunk.
Meantime, amid the work of destruction, the men of the commando snatched moments to fraternise with the Norwegian inhabitants who had welcomed them as deliverers. The British had brought with them gifts of chocolate, tobacco, cocoa, cigarettes and other things of which the islanders had been deprived since the German occupation, and these the soldiers distributed among the Norwegians and their wives and families. It was also given out that any one who wished to leave the islands and return with the commando to Britain might do so, and three hundred volunteers for the Navy were soon forthcoming.
All this time the clouds of smoke and flame from the blazing factories and petrol tanks were rising higher and higher into the air until the surrounding snow-clad mountains were hidden from view. It was a terrible, awe-inspiring sight, but to the men of the commando it was a sign of work well done, and as soon as the task of devastation had been completed, the troops re-embarked, taking with them two hundred and fifteen prisoners and those Norwegians bound for Britain, and as silently as it had come, the flotilla put out to sea, leaving behind smoking ruins and desolation. The first commando raid had been made and had proved a conspicuous success. Not a single British life had been lost, and a shrewd blow had been struck at the enemy's war machine.
A raid of quite another character was that which was staged in Libya in November 1941. The object of this raid was the headquarters of the German Army in Africa and the death or capture of General Rommel the commanding officer. The raid was arranged to take place on the night of November 17th, the eve of General Sir Claude Auchinleck's attack on Libya, and had it proved successful in its main object, the British advance might have been an even greater triumph than it was. Unfortunately, however, General Rommel chose the very night of the raid to attend a birthday party, so he was not at his headquarters when the daring little band of British soldiers burst in upon the astonished Germans.
The actual raid began on November 15th, when a party of thirty officers and men were secretly landed two hundred miles within enemy territory, and all through the 16th and 17th they lay hidden in a dry river bed under the hot, blazing desert sun. It must have been an anxious time. At any moment they might have been discovered by an enemy patrol or spotted from an aeroplane passing overhead. But fate was kind. No such mischance occurred, and as the sun sank on the last day, the little band made ready for the tasks ahead. Not all were to visit Rommel's headquarters. Some were detailed for other objectives, but when all was over, the various parties were to meet at a rendezvous twenty miles from the German camp, and from there endeavour to make their way back to their own lines. In accounts of this daring commando raid so far given attack on General Rommel's headquarters has come to hand. After a long march across the desert the little party detailed for this attack reached the building which should have housed the German general, and endeavoured to obtain an entry from the back. But this proved impossible either by door or window without attracting unwanted attention and thus warning the occupants inside, so the attackers went round to the front door and knocked loudly upon it. Soon footsteps were heard coming towards the door. That they could be enemies who knocked never entered the German's heads, so they opened without hesitation; imagine then their terrified surprise when, instead of words of greeting, they were met by shots from revolvers and tommy guns.
The surprise was complete. In the first room opened by the British they found a number of German officers including two upon Rommel's staff, and these were promptly mown down by bullets from the assailant's guns. Meanwhile the colonel commanding the detachment, supported by a captain and a sergeant, had thrown open the door of a second room. This one was in darkness, however—either the men inside had been asleep, or they had extinguished the light at the first alarm—but now as the colonel opened the door and dashed in, firing his pistol towards the spot where the sound of heavy breathing denoted the presence of invisible enemies, he was received by a volley of pistol shots, and fell back mortally wounded.
Thereupon began a short but desperate game of blind man's bluff. Stepping into the room, the sergeant sprayed the dark interior with a stream of bullets from his Tommy gun then, retreating, he gave place to the captain who tossed in a couple of grenades to complete the shambles, after which they hastily retired, beating the wounded colonel with them. A few minutes later that brave man died.
While all this was going on some other Germans had endeavoured to reach the ground floor from an upper story, but had hastily retreated when met by a blast of lead from the tommy gun of a corporal who had stationed himself at the foot of the stairs. The Germans, indeed, put up a poor resistance. No doubt the astounding unexpectedness of the attack had something to do with this, and they may have thought themselves assaulted by greatly superior numbers. Certainly the assailants gave them no respite. Having finished inside the house, the British ran round the outside, tossing grenades into every window and creating terrible havoc; then, having done all they could, they started to retreat. Unfortunately the captain had been wounded in the leg, and had to be left behind, so it was the sergeant who. finally led the little band of survivors to the rendezvous twenty miles away, where they met the rest of their comrades. But now the weather, which had so far been kind, took a turn for the worse, and instead of being evacuated as had been arranged, the little British band found themselves assailed on the following day by a vastly superior force of Germans and Italians. For two hours they maintained the unequal fight; then the colonel in charge of the commando ordered the men to break up into a number of small parties, and to retreat to the Jebel Akhbar mountains to the east where they were to hold out as best they could until the advancing British army came to their release. This plan was immediately carried out, and in spite of a thorough search undertaken by the Germans, several of the British reached their own lines in safety after many adventures and hairbreadth escapes.
Shortly after the raid on Rommel's headquarters the commandos paid a second visit to the Lofoten Islands. This raid took place in December 1941, and was on a more ambitious scale than the first expedition. A strong naval force escorted the ships bearing the troops, and to protect them against the rigours of the northern winter, the men of the commando had each been supplied with special clothing costing £50 per man.
As before, nothing had been left to chance, and excitement reigned high among the troops when land was sighted early on Boxing Day, 1941. The little towns of Reine and Sund were the first objectives, and in the darkness of the northern dawn, the flat-bottomed boats were lowered, and silently the men who formed the landing parties took their places on board. There was the very minimum of noise. In a hush the boats slid away from the shipsship'ss and made towards the shore, while the men left behind stared into the great light and listened anxiously for the sudden outburst of gun and rifle fire which would proclaim that the Germans were awake and ready to meet the invaders. But no such sounds broke the stillness, and presently the boats began to return, their crew bringing news that the landings had been unopposed, and that the troops were already in control of the towns. The surprise had been complete. , Sorvagen was the next objective, and there the landing was equally successful. The small German detachments surrendered without striking a blow, and thereafter the combined British and Norwegian force spent nearly three days on the islands, destroying everything which might further the enemy's war effort, and fraternising with the Norwegian inhabitants. News of their presence had, however, got through to the Germans on the mainland, and on the second day a solitary plane made a bombing attack on the ships in the fiord at Reine. One bomb dropped near a warship, which was the closest the Germans got to a hit, and a short time later the plane was seen to crash into the sea. That was all the opposition the raiders of Lofoten encountered, and on the third day the troops re-embarked, taking with them the German prisoners and a hundred Norwegian men and women who wished to come to England. The raid had been a complete success. For three days the navy and army had been seated at the GermanGerman'sdoor, and had completely disorganized the enemy's sea communications with the German armies on the northern Russian front. They had done this, too, without suffering a single casualty, and all the Germans had been able to do by way of retaliation was to send a single bombing plane on a futile raid.
While these events were happening on the Lofoten Islands, four hundred and fifty miles to the south another commando, supported by the Navy and R.A.F., was making an attack on the Norwegian islands of Vaagso and Maaloy. Again every detail had been worked out with minute precision. So that the attackers should not be interfered with by planes sent from the Herdla aerodrome, a hundred miles farther south, several Blenheim bombers made a low-level attack on the runways, blowing them to bits, and so making it impossible for the German planes to take off.
Meanwhile another force of Hampdens laid a smoke screen along the shores of the islands, under cover of which the troops landed. This time, however, the Germans were prepared for their coming, and there was some severe street fighting in Vaagso before the last of the defenders had been mopped up. Then the work of demolition began. Guns and gun emplacements were destroyed. Munition works, a radio station, oil tanks and military storehouses were blown up or set on fire, and in the harbour 15,650 tons of Nazi shipping were destroyed. For six hours the raid lasted, then, their job done, the troops went on board the ships again, taking with them many German prisoners and a number of Norwegian refugees. Another British commando had struck, and had left behind them stark ruin and devastation among the enemy's ships and works. No wonder the Germans fear the men who form the British commandos. They are "tough." They can "take it," as we say nowadays, but as the enemy has found to his cost, and will doubtless. find again, they can also " dish it out."
As a kid I always wanted to be a Commando as you can tell by how long this article is I am sure you all know were the Commandos memorial is in Scotland What Great Men I wished I could have joined them.
The First Photo shows specially constructed invasion barges that were manned by the marines
Second Photo taken during training how the Commandos quickly and silentley unload their craft note the Bofor gun being hauled ashore for action ( most of the actions shown her would have taken place in the dark )
The cutting I have shown at the bottom is Strange as it shows that the great man died at the age of 73 on active service which I have got to check out. (Struggled with the spellchecker but will recheck )
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes was the founder of the British commandos, and the soldiers who form the personnel of these select bodies are picked men and they go through a very rigorous training. Swimming with full kit, wrestling, climbing, and various methods of individual fighting are all included in the physical training course through which they have to pass. Each man must also be an individualist. He must be able to carry out with perfect precision and without unnecessary orders the task allotted to him, so that during a raid the soldiers or parties of soldiers forming the commando will go about their various tasks like the wheels of a well-made machine, each one working in perfect harmony with the others.
It was early in 1941 that the first British commando made history by carrying out a successful raid on the four principal fishing ports of the Lofoten Islands off the Norwegian coast. In these ports there were large fish-oil factories, the produce of which was used by the Germans in the manufacture of explosives. They were therefore an important cog in the enemy's war effort, and their destruction was one of the chief motives of the raid.
This was carried out on Tuesday, March 4th, and the northern dawn was about to break when the vessels, carrying the troops, steamed slowly up the fiord's towards their objectives, and under the guns of the protecting warships prepared to land their men. Silently and with perfect precision the soldiers entered the boats and made for the shore, the spray freezing upon the sides of the craft as they clove through the ice-cold water. The men were armed with tommy guns, Bren guns, rifles and grenades, but their arrival was so unheralded, the surprise so complete, that the Germans had no time to-organise resistance, and within fifteen minutes of landing the British had occupied the strong points of the small towns, and the work of destruction had begun. The fish-oil factories were set on fire, petrol storage tanks went up in flames, a power station was destroyed, and from all directions came loud explosions, while huge clouds of black smoke, billowing up into the cold, clear air, told of the immensity of destruction which was being wrought.
While these things were happening on shore, on the smooth waters of the fiord's the Navy was equally busy. So great was the dismay caused among the Germans by the raid that the only opposition came from an armed trawler, which was soon disposed of, one German officer and six men being killed during the short engagement, and then, in quick succession, ten other merchant ships belonging to the enemy were sent to the bottom, while in another part of the fiord a great floating fish oil-factory of 10,000 tons was sunk.
Meantime, amid the work of destruction, the men of the commando snatched moments to fraternise with the Norwegian inhabitants who had welcomed them as deliverers. The British had brought with them gifts of chocolate, tobacco, cocoa, cigarettes and other things of which the islanders had been deprived since the German occupation, and these the soldiers distributed among the Norwegians and their wives and families. It was also given out that any one who wished to leave the islands and return with the commando to Britain might do so, and three hundred volunteers for the Navy were soon forthcoming.
All this time the clouds of smoke and flame from the blazing factories and petrol tanks were rising higher and higher into the air until the surrounding snow-clad mountains were hidden from view. It was a terrible, awe-inspiring sight, but to the men of the commando it was a sign of work well done, and as soon as the task of devastation had been completed, the troops re-embarked, taking with them two hundred and fifteen prisoners and those Norwegians bound for Britain, and as silently as it had come, the flotilla put out to sea, leaving behind smoking ruins and desolation. The first commando raid had been made and had proved a conspicuous success. Not a single British life had been lost, and a shrewd blow had been struck at the enemy's war machine.
A raid of quite another character was that which was staged in Libya in November 1941. The object of this raid was the headquarters of the German Army in Africa and the death or capture of General Rommel the commanding officer. The raid was arranged to take place on the night of November 17th, the eve of General Sir Claude Auchinleck's attack on Libya, and had it proved successful in its main object, the British advance might have been an even greater triumph than it was. Unfortunately, however, General Rommel chose the very night of the raid to attend a birthday party, so he was not at his headquarters when the daring little band of British soldiers burst in upon the astonished Germans.
The actual raid began on November 15th, when a party of thirty officers and men were secretly landed two hundred miles within enemy territory, and all through the 16th and 17th they lay hidden in a dry river bed under the hot, blazing desert sun. It must have been an anxious time. At any moment they might have been discovered by an enemy patrol or spotted from an aeroplane passing overhead. But fate was kind. No such mischance occurred, and as the sun sank on the last day, the little band made ready for the tasks ahead. Not all were to visit Rommel's headquarters. Some were detailed for other objectives, but when all was over, the various parties were to meet at a rendezvous twenty miles from the German camp, and from there endeavour to make their way back to their own lines. In accounts of this daring commando raid so far given attack on General Rommel's headquarters has come to hand. After a long march across the desert the little party detailed for this attack reached the building which should have housed the German general, and endeavoured to obtain an entry from the back. But this proved impossible either by door or window without attracting unwanted attention and thus warning the occupants inside, so the attackers went round to the front door and knocked loudly upon it. Soon footsteps were heard coming towards the door. That they could be enemies who knocked never entered the German's heads, so they opened without hesitation; imagine then their terrified surprise when, instead of words of greeting, they were met by shots from revolvers and tommy guns.
The surprise was complete. In the first room opened by the British they found a number of German officers including two upon Rommel's staff, and these were promptly mown down by bullets from the assailant's guns. Meanwhile the colonel commanding the detachment, supported by a captain and a sergeant, had thrown open the door of a second room. This one was in darkness, however—either the men inside had been asleep, or they had extinguished the light at the first alarm—but now as the colonel opened the door and dashed in, firing his pistol towards the spot where the sound of heavy breathing denoted the presence of invisible enemies, he was received by a volley of pistol shots, and fell back mortally wounded.
Thereupon began a short but desperate game of blind man's bluff. Stepping into the room, the sergeant sprayed the dark interior with a stream of bullets from his Tommy gun then, retreating, he gave place to the captain who tossed in a couple of grenades to complete the shambles, after which they hastily retired, beating the wounded colonel with them. A few minutes later that brave man died.
While all this was going on some other Germans had endeavoured to reach the ground floor from an upper story, but had hastily retreated when met by a blast of lead from the tommy gun of a corporal who had stationed himself at the foot of the stairs. The Germans, indeed, put up a poor resistance. No doubt the astounding unexpectedness of the attack had something to do with this, and they may have thought themselves assaulted by greatly superior numbers. Certainly the assailants gave them no respite. Having finished inside the house, the British ran round the outside, tossing grenades into every window and creating terrible havoc; then, having done all they could, they started to retreat. Unfortunately the captain had been wounded in the leg, and had to be left behind, so it was the sergeant who. finally led the little band of survivors to the rendezvous twenty miles away, where they met the rest of their comrades. But now the weather, which had so far been kind, took a turn for the worse, and instead of being evacuated as had been arranged, the little British band found themselves assailed on the following day by a vastly superior force of Germans and Italians. For two hours they maintained the unequal fight; then the colonel in charge of the commando ordered the men to break up into a number of small parties, and to retreat to the Jebel Akhbar mountains to the east where they were to hold out as best they could until the advancing British army came to their release. This plan was immediately carried out, and in spite of a thorough search undertaken by the Germans, several of the British reached their own lines in safety after many adventures and hairbreadth escapes.
Shortly after the raid on Rommel's headquarters the commandos paid a second visit to the Lofoten Islands. This raid took place in December 1941, and was on a more ambitious scale than the first expedition. A strong naval force escorted the ships bearing the troops, and to protect them against the rigours of the northern winter, the men of the commando had each been supplied with special clothing costing £50 per man.
As before, nothing had been left to chance, and excitement reigned high among the troops when land was sighted early on Boxing Day, 1941. The little towns of Reine and Sund were the first objectives, and in the darkness of the northern dawn, the flat-bottomed boats were lowered, and silently the men who formed the landing parties took their places on board. There was the very minimum of noise. In a hush the boats slid away from the shipsship'ss and made towards the shore, while the men left behind stared into the great light and listened anxiously for the sudden outburst of gun and rifle fire which would proclaim that the Germans were awake and ready to meet the invaders. But no such sounds broke the stillness, and presently the boats began to return, their crew bringing news that the landings had been unopposed, and that the troops were already in control of the towns. The surprise had been complete. , Sorvagen was the next objective, and there the landing was equally successful. The small German detachments surrendered without striking a blow, and thereafter the combined British and Norwegian force spent nearly three days on the islands, destroying everything which might further the enemy's war effort, and fraternising with the Norwegian inhabitants. News of their presence had, however, got through to the Germans on the mainland, and on the second day a solitary plane made a bombing attack on the ships in the fiord at Reine. One bomb dropped near a warship, which was the closest the Germans got to a hit, and a short time later the plane was seen to crash into the sea. That was all the opposition the raiders of Lofoten encountered, and on the third day the troops re-embarked, taking with them the German prisoners and a hundred Norwegian men and women who wished to come to England. The raid had been a complete success. For three days the navy and army had been seated at the GermanGerman'sdoor, and had completely disorganized the enemy's sea communications with the German armies on the northern Russian front. They had done this, too, without suffering a single casualty, and all the Germans had been able to do by way of retaliation was to send a single bombing plane on a futile raid.
While these events were happening on the Lofoten Islands, four hundred and fifty miles to the south another commando, supported by the Navy and R.A.F., was making an attack on the Norwegian islands of Vaagso and Maaloy. Again every detail had been worked out with minute precision. So that the attackers should not be interfered with by planes sent from the Herdla aerodrome, a hundred miles farther south, several Blenheim bombers made a low-level attack on the runways, blowing them to bits, and so making it impossible for the German planes to take off.
Meanwhile another force of Hampdens laid a smoke screen along the shores of the islands, under cover of which the troops landed. This time, however, the Germans were prepared for their coming, and there was some severe street fighting in Vaagso before the last of the defenders had been mopped up. Then the work of demolition began. Guns and gun emplacements were destroyed. Munition works, a radio station, oil tanks and military storehouses were blown up or set on fire, and in the harbour 15,650 tons of Nazi shipping were destroyed. For six hours the raid lasted, then, their job done, the troops went on board the ships again, taking with them many German prisoners and a number of Norwegian refugees. Another British commando had struck, and had left behind them stark ruin and devastation among the enemy's ships and works. No wonder the Germans fear the men who form the British commandos. They are "tough." They can "take it," as we say nowadays, but as the enemy has found to his cost, and will doubtless. find again, they can also " dish it out."
As a kid I always wanted to be a Commando as you can tell by how long this article is I am sure you all know were the Commandos memorial is in Scotland What Great Men I wished I could have joined them.
The First Photo shows specially constructed invasion barges that were manned by the marines
Second Photo taken during training how the Commandos quickly and silentley unload their craft note the Bofor gun being hauled ashore for action ( most of the actions shown her would have taken place in the dark )
The cutting I have shown at the bottom is Strange as it shows that the great man died at the age of 73 on active service which I have got to check out. (Struggled with the spellchecker but will recheck )