Bowen himself exemplified the qualities one might expect from a military sniper. He was always calm and quiet, his movements minimal but fluid. He was short, several inches shorter than Lynch’s own five foot nine, with a wiry strength and agility that reminded Lynch of a feral barn cat stalking its prey among the rafters. Rumor had it that Bowen had killed three panzer tank commanders during their retreat from France, shooting them as they stood in the cupolas of their moving tanks. If such feats of marksmanship were true, and having seen Bowen on the range, he could believe them, wherever they were being sent Lynch was extremely glad to have Rhys Bowen along.
Bowen noticed Lynch looking at him and leaned forward to talk over the rumble of the lorry’s wheels.
“Two corporals, three lance corporals, and five troopers. So where’s the subaltern and the sergeant?”
Lynch looked at the men around him. Sure enough, Bowen was right. Except for a lieutenant and senior non-commissioned officer, they made up the standard composition of a twelve-man Commando squad.
“Wherever we’re going, I imagine they’re waiting for us. Advance party and all that.”
Bowen smiled. “I hope they know I don’t like me sheets tucked in at the foot of the mattress.”
“And a hot bath ready when we get there - I’m covered in road dust,” Lynch replied.
A few minutes later, the lorry turned off the road and drove up to a farmhouse sitting in the middle of a large plot of land. A barn sat next to the farmhouse, with a chicken coop nearby. The fields looked like only a portion of the land had been tilled and planted; Lynch imagined that whatever young man or men had worked the fields in the past were either enlisted, or quite possibly, left to rot in France. It was yet another sobering reminder that, despite the protection afforded to England by the Channel, there was no mistaking a nation at war.
The lorry came to a stop, and before any of them could reach for it, the tailgate slammed down with a clang.
“ALLLL Right, ya wee spotty arses! On your feet, then, get out of the lorry!”
The highland burr was so thick, Lynch would need a sword-bayonet to hack his way through it. He looked at Bowen, who raised an eyebrow.
“A Scottish sergeant. Just what we bloody need,” Bowen said.
The ten Commandos piled out of the lorry.
Standing before them was the largest Scotsman Lynch had ever seen. An enormous brute of a man, the sergeant easily stood at six foot six, and must have weighed close to eighteen stone, seemingly all of it muscle. The Scotsman sported an impressive set of ginger muttonchops and a shaved pate, upon which was perched not the Commando’s traditional green beret but a green Tam O’Shanter with the Commando badge sewn in place.
The sergeant wore a pistol on his hip, not the usual Enfield, but as best Lynch could tell, a bigger, heavier Webley revolver. On the other side of the belt, next to his cartridge case, there hung a heavy Scottish dirk rather than the Commando’s Fairbairn-pattern dagger. Lynch was surprised the man wasn’t wearing a kilt.
Bowen leaned over and whispered in Lynch’s ear. “It appears we’ve resorted to training bears and equipping them with pistols and bonnets.”
The sergeant, true to the nature of all senior non-commissioned officers throughout history, had the hearing of a watch hound. In two massive strides he stepped over to Lynch and Bowen, where he towered over the smaller Welshman by more than a foot.
“What’s all this about bears? Ya wee little shit, I ought to twist your weedy neck until your head pops off and then piss down your windpipe!”
“Now, Dougal, let the boys be. They’ve had a long drive and are no doubt a bit restless.”
The newcomer stepped into view as the massive Scot backed away from the men. An inch or two taller than Lynch, and more slightly built, the dapper-looking lieutenant in front of them was young, probably in his late twenties, with a lean, boyish face and a shock of blond hair beneath his officer’s cap. The lieutenant’s uniform was immaculate, the creases sharp and precise, and it had no doubt been tailored to fit him perfectly. Unlike the sergeant, the lieutenant wore an Enfield revolver and a Fairbairn dagger next to his cartridge case.
The ten men all snapped a salute, which was promptly returned by the lieutenant, who then gestured them all at ease. The lieutenant, with the Scottish sergeant looking on, walked up and down the line of men, looking each of them in the eye and giving them a kind nod. This didn’t appear so much an inspection as it was a bit of informal greeting. Finally he stepped back and stood next to the sergeant.
“Hello boys, I am Lieutenant Price, formerly of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, now a subaltern of Colonel Durnford-Slater’s Three Commando. You’ve been sent here to serve under me and Sergeant McTeague because of one reason and one reason only.”
Price paused for emphasis, and punched his fist into his palm.
“You want to get stuck in with Jerry, and wring his bloody neck.”
The effect was immediate. Every man stood a little straighter, smiled or nodded, and several men muttered emphatic agreements. Lynch reserved his judgement; he had seen a number of officers in the BEF who wanted to get “stuck in with Jerry” the first week of May 1940, but by the third week were utterly demoralized...or dead.
Price continued. “Up until now, the Commando troops have been envisioned as fast-strike raiding forces, such as the men who landed at Lofoten last month. While the raid was successful, and there is no reason future raids won’t also be successful, there are three great problems: time, resources, and security. Even if a raid only numbers a few hundred men, it requires several times that number to supply, transport, and support those Commandos, and making sure all that comes together smoothly and quietly, without Jerry finding out, is going to be a headache for the War Office.
“What is needed, and what you will provide, are squad-sized units of men, eager to get back into the fight, and willing to risk it all for small-scale but vital raids across the Channel. We will operate on our own or with local resistance forces, for a few days at a time, just long enough to reach a target, destroy it, and escape back to England. It is going to be dangerous work, have no doubt about it. There will probably be casualties during every mission. But we will be striking at the Nazis quickly and repeatedly, far more often than the larger, Troop-sized missions carried out by Colonel Durnford-Slater and the other commanders.”
Price paused once more, hands tucked behind his back, looking over the faces of the men in front of him.
“Anyone who is not prepared to go forward with this assignment, fall out now. You will be returned to Largs immediately, with no mention of this on your record.”
Lynch waited. No one moved. This was what every man here had been waiting for; direct action against a German military unit.
Price smiled like a new father.
“Excellent. You have fifteen minutes to stow your kit, wash up, and be ready for a five-mile run. We have one week to prepare, so let’s get cracking.”
4
Boxhill, England
April 14th, 1941
Lynch slapped another magazine of twenty .45 calibre rounds into the Thompson submachine gun and racked back the bolt. The muzzle of the SMG was smoking, and the barrel itself was steaming in the light spring rain. Lynch continued striding forward, the Thompson at his shoulder, and he fired burst after burst towards the feldgrau-clad figures in front of him. Bits of uniform cloth and innards exploded away from the bullet’s impacts as Lynch shifted from one target to the next, each figure struck with a burst of three or four shots.
Finally the new magazine ran dry, and Lynch pulled the empty free before pulling a fully loaded magazine from his ammunition pouch. Loading the Thompson again, Lynch continued to fire and advance. To his left, he could hear the hammering roar of the Bren gun blazing away and to his right the sporadic fire coming from the rifles section as they fired shot after shot from their SMLEs.
Catching up while Lynch had been reloading, McTeague advanced past him,
another Thompson seemingly a toy in the sergeant’s massive hands. McTeague was firing while smoking a clay pipe, and Lynch could not imagine how anyone could be so calm that smoking a pipe while firing the eleven pound submachine gun was even possible.
“Come on, laddie! You have to move an’ fire faster or the Jerries will shoot you dead!”
Before Lynch could mutter a reply, a sharp whistle blast cut through the cacophony of weapons fire. Lynch brought the Thompson down from his shoulder and removed the magazine, rendering the weapon safe. In front of him, a dozen dummy targets made of wood, straw, and grey cloth were shredded by his gunfire. Looking to McTeague, Lynch saw the Scotsman unloading his own Thompson while shaking his head and muttering to himself.
“Not as good as you had hoped, Sergeant?” Lynch asked.
“Nae ever good enough for what I owe the Jerries, lad,” McTeague replied.
Lynch didn’t know what had happened while the Royal Scots Guards were in France, but Dougal McTeague was chomping at the bit to go back overseas. He could only imagine there was some lost comrade or relative whose death still haunted the brooding Scotsman, a gloom shared by everyone in the new squad. After a week of training together and learning to trust one another on the field, the one commonality they all seemed to share was that each held a personal grudge against the Nazis, a grudge that drove them to seek revenge even if it meant infiltrating into occupied territory entirely on their own.
Lynch, McTeague, and the rest of the squad left the target field out behind the Buckley farmhouse and walked back to the barn, where the enlisted men and junior non-commissioned officers like Lynch and Bowen were bivouacked. Although at first glance the barn might seem run down and ill-suited for a barracks, it was actually quite solidly built, and without livestock for at least a generation. Stalls had been given cots, a small pot-bellied stove had been set up in the corner, and tables and other arrangements were included. It was suitable for their living quarters and a place for the men to break down, clean, and inspect their weapons and equipment.
The Buckleys were an old married couple, well into their seventies, their sons lost in the Great War and their daughters lost to marriage. The husband was a pensioner and the wife did needlepoint and other embroideries, which were then picked up by another local farm family and sold in town. When the war came along, their farm was picked as a training ground for Price’s men, and the government paid the Buckleys a generous stipend for the use of their lodgings and land. For the men, it was an excellent arrangement. Mrs. Buckley made tea and toast and performed other minor cooking duties, although Price refused to let her cook for all twelve of them. Mr. Buckley helped construct their dummy targets or sweep up spent cartridge casings, and he continuously offered good cheer, encouraging the men to “go kill some of those bloody Huns for me”.
Lieutenant Price was waiting for the men as they came off the firing range.
“All right chaps, I’ve received tonight’s weather report over the wireless. The channel is going to be as calm as we can expect, so in five hours, two lorries will be here to collect us and our equipment. We’ll drive to the docks, board the trawler waiting for us, and off we go. See to your kit and get some food in your bellies. Mrs. Buckley has insisted on making you all dinner, despite my protestations, so be good lads and thank her before you tuck into the kidney pies.”
The men were dismissed to return to their cots and begin packing their weapons and equipment. Lynch took the time to strip, clean, and oil his Thompson submachine gun after the morning’s range work. In the last week, he had fired several thousand rounds through the weapon, ensuring that it functioned properly. He would be going into France with twelve 20-round magazines, but Lynch was nervous that it was not enough ammunition.
In addition to the Thompson, each of the men was issued an Enfield .38 calibre revolver and an extra twelve rounds of ammunition. Normally the line Commandos didn’t carry sidearms, but Lieutenant Price felt it important that every man have a pistol for close-quarters work and as a backup if their long gun was dropped or broken in combat. Along with the Enfield, Lynch tucked his Colt automatic in a jacket pocket, wore his Fairbairn dagger, and attached four Mills Bombs to his web gear. In his haversack, Lynch packed a block of plastic explosive and several time pencils, plus two spare magazines for the Bren gun (every man in the squad carried two spare magazines to distribute the Bren’s ammunition load) and two smoke grenades. This was in addition to a torch with several colored lenses for signalling, a compass, first aid kit, canteen, emergency rations, a small survival kit, a French language phrasebook, and two clean pairs of socks.
It was certainly a heavier kit than Lynch had carried to either Guernsey or Lofoten, but those raids had been supported and weren't expected to last more than a few hours. Tonight, they would be going into France on their own for at least thirty-six hours, possibly much longer. In theory, the French resistance fighters would be feeding them and providing other necessities, but the Commandos would be fools to rely on the locals. The squad could be stuck on the shoreline without a welcoming party, or worse, a welcoming party hosted by the Wehrmacht.
Lynch finished sorting his kit, and placed it near the assembly area. Of the twelve men in the squad, five of them were riflemen; troopers armed with SMLE rifles, grenades, and Enfield revolvers. One of the men, Trooper Harris, was the squad’s Bren loader and his pack was stuffed with a spare Bren barrel, tools, and a dozen thirty-round magazines for the machine gun. Another trooper, a man named Lewis, was the best shot among all the riflemen and served as Bowen’s spotter. He carried a high-powered field glass in addition to his usual kit. Trooper Hall was the squad’s field medic, and wore a large pack heavy with medical supplies. Despite Hall’s training and supplies, Lynch knew that if anyone was seriously wounded in France, they were as good as dead or captured.
Among the three lance corporals, Smith was the Bren gunner, and carried a substantial ammunition load for the light machine gun. Smith was a big man, the second tallest next to McTeague, and carried the Bren with deceptive ease. Nelson and White were the other lance corporals, each carrying a Thompson like Lynch, but Nelson also served as the squad’s demolitions expert, with ten one-pound charges and a number of different fuses and incendiaries. White was the team’s signals expert, and although the squad was not bringing with them a portable wireless set, he was well-trained in operating both Allied and German equipment. Price had informed them that the French resistance had access to a wireless set, and if so, White was to examine it and ensure its good working condition.
Finally, there were Price and McTeague. The sergeant carried the same kit as Lynch, save for his Webley revolver and the big Scottish dirk. Lynch had asked McTeague why he didn’t carry an Enfield like the rest of them. The sergeant had replied, “That wee gun? The shell is so weedy, I cannae tell if I fired it. I need a proper gun like my Webley to let me know it’s working right.”
Lieutenant Price did not arm himself with a Thompson, as Lynch would have expected. Instead, Price carried a weapon that at first glance appeared to be an old Bergmann submachine gun. But when Lynch inquired, Price was quick to point out that it was, in fact, a trials prototype of the Lanchester submachine gun. The lieutenant’s uncle was a senior staff officer in the Royal Navy, and had sent it along to Price in the hopes that it could “get some use in the field”. It had been designed for the British air force and navy, and Lynch was impressed with the high quality of workmanship, far better than even the well-designed Thompson.
“There is nothing wrong with the Thompson, of course,“ Price had said, “but I prefer a weapon that is entirely English in manufacture. It gives me a sense of pride to carry a firearm into battle crafted by Englishmen, for Englishmen.”
Lynch thought it best not to mention that the weapon was little more than a very well-made copy of a submachine gun built by the Germans a generation ago.
5
Off The Coast Of France
April 15th, 1941
Lynch and the other Commandos moved about the deck of the converted fishing trawler. To the east, one could make out a barely visible smudge of black running between the starry night sky and the dark waters of the Atlantic. It was the coast of occupied France, and the small town of Merlimont was just up the beach, a mile from where they planned to land.
The Commandos would use four rubber rafts, each crewed by three men. One man would serve as the navigator and observer, making sure the rafts stayed in close proximity to one another and no one got lost on the open ocean. The other two men would row with paddles, and with any luck, the squad would cross without incident. Each of the rafts would be heavily laden, not just with the men and their personal weapons and equipment, but with provisions the Commandos were taking to the resistance, mostly medical supplies, explosives and various incendiaries and fuses, as well as counterfeited currency, both French and German.
The crew of the trawler, all Royal Marine volunteers, were keeping a watch on the skies above, the water around them, and the shoreline ahead. The trawler was painted dark grey and blended well in the night, but a lucky glimpse from a periscope could still result in the deaths of everyone on board before anyone knew they had been torpedoed. There were mounts for three air-cooled Vickers machine guns at the bow, port, and starboard rails, and there was a mounting plate in the middle of the ship’s rear deck for a heavy mortar if it was needed. But for the most part, the ship’s best defense was its specially modified engine and noise baffles, which helped keep the throbbing of the diesel engine as quiet as possible.
One by one, each of the rafts was inflated with an air hose, lowered over the side of the trawler, and then manned and equipped before the raft was paddled a short distance away and the process repeated. Lynch was aboard the third raft, and as the corporal aboard, served as the observer and navigator. Price, McTeague, and Bowen were each aboard a separate raft. In the event of an ambush or attack while making their way to shore, this ensured there was a man aboard each raft who had the experience and rank needed to lead the rest of the squad. Lynch didn’t much care for the possibility that he would be in charge, but it was a necessary burden of even his modest non-commissioned rank.
Commando- The Complete World War II Action Collection Volume I Page 3
