by Tim Saunders
Training
Despite the seemingly sudden change of plan, in which the commandos took over responsibility for the preliminary attacks from airborne forces, the experienced commandos were essentially well prepared. Now under the command of a new breed of leader, both No. 3 and 4 Commandos went into a period of intensive, tough and realistic training. Fitness was honed, along with skill at arms. After they had been given all available details of the battery, task-specific training was organised, such as placing demolition charges to ensure destruction of gun positions. No 4 Commando returned to Dorset to be billeted in houses at Weymouth, where in spite of posters reminding the locals that walls have ears, their comings and goings were the subject of some discussion. In the harbour and bay, they trained on boats and used the Isle of Purbeck cliffs to practise climbing. Individual components of the raid gradually came together as the commando repeatedly ‘raided’ the cliff tops around Lulworth Cove. The whole package culminated in a ‘raid’ on a position inland from Whorbarrow Bay, but, as in the case of the Canadian Yukon exercises, there were navigational difficulties. Sailing in the dark, from the point where they transferred into their assault craft some ten miles off shore to a small bay at the foot of the Dorset cliffs, proved to be a significant challenge. However, after improvements in the navigational arrangements, No. 4 Commando was ready.
Hard physical training both in its own right and during tactical exercises created robust soldiers
Cliff climbing was an important part of commando training
The Commando Plan
Lord Lovat’s plan for his 265 officers and soldiers (including a photographer), plus a handful of US Rangers and Free French commandos, was similar to that of No. 3 Commando. He said, ‘My task was fundamentally: in and out – smash and grab.’ Lovat planned to split his force into two groups, who would attack the battery respectively from the front and the rear. His Second-in-Command, Major Derek Mills-Roberts, led Group 1, which was to be the fire support group, landing on Orange Beach 1 at Vasterville. This group consisting of C Troop, a section of A Troop, the 3-inch mortar Section, the 2-inch mortar and Boys Anti-tank rifle sections. Their task was to advance on the battery to a point where they could bring it under effective fire in order to cover Group 2’s assault. Lieutenant Colonel Lord Lovat and the remainder of the commando forming Group 2 would land to the east of the River Saane at Quiberville, which was known as Orange Beach II. While Major Mills-Roberts and his party would engage the enemy from the front, with small arms and mortars, Lovat’s Group 2, consisting of 164 men (B and F Troops and a section of A Troop), would double-march on a route up la Vallee Saane and approach the battery from the south-western flank. ‘The intention then was to carry the battery by storm, by the speed, fury and surprise of an attack from the rear.’ As already mentioned, Group 2 would attack with the covering fire of Major Mills-Roberts’s group, which included 3-inch mortar HE and smoke. Coordinated with the assault was an air strike by a total of twelve cannon-firing Spitfires of 129 Squadron, flying out of Thorney Island.
Lieutenant Colonel The Lord Lovat, Commanding Officer of No. 4 Commando
Once taken, the Hess Battery was to be destroyed by commando-trained Royal Engineers of F Troop, who were to carry heavy packs of explosives throughout the raid. Meanwhile, the command post was to be rifled for anything of intelligence interest. C Troop was to form a beachhead at Orange Beach I., through which the whole of the Commando would withdraw.
Orange Beach II
No. 4 Commando was embarked on HMS Prince Albert – a former Belgian cross-Channel ferry, pressed into service as a Landing Ship Infantry (Small). Accompanying them was Steam Gun boat 9 (SGB Grey Goose) skippered by Lieutenant Peter Scott, later a renowned ornithologist and artist. He recalled:
‘A warm wind was blowing from the French coast, laden with the smell of hayfields but I could not yet see the land. . . It flashed three times, then twenty seconds later it flashed three times again. The Germans had left their lighthouse burning to guide us. Then we were achieving surprise!’
According to the ship’s log, Prince Albert hove-to at 0258 hours, some seven miles from the coast. The commandos disembarked into seven Landing Craft Assault (LCA). These craft were larger than the R Craft used by No. 3 Commando, and could carry about thirty men each: their upper works were lightly armoured, offering protection against small arms and shell splinters. With the lighthouse flashing away, the landing-craft flotilla’s commander, Lieutenant Commander Mulleneux, had an easier navigational task than was anticipated, especially after the exercise off the Dorset coast! He later modestly commented that this was ‘thanks largely to the fact that Point d’Ailly showed for about five minutes every quarter of an hour, and that the harbour lights of Dieppe were kept burning.’
An extract from the 1:50k map covering 4 Commando’s area of operation
At 0350 hours, only just after star shells glimmered on the horizon to the east as No 3 Commando encountered the tanker and her escort, No. 4 Commando’s straightforward run-in was nearly compromised. Another German convoy of three vessels was heading east to Dieppe under cover of darkness: it was probably for their benefit that the lighthouse was operating. Lieutenant Commander Mulleneux and his crew spotted the ships, and ‘considered it prudent to evade... The course of the flotilla was therefore altered fairly drastically to starboard in order to pass well clear and astern of the suspicious vessels.’ Having luckily avoided sharing what would have been a similar fate as No. 3 Commando, the small flotilla pressed on, divided into their two groups at the appointed spot two miles from the coast, and headed for the Orange Beaches.
The final twenty minutes of the run-in to Quiberville Beach (Orange II) were uneventful. The roar of Rolls-Royce engines broke the stillness, as two cannon-firing Spitfires from 129 Squadron dived on the lighthouse observation post and its two 36mm anti-aircraft guns. The evidence of digging around the lighthouse on air photos had led COHQ intelligence officers to overestimate the defences, hence the perceived necessity of neutralising the OP area. According to Lieutenant Peter Scott aboard the Grey Goose, the net result was that:
‘. . . streams of . . . white tinselly tracer went up from the battery round the lighthouse, which seemed to consist of about five guns. To the eastward along the coast was more tracer, but all going upwards – still the landing craft were undetected.’
Even with the coastal positions fully alert (and now located by the commandos) it was not until the craft were approaching Orange Beach II that Lovat’s landing craft were spotted. Flares arced into the sky from pillboxes overlooking the beach at Quiberville. However, with admirable timing, a second attack by three spitfires served to distract the enemy, and the leading flight of landing craft touched down exactly at Zero-Hour, about twenty yards apart. However, the commandos of A Troop were soon under fire from several Spandaus as they dashed across the shingle of the beach to the low cliffs. Here Lieutenant Vasey’s men fitted together their lightweight tubular steel ladders and were soon up the eastern cliff, heading for two pillboxes. Lieutenant Scott wrote:
‘The pillbox at the eastern end of Orange II opened fire along the beach, and the fire was returned by the Landing Craft Support. The Huns behind the beach fired a six-star green firework – no doubt an invasion signal – and the party was on!’
The machine-gun fire was coming from just one of the pillboxes. Two commandos fell wounded as the leading section fought its way forward. A further two were hit as they reached grenade-throwing distance. The first position was knocked-out with well placed No. 36 Grenades. Sergeant Stempson, one of two US Rangers attached to A Troop, spotted a German dashing towards the second pillbox with an ammunition carrier. Stempson opened fire and later commented that ‘when you hit them, they rolled over like jackrabbits.’
Meanwhile, Lord Lovat and the second flight of landing craft touched down on Quibberville Beach, further to the west, near the mouth of the River Saane. Under fire from machine guns and mortars, the Commanding Officer
described Orange II as ‘a nasty beach, quite a steep affair, and the wire on the top of it in the half-light looked almost as high as a ceiling.’ Under these conditions, the threat that any man who went to ground on the beach would have his name taken and be ‘returned to unit’ once back in England, seemed superfluous. However, Lovat justified his threats:
‘If we had hesitated on that beach, as some do when they get windy, and flop down, we would have been in trouble. When that happens with bad troops, you’ve had it, you can’t get them up again. But these men really tore the wire apart in a way which I can’t believe was possible, looking back on it. They rolled about in it and went through like loose forwards following a rugger ball.’
The point on Orange Beach II where, Lord Lovat’s Group landed. The large casemate fallen on the beach is a later war replacement to the 1942 position.
The memorial marking the point where the commandos forced their way through the German wire.
Through sheer determination, the commandos had forced their way through piles of dannert coils fifteen feet deep. A breaching – or rather flattening – team, wearing leather jerkins and carrying rolls of hessian sacking and chicken wire, made a path through the fence. However, mortar fire thinned their numbers, and other commandos dived into the fray and with their bodies produced a viable route through the wire. Group 2 were off the beach.
One unexpected victim of the struggle through the wire was Troop Commander Lieutenant Gilchrist’s battle-dress trousers. Snagged on barbs as the wearer forced his way through the clutching coils, his braces broke, and the officer’s trousers fell down and he dashed inland ‘clutching trousers in one hand, Tommy gun in the other.’
At this point, enemy machine-gun fire switched to the LCAs, who represented an easier target while they withdrew from the beach under clouds of smoke. The Germans had clearly failed to impress on their men the importance of priority targets: in this situation, empty landing craft could not be regarded as a priority. Meanwhile, mortar shells began to fall on a virtually deserted beach. Though the main body of the commandos were through the wire obstacle, Lord Lovat left on the beach a group of medics to treat casualties, and Lieutenant Vasey’s section of A Troop, who were to dominate the cliffs to the east of the beach. Sadly, those left on the beach were taken prisoner or were killed, in some cases by friendly fire.
One of Lieutenant Vasey’s tasks was to cut telephone wires in order to deny the Germans communication along the coastline. In a pre-planned action, Trooper Finney climbed onto the shoulders of Trooper Brady to reach the top of a telegraph pole and cut the wires. The pair were seen and engaged by the German infantry, but despite rounds smacking into the pole and cracking past their heads, neither man was hit. Trooper Finney was awarded the Military Medal for his part in paralysing this section of the German coastal communications network that relied heavily on fixed line rather than radio.
Orange Beach I
Two miles out, Major Mills-Roberts’s group of three LCAs separated from the main force, with Lord Lovat’s wishes for ‘good luck’ called out across the sea. A Herald reporter, AB Austin, who was accompanying the raid, wrote:
‘As we nosed in under the Dieppe cliffs, I heard a Commando whisper to his mate, “Don’t forget the other bastards is twice as scared as you.” One question worried all of us in those last silent twenty minutes after the long cramped voyage in the starlight. Would the Germans be ready for us? The thought of it made me hang, in my rising funk, on to the thoughts that the “other bastards” were twice as scared as I. A sergeant crouching in front of me kept up a whispered running commentary: “About 500 yards now... see the cliffs? ...There’s the crack we want... Look at the Jerry tracer bullets. Don’t think they’re firing at us though... hundred yards now... fifty.”’
Heading for an ill-defined cleft in the cliff at Varengeville, Lieutenant Commander Mulleneux landed the force at exactly the correct point, undetected by the enemy, even though he spotted a figure on the cliff top! Group 1 touched down only three minutes late. However, they found the eastern gully so choked with barbed wire that they could not get through. Time was passing, and the sky grew gradually lighter: the commandos had to get inland to cover the attack on the battery. So Major Mills-Roberts gave permission to use two Bangalore torpedoes to blow a way up via a second gully, which contained steps for peace-time bathers. Major Mills commented that ‘I realised it was likely to sacrifice surprise, but progress otherwise was impossible and time was paramount.’ The gully was about twenty feet wide, and beyond it, a long narrow valley ran inland towards some woods that sheltered the shuttered villas of the seaside community of Vasterival-sur-Mer. However, the detonation of the Bangalore Torpedo did not produce an immediate reaction from the enemy, who were spread too thinly to guard every gully up from a possible landing beach.
The cleft in the cliffs that backed Orange Beach. It was successfully located by Commander Mulleneux on the run in.
With the words of Sergeant Major Dunning to ‘Get a bloody move on!’ ringing in their ears, Captain Dawson’s Troop struggled through mud and the shredded wire and on up the steps. At 0520 hours, the two sections moved inland via the valley and began to search the houses of Vasterival. Following them were the mortar section and Major Mills-Roberts’s headquarters. As they went up the valley, the commandos spotted an unoccupied position on the spur between the two gullies. There has been some speculation that the figure seen on the cliff was a sentry who had abandoned his position when he saw the LCAs approaching. It is also thought that an isolated rifleman who took pot shots at the troop could have been this man. He was clearly not a sniper, as he was promptly ‘killed as he broke cover.’
An LCA touches down on Orange I Beach just after dawn.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Carr and his section of A Troop were heading west to cut the lighthouse OP’s telephone cable. However, the Germans may already have passed their fire control orders, as 813 Batterie opened fire on the main landing force, now clearly visible out to sea. Major Mills-Roberts wrote:
‘Our orders were that the battery had to be knocked out by 6.30 a.m. The convoy appeared to be well ahead of schedule. There was no doubt about this: all the operation orders for the raid had been written ones, and ours were in strict conformity with the main plan. Fifty minutes had been clipped from our very close timetable. It was no good cursing some erratic staff work on the part of someone outside our orbit - the only thing to do was to improvise as fast as possible. Our plan had been to search the houses and ground between the cliffs and the battery. Now it was imperative that we cut this out and reach the battery at once. It would be another fifty minutes before Lovat’s party could get round by the Saane Valley and be in their forming-up position prior to the assault.’
Major Mills-Roberts, his mortar officer, and their signallers ‘raced up through the wood,’ gathering Lieutenant Style’s section from their houses-searching as they went. The battery fired six deafening salvoes in close succession. However, the route through the wood was:
‘... heavy going, as the undergrowth was waist high: the only advantage was that no one else appeared to have used it for a long time... Any idea of pushing through the undergrowth with stealth was out, and we were crashing ahead like a herd of elephants.’
Suddenly the cover gave way. They were at the edge of the wood and topping a rise, Mills-Roberts and his men came face to face with the battery:
‘Ennis and I dropped; so did the others. We worked our way forward to a patch of scrub, some fifty yards in front of the wood and about a hundred yards from the perimeter wire of the battery. There was a good view from here, and we heard the words of command distinctly as the battery fired another salvo.’
From this exposed position, they spotted a barn off to the right. Returning to the cover of the wood, Major Mills-Roberts collected a pair of snipers from Lieutenant Styles’ troop, and as they broke into the building, they:
‘... had a magnificent view of the six big guns and the crews serving
them, and had just time to see the three right-hand guns fire a salvo. We ordered one of the snipers to get ready, and pointed out his target. He settled himself on a table, taking careful aim. These Bisley types are not to be hurried; we waited whilst he took the first pressure... At last the rifle cracked; it was a bull’s-eye, and one of the Master Race took a toss into the gun pit.’
The Germans were ‘shocked and surprised,’ and soon the remainder of Lieutenant Styles’ commandos, deployed in covered positions around the barn, joined the sniping at a range of just 170 yards from the battery with their SMLE rifles and Bren guns. The German gunners were driven into the cover of their concrete positions. Mills-Roberts wrote:
‘It was up to us to see that they did not load again either to shell the main convoy or to attempt to destroy the smaller fry to their front... we didn’t relish the idea of having those six-inch guns turned on us.’
Among Major Mills-Roberts Group were two US Rangers. Corporal Koons is credited with being the first American soldier to kill a German in Europe during the Second World War. Taking up a position in the barn with his Garand rifle, he ‘found a splendid spot for sniping, just over the manger, and I fired through a slit in the brick wall.’
