Midnight Raid

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Kneipe watched, cursing with frustration, tracer tearing into his bows. In the faintly starlit gloom he saw the men at the 20 mm gun die, fall wounded, and one pitch over the side.

  He called to the helmsman to go about, as he signalled “Slow” to the engine room. He was not a man to abandon any member of his crew, however close the enemy. As the S boat slowly turned back to face the way she had come, he leaned over the side of the bridge, peering down at the water for the man overboard; if he were still alive, which was unlikely.

  Bullets from two Bren guns, 500 rounds a minute from each, at 2400 feet a second, hammered into the wooden hull. The Bren magazine held 30 rounds, but was prone to jamming if fully loaded. It was never, therefore, loaded with more than 29 rounds, and, in B Troop, on Tarrant’s orders, with 28. It therefore took a fraction over three seconds to empty one magazine. The Bren gunners each hosed two magazine-loads into the S boat: some at the bridge, most into the hull.

  Kneipe felt a numbing blow on the left shoulder, just below the collarbone. His boat was going away from the assault craft and he was leaning over the port bridge wing: thus his back was exposed to enemy fire. A second bullet struck him, further down the back, and blood from his punctured lung began to gush from his mouth. Flames sizzled in the radio cabin, where Bren bullets had caused short circuits, wrecked some of the equipment and started a fire.

  The boat, badly holed along the hull, and with a large chunk torn out of her counter, on the starboard quarter, where the stern joined the side, listed sharply and began to settle in the water, sinking.

  *

  Braun did not hold a monopoly in inefficiency. The corporal signaller was idle and lacked initiative. First class troops were not posted to backwaters like Olafsund: with the exception of a few officers of the calibre of Redlich and Bissinger, a handful of senior N.C.O.s, and the half-battalion of infantry, which had seen action in Norway in 1940 and, some of them, in France. Braun had wangled this corporal’s promotion because they sometimes sniggered together in out-of-the-way corners over indecent magazines, allegedly dedicated to “naturism”, but none of which ever depicted the female body.

  The whole island garrison erupted into a ferment of activity. The corporal sat at his post, awaiting orders.

  Braun was scampering about piping commands in his shrill voice, as excited as though he had been turned loose, bollock-naked, in a room full of brawny sailors who had been in solitary confinement for six months.

  His searchlight had been shot out before it could cast its beam on any of the assault boats. He screeched at both gun crews to fire into the sea, judging the place whence the spurts of tracer had come. This made about as good sense as trying to balance one-footed on a greasy pool over a shark tank. The guns, firing over open sights, could not be depressed enough to hit anything closer than 500 yards away; and the assault boats were within half that distance when they fired on the light. The huge muzzle-flashes of the guns, however, provided the Commandos with excellent aiming marks.

  H.Q. Troop carried two Bren guns in the leading boat and one in each of the others. The Colonel’s opened up on one of the 10.5 cm fieldguns and the others began shooting at the other: while 32 lb shells hurtled overhead and exploded on the sea, far behind, throwing up great pillars of foam.

  The three assault boats had spread out and the fire from the two that each carried a single Bren converged on their target from a wide angle. The crew behind that German gun died early in the fight. The other crew lasted a little longer. Braun himself, rushing excitedly between one and the other, was caught on open ground and killed in the most appropriate manner: by bullets that riddled him through the buttocks and penetrated to his intestines.

  The assault boats bearing all but C Troop turned away from the island as soon as the guns there ceased fire. C Troop carried on as planned, up the northern side of the fjord until it reached the point at which it would turn towards the chosen landing place on the island’s northern side.

  There were no machine-guns on the island. Neither the artillery nor the searchlight unit was established for them; moreover, the purpose of garrisoning Island One had been to repel enemy ships, not small assault boats. Had there been even one Spandau, it would have killed and wounded several Commandos, merely by firing in an arc, parallel with the water and four feet above it. It would soon have been silenced by a Bren, aiming at its muzzle flash, but not before it had inflicted damage.

  Elated by the fact that the gun crews were already dead, and, although the attack by C Troop would now be expected, the defence must be weak, the Colonel radioed to the commander of C Troop to send one section on, to join the section of D Troop that would be on stand-by at the harbour mouth, when Island One had been taken.

  The booming of the 10.5 cm guns, meanwhile, had been heard in Olafsund, even though no radio signal announcing enemy attack had been received.

  It was only when a sergeant burst into the signals hut to confirm that the corporal had reported the presence of the enemy to Headquarters, that the Operations Room there received the warning.

  Bissinger, who was on duty in the Operations Room that night, had already roused Redlich, on hearing the distant gunfire.

  Redlich, before even getting out of bed, had barked down the telephone that he was to get on to the naval Duty Officer at once and order an S boat to investigate down the fjord without delay.

  *

  C Troop, heading for Island One, was faced with a totally different set of circumstances from those envisaged in the plan of attack. Instead of a surprised enemy, was one that was fully alert. In place of an assault in which no shots would be fired, if possible, because the Commandos would take their victims completely by surprise and kill them with knives, garottes, bare hands and booted feet, until any survivors surrendered, they would have to shoot their way in.

  The two boats surged abreast towards the narrow beach, everyone keeping his head below the gunwale, only the officers peeping over the ramp: the troop commander and one section commander in one boat, the other section commander in its companion.

  At least there was no searchlight to illuminate them as though they were targets in a fairground shooting gallery. But their bows, cutting across the tide and the direction of the wind-driven waves, brewed up a flurry of white water; and the starlight, though faint, was enough, to eyes accustomed to the darkness, to show up the solid black of the boats.

  Rifle shots and lines of tracer from machine pistols smacked against the hulls and arced, sparkling, across the quickly narrowing distance between boats and shore. Men cried out as bullets found their mark. A Bren in each boat sprayed the dimly seen ground behind the strip of white sand: this forced the enemy to keep their heads down and thus reduce their fire; but it also gave away the direction from which the attack was coming, and therefore brought every German soldier on the island running to the defence.

  Rifle and Schmeisser bullets smashing through the bow ramp, before it was lowered, killed two men and wounded five. When the ramp went down, the troop commander was shot dead in the instant that he leaped out of the boat into the shallow water. Storming ashore, Bren gunners firing from the hip, Tommy and Sten guns scattering bullets ahead and to right and left, the Commandos lost four more killed and ten wounded. They began to hurl grenades, falling prone while these burst, and the riflemen charged with fixed bayonets.

  In the chaotic darkness the enemy fell back amid the din of shots and explosions, the yells of the riflemen as they thrust cold steel into yielding flesh, the screams and sobs of the wounded, the wails of the dying, the calls for surrender.

  In ten minutes of hard fighting the island was taken. The survivors were herded into a barrack hut and bound hand and foot, while most of the Commandos were already taking up defensive positions and manning the 10.5 cm guns in preparation for a counterattack from the town.

  The Colonel received the report that the island was in their hands, on his voice set, at the same time that an S boat slipped out of the harbour and
headed westward.

  *

  The assault boats had altered course again and were once more hugging the shores, risking more traps. Now that the alarm must have been given to enemy Headquarters in Olafsund, the Commandos expected a flotilla of boats to come seeking them, shining their searchlights, sweeping from shore to shore. By staying as close under the cliffs as they dared, they would be less easily seen. This, however, put them in danger of being wrecked on the rocks and the increased motion of the boats aggravated the discomfort of the seasick.

  Taggart kept his eyes on the jutting cliff around which lay the sliver of beach where they must disembark. He left it to the midshipman to keep the boat off the rocks.

  The tall bluff was at the same time a threat and a promise of shelter. The small cove at its foot must give the troop’s two boats some protection from the waves if they were to provide stable enough platforms from which to launch the rockets accurately. Even so, would the wind deflect the rockets and the climbing ropes attached to them?

  There were still 200 yards to cover, when the throb of an S boat’s engine reached Taggart’s ears. He turned his head, the better to hear it. The sound was reverberating from the cliff that lined the side of the fjord along which B Troop’s craft were creeping.

  He turned and shouted: “Snotty… Full speed, please… both engines.”

  A few seconds later the second engine fired and everyone aboard felt the jerk as its thrust was added to its twin and the boat accelerated.

  Taggart peered into the gloom, straining to see the S boat’s bow wave.

  From the corner of his left eye he saw tall, snaggle-toothed rocks unervingly close to the boat’s port side. But dead ahead he could now make out the pale crescent of sand.

  He saw the bow wave of the speeding S boat at the moment that the assault craft thrust its blunt nose past the arm of the cove which sheltered the beach from open water. A few seconds more, and the two assault boats were hidden by it; as the S boat sped past.

  Suddenly, the water was calmer and Taggart felt the dragging beneath his feet and heard the grating of the craft’s bottom as its bows rode onto the sand and a few feet up the sloping beach. The ramp slammed down and the men began to rush ashore.

  Looking to his right, Taggart saw that Gowland’s boat was also firmly aground and the men in it were landing as quickly as the others.

  The rockets tore up towards the cliff top with a sharp report, a flash of flame and long, whirring sigh. Presently six ropes dangled down the cliff face, firmly held by grapnels. Taggart was the first to begin climbing.

  He had climbed only a few feet when he heard the rapid fire which he recognised must come from the S boat’s 20 mm cannon, a few hundred yards down the fjord. This was followed at once by the rattle of a Bren.

  He paused for a moment and looked back over his shoulder. He could see the tracer glittering in long streams from boat to boat. He wondered how long it would be before more enemy craft came hurrying out from Olafsund to sink all the rest of the assault boats on this side of the fjord and kill or drown their occupants.

  At that moment it looked as though only B Troop and the three troops on the south side of the fjord would be left to make the main assault.

  When he was half way up the cliff he heard more shooting. Looking back once more, he saw that Bren guns were firing tracer from the direction of the other shore: at least one boat must have broken away from the three troops there, H.Q., Heavy Weapons and E, to tackle the S boat.

  *

  The assault craft that was carrying the section of D Troop which was to stand by in reserve near the harbour entrance had come suddenly to a stop when the engine, without warning, coughed out a gout of oily smoke and died.

  The petty officer in command had immediately started the second engine; but it, too, had begun to hiccup and falter, and give less than half power: so that presently the boat was wallowing along at about one knot.

  This happened when the boat was still well out in the fjord, before it had had time to close the gap between it and the north shore.

  The S boat’s light, sweeping in a wide arc, fell on it from a distance of 400 yards and she turned at once to attack. The first burst of 20 mm fire punched several holes in the hull, killed the helmsman and wounded the petty officer. The second burst killed three Commandos and wounded six. The third burst made the boat list heavily as water poured into it.

  The section’s Bren gun began shooting before the enemy’s second burst; and kept on until the gunner was killed and dropped his weapon overboard.

  The Colonel, on the other side of the narrow waterway, did not hesitate. He called to the sub-lieutenant to close up on Abberly’s boat. In half a minute the two craft were almost gunwale-to-gunwale, and the Colonel shouted across to his second-in-command.

  “Hugh… take the W/T pack set and operator aboard, quickly… I’m going after that bastard…”

  The signaller heaved his long-range radio set into the other boat, hands grabbed him and dragged him after it. In a flurry of spray, with both engines going now, the Colonel’s boat bore away towards the S boat. At 200 yards’ range both the Bren gunners aboard began shooting. Their first burst was aimed at the 20 mm gun, and killed its crew. The second was aimed at the 37 mm gun in the stern, which had not been able to bear on the D Troop craft. The S boat put sharply about and her searchlight shone full on her attacker. In two seconds a Bren had shattered it.

  In the teeth of heavy fire from both Brens, the S boat rammed the Colonel’s craft.

  Her bows sliced right through Lieutenant Colonel Beauchamp-Ballantrae. Half the other occupants of the boat were killed, injured or stunned by the tremendous impact. All those who had been badly hurt or knocked unconscious, drowned. The German sailors hauled the Adjutant and 14 other ranks out of the sea. The S boat, listing and down at the bows, where water was gushing in through holes blasted by the Brens, limped back to harbour with her dead, her wounded and her prisoners.

  Abberly, who had been watching through night glasses, knew that, whether or not the Colonel had survived, he was now in command. He felt as though he had been coshed at the base of the skull.

  Chapter Eleven

  Major Redlich, in his Operations Room, was in his element. A map painted on a table four metres long by two meters wide depicted the whole length of the fjord and a street plan of the town. On it, small wooden symbols showed the disposition of his forces: with the exception of the fighter squadron, whose airfield was beyond its limits. He stood looking at his plotting table with a sense of exaltation and of being destined to add to his many distinctions by this night’s work. Here was his chance to earn another rapid promotion.

  The first signal received had been from Kneipe, to say that he had intercepted four assault craft and was engaging them. This was the alarm that had roused Redlich from sleep. It had been the most welcome event since his arrival in Norway. The second signal had come from Island One, to report the sinking of the S boat and the launching of an enemy attack on the island. The third signal had been cut short after the opening message that the 10.5 cm gun crews had been killed and the enemy had landed.

  Several attempts to raise Island One had failed, and it was obvious that it had been taken.

  The sinking of Kneipe’s S boat and the capture of Island One had angered, but not alarmed, Redlich. Only four assault boats did not suggest a formidable force. Even supposing there were another four, that had not been spotted, there was still no cause for worry.

  Redlich telephoned to the naval Duty Room and gave orders to the Duty Officer. “I want a minesweeper to prepare to sail in twenty minutes. The enemy has taken the western island, half way down the fjord. I am calling for an air strike. The minesweeper is to stand off four hundred metres and illuminate the island with flares as soon as the captain hears the aircraft directly overhead. After the strafe, she can close in and bombard with her cannon.”

  *

  The Duty Officer on the airfield roused Zirkenbach, then,
on his orders, summoned the two duty pilots in the Readiness Room. By the time Zirkenbach reached the flight line, the pilots were finishing their cockpit checks. He hurried to the Control Tower to speak to them before they took off.

  “Number Two, you circle three hundred metres over the target while your leader makes his attack.”

  “Understood.”

  “Don’t take any unnecessary risks and don’t waste any ammunition. If the enemy puts up any return fire, you keep out of the way, Number Two. And both of you: if you can’t see the target well enough, demand more flares.”

  Zirkenbach watched his first pair take off and head for the fjord. They switched off their navigation lights when they left the circuit: separated by 500 metres in height and the No 2 500 metres astern of his leader, to avoid collision risk.

  He would lead the next pair himself.

  *

  Leutnant Zimmer was at his southern redoubt within ten minutes of being wakened. He had none of Redlich’s sense of destiny for fame, and took his sergeant aside to speak to him in private.

  “I don’t want to dampen the men’s keenness, Sergeant, but I think we’re in for a disappointment. The enemy clearly meant to surprise us. Had it not been for Leutnant Kneipe being delayed, they would probably have done so.” (He knew nothing about the traps that Scherer had laid and into one of which Taggart had run.) “I think they will pull out straight away. The obvious target here is the factory. They couldn’t get at the power station without going through the town, for they won’t be able to get up the cliffs. Taking the factory would mean a sabotage raid by a very small force. If it has already been badly depleted, my bet is that it has withdrawn.”

  He dashed across to the northern redoubt and expressed this opinion to the sergeant in charge there, where he stayed, because it was the closer of the two to H.Q.

  When, later, he saw the second S boat leave harbour and, soon after, heard its cannon and the hammering of the Brens, he modified his view but did not change it.