Night Raid

by Taylor Downing

  On decoding the message, Rémy immediately called up one of the leaders of his northern section, the man he had named Pol, whose real name was Roger Dumont. Pol came over to Rémy’s flat that evening. The two men discussed the message and what it could mean. They studied the local Michelin map of the area. Dumont knew there were well-guarded German radio installations just to the north of the spot they were being asked to reconnoitre. But it didn’t sound to them as if the British were planning a bombing mission, so they concluded they must be thinking of organising some sort of coastal raid and needed ground intelligence about what they would be up against.

  Rémy instructed Pol to carry out the investigation as discreetly as possible. If the area was well defended it was not going to be easy to uncover the details the British were asking for. Rémy asked Pol how long he needed. ‘Ask them to give me a fortnight,’ replied Pol. As Rémy bade him goodbye, he said, ‘Watch yourself now, my dear fellow.’

  Pol sought the local services of another underground agent he knew only by the nickname of Charlemagne. The agent’s real name was Charles Chauveau and he knew this stretch of coast well. A garage proprietor and mechanic in Le Havre, he was one of the few Frenchmen who had a permit to drive anywhere in the Département of Seine-Inférieure, which covered the coastal area around Bruneval.3 He was allowed access in order to visit and repair cars that had broken down. After a few days, Pol met up with Charlemagne and travelled to Le Havre. They stayed overnight in a hotel Charlemagne knew where no questions would be asked and no identity cards were needed. But it was bitterly cold, the room was damp and Pol sat up fully dressed all night, shivering.

  The next morning the two men headed off along the coast road in Charlemagne’s French Simca car, its permit to travel clearly on display in the windscreen. Charlemagne had obtained chains for two of his tyres, as he had been warned that the steep roads in the Bruneval area were covered with up to two feet of snow lying on compacted ice.

  Pol and Charlemagne kept to the side roads, driving cautiously through this heavily garrisoned stretch of coast not wanting to attract attention. Before too long they entered Bruneval village from the east, and one of the first houses they came to was the Hotel Beau-Minet. This was a well-known establishment that had opened in 1914 in a nineteenth-century chateau that used to belong to the local count. Located in a quiet, tranquil and fairly remote valley, in the 1920s and 1930s the hotel was often used on weekday nights by couples who wanted to get away for a discreet romantic break. Questions were never asked about whether the couple were married or not. At weekends the Beau-Minet became a seaside hotel used by local families. The fifteen rooms were well appointed and, rarely for its time, the hotel had central heating, meaning it could stay open for most of the year.4

  Charlemagne knew the couple who ran the hotel, Paul Vennier and his Swiss wife, and believed they would be willing to tell Pol what they knew. He was right. The couple were happy to explain that sixty Luftwaffe men were stationed in a big square of farm buildings called Le Presbytère, just to the north on the cliffs. This was the spot near Theuville where the Germans had built the radio transmitters that Pol already knew of. It was obviously a closely guarded fortification, and the fact that it was manned by the Luftwaffe meant that it must have something to do with aircraft communications.

  But when Pol asked about the other building on the cliff tops, the Venniers admitted that they knew nothing about what had happened to the large villa up there since the Germans had occupied the area, nor did they know who was based there. A strange structure, clad in flint, with tall, steep roofs, the Villa Gosset had been built in the 1930s by a renowned surgeon, Professor Antonin Gosset, as a summer retreat by the sea. It was a well-known local landmark but, of course, the Venniers explained, it was now a military area and no civilian had been allowed up there for some time. They spoke about taking food and supplies up to Le Presbytère, but no one had been to the lone villa or the radio station nearby. They confirmed there was a guard post in another old seaside villa down by the beach named Stella Maris. Here there were about ten men who kept guard and manned the machine-gun positions. The Venniers thought they were not manned all the time but that the gunners could take up their positions quickly, within a few minutes.

  They told their visitors that the Bruneval garrison consisted of an infantry platoon of thirty men under an enthusiastic and energetic sergeant. They were quartered in the hotel itself, which was now closed to all other visitors. The Venniers said they thought the troops were of a high calibre and were kept on their toes as the whole stretch of coast swarmed with German units that were regularly coming and going, some of them armoured.

  The Venniers were taking a great risk in passing on this information about German military activity. If caught, they might face execution or, at best, transportation to a concentration camp. They would never have talked like this to strangers, but because Charlemagne was well known to them, they trusted him. They asked no questions as to why they were being quizzed. Far better, they realised, not to know.5

  At the end of the conversation, Pol turned to Charlemagne. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s go and have a look at the sea.’

  ‘Oh, that’s impossible,’ Monsieur Vennier responded. ‘The beach is mined.’

  ‘Well, let’s go and have a look anyway,’ Pol insisted, and the two men headed off down the road towards the coast. They walked down through a sort of gorge cut between steep sloping cliffs on either side. Before the war this had obviously been a beautiful, peaceful spot. After a few hundred yards they came to a large barbed wire entanglement blocking the road. To the right, climbing the steep cliff side, was a path heading in the direction of the mysterious radio units on the cliff tops. Next to the barbed wire was the old seaside villa called Stella Maris. It was large and had clearly once been quite grand, but was now looking rather neglected and its paint was peeling off. Alongside it were large signs daubed with the message Achtung Minen! A tall German sentry emerged from the villa to see what the two visitors were up to.

  Charlemagne spoke good German and in a cheerful, jokey manner engaged the sentry in conversation. ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m just taking a stroll with my cousin here. He’s from Paris, you know, and feels he must see the sea before he goes home – shut up in a dark office all day long, you see. You know how they get, desperate!’ By now the sentry was smiling and Charlemagne knew his friendly banter was making progress. ‘Lucky you’re here,’ he went on, ‘without you we wouldn’t have dared to go any further. We see there are mines. Just imagine that!’

  ‘Ja, Tellerminen,’ came the response.

  ‘I wonder if I dare suggest such a thing, but would you accompany us down to the shingle for a second. It would give my cousin so much innocent pleasure, I assure you.’

  The Frenchman’s sheer bravado paid off. The German sentry, clearly bored to death by his endless shifts in this godforsaken spot, replied ‘Jawohl.’ He came forward and pulled aside an opening in the barbed wire. The two Frenchmen walked through, looking jolly and acting as though totally innocent. The German pulled the barbed wire across behind them and made them follow him as he walked across the top of the beach. They were amazed at how relaxed he seemed to be in walking through a supposed minefield.

  Soon they were on a short stretch of beach underneath the cliffs. The beach was steep and consisted of large round pebbles. They had timed their visit for low tide and they could see no evidence of any underwater obstacles to prevent landing craft from coming ashore. While Charlemagne chatted away merrily to the German sentry and offered him a cigarette, Pol stood there, apparently daydreaming and enjoying the sea breeze. He turned right around and, still smiling with pretend delight at being by the sea, he looked up. He saw two machine-gun positions. One was just above the villa on the southern side of the gap in the cliffs. The other was on the northern side, much higher up the cliff. He could see the tip of a machine gun protruding from the lower position and could appreciate it was sighted to have
an all-round field of fire across the beach. He even saw a German soldier up there, looking bored stiff, wearing a forage cap rather than a steel helmet, and a heavy greatcoat to try to keep out the icy wind. He could see no other barbed wire emplacements.

  Thanking the German for his kindness, Charlemagne and his supposedly sea-loving cousin returned with the guard across the minefield and said goodbye. The two agents had only been there a few minutes, but their recce had been a stunning success and they had gathered immensely valuable intelligence. Not only had they located and identified the exact position of two machine-gun nests and established that there was no evidence of underwater beach obstacles, but they were convinced from the lack of caution shown by the sentry that the beach was in fact not mined. The menacing signs were there simply as a deterrent to keep any visitors with prying eyes well away. If the Germans did intend to mine the beach, no one had got around to it yet. This piece of intelligence by itself was priceless.

  The two men returned up the gorge to the hotel. There they spent thirty minutes talking with local car owners, all of whom were having problems with getting spare parts. Replacing tyres was a particular problem, most of them being taken by the occupying forces. As a garage owner, Charlemagne’s knowledge and contacts were much sought after. The conversation also provided a good cover for their visit.

  On leaving it was nearly lunchtime, so Charlemagne took his ‘cousin’ a few miles inland to the local market town of Gonneville-la-Mallet. Here they stopped at the Restaurant des Vieux Plats, which Charlemagne knew well. It was a typical black market restaurant of the kind that had sprung up all across occupied France. The restaurant had the equivalent of two Michelin stars, and offered excellent local food at exorbitant prices. A few wealthy Frenchmen would visit such places, but they were more often frequented by senior German officers.

  While finishing an excellent lunch with coffee and calvados, Pol called for the visitors’ book. When they were alone he quickly copied the names of all the German officers who had visited the restaurant and signed the book. He knew that back in London their regiments could be traced from the German army lists. It would be a helpful guide as to which units were stationed along this stretch of coast.

  Pol returned to Paris with a mass of detailed information which, written out and put into code, made up a message of several pages. He met up again with Rémy, who was shocked at how long the message was. It would be dangerous for a radio operator to send such a long message, as it would give the Germans plenty of time in which to track down the signal and locate where it was coming from. Rémy divided the message into two and tried hard to shorten both halves, but he realised there were some real gems of intelligence here. He was delighted with the work of his friend and colleague.

  When the radio operator known as Bob came to collect the message, Rémy warned him to be careful. It was now 9 February and Bob transmitted both messages to London that evening. By pure nerve and a dose of good luck, the two French underground agents had obtained invaluable intelligence from right under the noses of the German defenders at Bruneval. The information they had picked up would immediately be factored into the planning for the upcoming raid.

  11

  Training

  In the third week of January, the company commanders of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Brigade were called together and informed that C Company was to go for special training immediately at Tilshead on Salisbury Plain. Nothing more was explained about what lay ahead. Major John Frost had still not completed his jumps after his knee injury and so was not qualified as a paratrooper. Instead, its previous commander, Philip Teichman, was told to lead the company. Suspecting that there might be action ahead and determined not to miss out, Frost protested that he should lead C Company. He was told that if he could complete his parachute training within a week then he could go as company commander. Otherwise, Teichman would resume command. Frost had to complete his six jumps as fast as possible.

  At nine o’clock the following morning, Frost was waiting at the hangar at Ringway airport with his parachute loaded up and ready to go. The RAF had allocated only six Whitley bombers for training and they were now taxiing around the runway preparing to take the next stick of trainees on board. Frost was hoping to get in two jumps that morning. Then a mist began to drift across the airfield. In no time at all it had become a thick fog, and all flying was suspended. Frost waited with his parachute rolled up in his bag all day long, but there was not even a brief break in the fog for the Whitleys to get airborne and fly over to Tatton Park, where as usual the jumps were to take place.

  On the following morning, thick fog still enclosed the airfield. With growing frustration, Frost swung, twisted and rolled through the various gym pieces that had been set up on the ground for paratroopers to train on. He watched the women of the WAAF folding and packing parachutes. In the British forces, WAAFs, not the parachutists themselves, packed the parachute bags. A sign on the wall reminded each WAAF that a man’s life depended upon her packing the parachute correctly. Frost mused that very few of the fatalities that now occurred were due to bad packing; usually they were the consequence of some freak accident. But each packer had to sign for the parachute bag she had packed, and Frost imagined that a poor WAAF would come in for a lot of grief if a jump did go wrong in one of her parachutes.

  Late in the afternoon the fog began to clear. Frost got himself a place in the first plane out and ten minutes after take-off had made a safe landing at Tatton Park. He persuaded a driver to take him quickly back to Ringway and talked his way on to the last plane that afternoon. He managed to complete a second jump, but as it was getting dark he nearly landed in a tree in the middle of the park. Jumping out of aircraft was still something that Frost, like most of the other men, found counter-intuitive. But he screwed up his courage, even though each jump took a lot out of him, emotionally as well as physically.

  Including the two he had made in December, he took his fifth jump the following afternoon. And on the following day, in near perfect, clear January weather, he made his sixth. He had qualified at last. A WAAF assistant sewed the wings on to the right shoulder of his jacket – the insignia was worn here so as not to mix up paratroopers with the RAF, who wore their wings on their left breast, above the heart. Frost was relieved to leave Ringway and proud to walk out with his silver wings on his shoulder. He celebrated with the colonel that night over drinks in Chesterfield. But he was rather deflated when a friend told him that being a paratrooper was the surest way of becoming a prisoner that had ever been invented.1

  Proudly wearing his wings, Frost now had to get back to his company to take command of the new and mysterious mission. He rushed down to Tilshead to replace Teichman. Teichman was angry and couldn’t hide his disappointment at the speed with which Frost had qualified, but told him that as far as he had gathered, the whole exercise had the purpose of nothing more than training the company to put on a show for the War Cabinet. Only if the demonstration went well would something possibly follow. Teichman then made his way back to Hardwick to continue bringing B Company up to spec.

  Frost was not encouraged by what he found at Tilshead. A new Glider Pilot Regiment had been formed and C Company were to share barracks with them. Salisbury Plain in late January was pretty desolate. There was mud everywhere, not only out in the field but inside the accommodation as well. Tilshead itself was a tiny village and the new camp outside it was an ugly, dirty dump.

  His men arrived on 24 January dishevelled and exhausted after a long, arduous journey from Yorkshire. They had been delayed for several days by snow. Everyone looked wretched and felt miserable when, a day later, General Browning came over from the headquarters of the Airborne Division to inspect the company. Frost knew that Browning was a stickler for detail and believed that paratroopers should always look smart and behave well. He feared his men would not come up to muster and would be sent back to base.

  Browning spent a long time on the inspection, talking to many of the paratr
oopers. At the end he turned to Frost and said, ‘I think you’ve got a good lot of men here but I have never seen such a dirty company in all my life.’2 But, instead of the rebuke he expected, a group of staff officers descended on Frost and for the first time ever began drawing up a long list of everything the company needed, in terms of new uniforms, warm clothing and equipment. In addition, the company was to be provided with enough transport to make them completely mobile, and enough ammunition to last for several days of training. Despite their demeanour, the men had obviously convinced Browning they had what it took.