Commandos and Rangers of World War II

by James D. Ladd

  Again an obliging Achtung Minen sign enabled B and F Troops to skirt trouble, and they kept off the footpath (in case of other mines) for form a column for the march along the left bank of the river Saane. With the boats gone, however, there was no way to evacuate casualties, but three who could walk were led by a medical orderly along the cliff-top towards Orange 1 beach where the whole Commando would be evacuated. Two of these walking wounded were killed when caught in German fire, but those left with the second medic—brother of the first—were taken prisoner.

  The speed march along the river bank was led by Captain Gorden G.H. Webb’s B Troop followed by Lord Lovat’s HQ and the F Troop (Captain R. Pettiward). Doubling over the ground made heavy by the river’s recent flooding. Group 2 could hear the firefight around the battery, and were encouraged by the whump of the cordite charges going up just before these Troops came to the river bend, 1,000 yards from the beach and a feature easily found in the bright morning light. They turned east (left) crossing more open country in extended formation, one sub-Section ready for enemy action while it covered the movement of the other half-Section, thus moving forward in a series of bounds to the Blancmenil le Bas wood. Following the planned routes, B Troop moved inside the eastern fringe of trees, from where they could see the flak tower. A German toppled from its gun platform ‘shot like an Indian falling from the cliff in a western film’. Coming quickly through the trees they crossed the perimeter wire into an orchard, where they moved more cautiously with bren teams giving covering fire while riflemen moved forward under smoke from the 2-inch (51mm) mortar. By this fire-and-movement they knocked out a machine-gun post. In a little more than an hour and a half since landing, they were formed up for the assault just short of the battery buildings.

  F Troop came through the west side of the wood and under cover of smoke struck north for about 400 yards down a road. Among some farm buildings here, at the edge of the battery complex, were some 35 Stosstruppen unloading a truck in preparation for a counter-attack against Mills-Robert’s Group 1. In a brisk exchange of fire most of the Germans in the farmyard were killed or wounded by commandos firing brens and tommy-guns from the hip, but other Germans inside the buildings took a heavy toll of their attackers. Captain R.G. Pettiward was killed by a stick-grenade as he led the men towards the building. Lieutenant Macdonald was mortally wounded, and the sergeant, who took the lead, was killed almost immediately. Captain P. (Pat) A. Porteous, the liaison officer between the two Groups, was moving forward with Lord Lovat’s headquarters, taking a position between B and F Troops, and he came across to lead F Troop. Shot in the wrist as he charged a German, he killed him with his good hand. Other commandos of the Troop were in hand-to-hand fighting around the farm, battling their way to the cover of a ditch along the road, that was the start line for their final assault against the battery’s west side where there was little or no wire.

  While this méleé had been going on, Derek Mills-Roberts was preparing for the intensive fire that C and A Troops would lay down just before Group 2 put in their final assault. The brens firing in such a barrage would lay a narrow cone of fire (see Appendix 3), in many respects a drawback on these occasions, when what was wanted was shots scattered over an area. However, tapping the butt of a gun as it fired helped to spread out the cone. In the field, these finer points of weapon handling were instinctive rather than calculated moves, and in a similar way the range or mortars was less important on occasions than the terrain in which the bombs burst. In soft ground their lethal area was small, but on rocky hillsides a 3-inch (76mm) bomb’s lethal area could have a radius of many yards. The bombs could be fired at five a minute, and there were several types (see Appendix No.3), but using the smoke-bomb needed more than a sense of the wind’s direction for trees or other natural features might break up a screen. If this was not close enough to the enemy they could also get an advantage when attackers broke out into clear view unsupported by their fellows still in the smoke.

  A heavy barrage of smoke from Group 1’s mortars at 0625 hours marked the target and obscured anti-aircraft gunners’ aim as Spitfires of 129 Squadron came in to strafe the battery. There had been some debate about the dangers to commandos from this attack, but as it was along an east-west line risks were felt to be small, and so they proved: only a few cannon shells struck the buildings from which some commandos and three rangers were firing. None was hurt and the strafe was over in a couple of minutes before 0630. By this time the Colonel’s headquarters were in position, the four tommy-gunners of the Commando orderly room forming a protection squad for the two runners, the three signalmen with their 38-sets (see Appendix 5), the adjutant, and Lord Lovat. They were joined as they reached the edge of the wood by a signaller from the beach; he had been laid out for 15 minutes, but on coming to he realised he was the only signaller in his Section and so made his own way across the open country from the river side.

  Lord Lovat fired a series of white Very lights to signal the start of the assault. C and A Troops stopped firing into the battery, as Captain Gordon Webb and Pat Porteous led the charges into the battery area. Gordon Webb, his right wrist broken by a mortar fragment more than an hour and a half earlier, fired his revolver with his left hand as he led a yelling B Troop in a bayonet charge towards the battery buildings. Pat Porteous, the first man to reach the guns, was shot again. Hit in the thigh, he fell against the breach of one gun but pulled himself up to lead F Troop on. A third wound then knocked him over, but the gun emplacements were cleared of Germans.

  ‘Screams, smoke, the smell of burning cordite—mad moments soon over’ is Lieutenant Donald Gilchrist’s description of B Troop’s charge. He remembers one ugly scene when a German stamped on a wounded commando before this enemy was shot in the stomach. However, in such passions the ugliness is seldom one-sided: a wounded German was bayoneted a few moments later beside a wounded commando receiving a pain-killing shot of morphine.

  F Troop’s demolition squad could have blown the guns in the dark after their hours of practice in Lulworth, Dorset, and in minutes the demolition charges were set on the breech blocks and underground magazines. B Troop cleared odd groups of Germans from tunnels around the battery, catching two officers—one the battery commander, probably—in a deadly chase through the buildings, but many Germans continued to fight from mutually supporting strongpoints and only four prisoners were taken—including the cook in the white hat. The commando dead were brought to lie at the foot of the flagstaff when Messerschmitts flew over low enough to see some cheerful waves from commandos, deceiving the fliers into believing their troops still held the guns. A Union Jack was hoisted above the British dead in the warm sunshine of this summer’s morning. Dead Germans lay behind the sandbag breastworks around the guns, many of the bodies badly burnt from the cordite fire; others lay where they had fallen to the snipers’ bullets—outside buildings, bunkers, and in slit-trenches.

  The withdrawal of 4 Commando was swift, although the Germans were not expected to bring major reinforcements to the area for a couple of hours, and at one point in the planning ‘No.4’ was going to stay ashore for some hours; in the event German reinforcements did not move from Amiens until 1600 hours that afternoon. Now, following the final plan, the commandos prepared to come out over Orange 1 beach, the difficult withdrawal they had foreseen. Lord Lovat, sporting corduroy slacks with a grey sweater under his khaki denim and carrying a Winchester rifle, ordered the battery buildings set on fire: ‘Burn the lot’—the cry of a Highland chieftain, for the Lord Lovat is head of Clan Fraser.

  C Troop covered the withdrawal with smoke generators along the track to the beach—one prisoner, pressed into carrying a generator, complained that he was excused such heavy work because of frostbite scars after service in Russia. Bren gun teams in pairs covered each other as they withdrew alternately behind the smoke while their rifle squads and the other Troops moved down to the beach. A Section from A Troop had accounted for a German patrol moving out of Sainte Marguerite, an action fo
r which an old French lady rewarded each of them with a fresh egg, which they proceeded to carry back safely to England. Meanwhile a heavy mortar had ranged on the beach as the commandos were ferrying their wounded out in Goatley boats, and judging its position by the flight of these bombs, the Commando’s 3-inch (76mm) mortar crew silenced it with counter-fire. Other enemy fire slackened, with only desultory fire from near the lighthouse, as the commandos crossed the beach through a lane of 18-type smoke generators and out into a path of naval smoke-floats that shrouded their re-embarking on the landing craft: a neat solution to the problem of withdrawing across an exposed beach. Two miles off the coast the casualties were transferred to a destroyer as the landing craft headed for home.

  While the flank forces were experiencing mixed fortunes, the main assault by some 5,000 Canadians met fierce opposition. The German commander—according to one report—made a weekly practice of closing-up his defence force to their guns just to remind them there was a war on, and on this Wednesday morning they had more than a rehearsal: they had a field day. The southerly breeze drifted the Allied smoke screen clear of the beach by 200 yards in places, exposing the incoming craft. The 24 LCTs carrying the new Churchill tanks included three craft intended to put their armour ashore with the first assault wave at 0520 hours, but these nine tanks were late in landing. The resulting 10 to 15 minutes delay enabled the German gunners to recover, after bombardment from four destroyers and a low-level attack by five squadrons of Hurricanes covering the craft nearing the beach. The infantry and assault engineers, without covering fire for these vital minutes, were cut down before they could dislodge the German gunners and obstacles, with several guns appearing from emplacements hidden from aerial view under the cliffs overlooking the flanks of the beaches. The second wave of LCTs piled in on the first under heavy fire and only 13 or possibly 15 tanks got over the promenade. None broke into the town although one made some limited progress beyond the sea wall. Not all the German guns could knock out these tanks, but their tracks were knocked off by 37mm (1.4in) guns’ fire, and heavy fire fom the Casino jutting out over the shingle enfiladed the beaches. A few groups of Canadian infantry got into the town but only confused and misleading reports reached Major-General J.H. Roberts MC, the Force Commander, aboard his headquarters ship: consequently the true position was not realised when the floating reserve, 40 (RM) Commando, was committed at 0830 hours.

  Trained for their role as a cutting-out force, ‘No.40 (RM)’ was clearly not going to be able to perform this task, for even the gunboat HMS Locust had not been able to enter the harbour. The Commando was therefore transferred from the French chasseur fast patrol boats intended to follow in the gunboat, and was taken on assault craft towards the Casino where the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry were thought to have a toehold on the west of the main beach. The Commando’s commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel J.P Phillips RM, was following in the leading flights of craft as they came out of the smokescreen into bright sunshine. He found that the few craft already ashore were under heavy fire as the marines landed ‘with courage terrible to see’ (official report). Strewn over the beach were dead and wounded Canadians under concentrated fire. There was not even a slim chance of the Commando getting ashore and ‘pushing farther west to capture the headland’ as General Roberts had hoped. The Colonel’s craft was close to inshore as he pulled on a pair of white signal gauntlets and jumped on the foredeck, standing where his men in the following craft could clearly see him wave them back. Their craft put about just before the Colonel was shot through the head, giving his life in saving 200 men from certain disaster. Several of their craft were ‘sunk and Major (later Lieutenant-Colonel) J.C Manners RM was one of many commandos pulled from the water by crews of rescue craft.

  The few Royal Marines already on the beach, among them Lieutenant K.W. Smale RM, took cover behind a stranded LCT. They kept up a steady fire for a time but all were killed, probably within an hour. After the withdrawal—which could be made only according to a strict timetable for the RAF to drop smoke cover—a Royal Marine was picked up swimming a mile from the beach. His rifle lay across the Mae West he was pushing towards England.

  Dieppe was not altogether the disaster some historians suggest, for the 3,369 Canadian casualties (including 907 killed or who died while prisoners-of-war) made a sacrifice that would save many thousands of lives two summers later in Normandy. Their defeat showed the price of taking a defended port was too high, and the Allies would tow their Mulberry Harbours to the Seine Bay beaches in June 1944. Although this was the most important lesson of the raid, there were others—the landing timetable must be flexible, heavier supporting fire from ships was essential, and training was necessary for a permanent naval assault force. On the other hand, the Germans learnt nothing, for their continued concentration of defence around the main Channel ports proved a wasted effort in 1944, when these defended harbours were by-passed in establishing a beachhead.

  For the commandos, Colonel Phillips had saved ‘No.40 (RM)’ for other battles. Under Peter Young’s cool leadership, fewer than 20 men, a tenth of those who should have landed, had disrupted a heavy battery’s fire. Lord Lovat had proved that a well-trained Commando could succeed against an alert defence even though the ratio of attackers to defenders was less than one-to-one. Bearing in mind the advantages defenders have if they can catch incoming boats on open water, the amphibious invader would probably never get ashore unless the enemy strongpoints were neutralised by ships’ and air bombardment as described in Chapter 11. However, one lesson from the action of ‘No.4’ showed the dangers for casualties in landing at one beach and coming off at another some miles away. Colonel Durnford-Slater revisited Dieppe after it was captured in the summer of 1944 and has written: ‘Without a doubt had our 3 Commando landed .… (they) would have succeeded if a proper number of men had been safely delivered to the beach.’ He doubted, however, whether the Canadians had any chance at all in a frontal attack against skilfully sited concrete emplacements, especially as there was no heavy bombardment before the assault. Among the gallantry awards were several to commandos, including a Victoria Cross awarded to Pat Porteous. The US Ranger party under the small and cheerful Captain Roy Murray—six officers and 45 men—proved the quality of Rangers soldiers. One captured ranger answered the question of how many rangers were in England with the reply: ‘Three million, all as tall as I am’. His interrogator had a sense of humour, fortunately.

  For all the 15 French marines of 10 Commando, men of the 1re Bataillon Fusilier Marin, this first major raid gave their Troop a reputation that attracted more volunteers for their future raids. And the seven marines who had landed with the Canadians at the Casino managed to re-embark, when other units were less orderly in their withdrawal.

  One outcome of Dieppe was a successful Allied air battle which provided an effective defence of ships, under an air umbrella that included 69 RAF squadrons, twenty-three Flying Fortresses making a raid on a nearby German airfield. Although the Allies lost 165 planes for the destruction of only 48 German aircraft, only one naval ship, a destroyer, was sunk by enemy aircraft.

  This first major raid in Europe illustrated the growing complexity of commando objectives while still employing simple tactics with light weapons. A great deal of thought had gone into these questions of weapons when the US Marine Corps Raider Battalions were preparing for their Pacific landings earlier that August in 1942.

  THE FAR EAST AUGUST 1942 TO OCTOBER 1944

  The Japanese failed to isolate Australia from the Americas, and notwithstanding Allied agreement to defeat Germany before Japan, sufficient forces were found for American counterstrokes in the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz controlled one theatre that was shaped to include the eastern Solomons—a small part in a vast area that covered oceans and islands from the Asian coast north and east of the Phillippines, down to the equator and further south in its eastern sectors. General MacArthur commanded the second theatre, covering New Guinea and the Indonesian islands to Sumatra,
Malaya and Thailand were in the British South-East Asian Theatre (SEAC).

  In the south-west Pacific, McArthur’s armies fought a campaign in New Guinea and northwards to the Philippines. Nimitz led the drive across the central Pacific after the initial landings in August 1942 on Guadalcanal, were followed in 1943 by the recapture of the Gilberts and Marshall island groups, and in 1944 recaptured Guam and other islands in the Marianas. That autumn 70,000 Americans landed unopposed on Morotai Island, north-west of New Guinea, and captured the Palau Island air bases to protect the flanks of an October 1944 landing in the Philippines. The distances of these advances were equivalent to several journeys from London to Moscow: from Darwin (Australia) to Luzon in the Philippines being over 2,000 miles on a convoy route.

  CHAPTER 6

  Raiders in the