St Nazaire Raid, 1942

By Stephen Wynn

The raid on St Nazaire has gone down in history as one of the most daring commando raids of all time. Given the code name of Operation Chariot, it took place in the early hours of Saturday, 28 March 1942, and was a joint undertaking by the Royal Navy and British Commando units. The port at St Nazaire, which sits on the Loire estuary and the Atlantic Ocean, has a dry dock that was capable of accommodating some of Germany’s biggest naval vessels, such as the Bismarck, or the Tirpitz. By putting the port out of action, any repairs or maintenance work that needed to be carried out would instead have to be undertaken back home at the German port of Bremerhaven. To do this, the German vessels would either have to navigate the waters of the English Channel or the North Sea, with both journeys potentially bringing them to the attention of the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy. A raiding force of 612 officers and men were assembled and dispatched from Falmouth to carry out the raid, sailing on board the obsolete British destroyer HMS Campbeltown, along with 18 Motor Launches. The idea was to ram the destroyer in to the outer gates of the dry dock at St Nazaire and put it out of action for as long as possible. The raid was a success, but came at a price: of those who set out, 169 were killed whilst a further 215 were captured. Only 3 Motor Launches and 228 men escaped and made the return journey back to the UK. Many brave men gave it their all during the action at St Nazaire, to such an extent that 89 of those who took part in the raid were awarded decorations for bravery, including 5 who were awarded the Victoria Cross.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781526736314

Stephen Wynn

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

Book preview

Chapter One

The Importance of the St Nazaire Dry Dock Facility

The port at St Nazaire in the Loire-Atlantique region of western France has always been of major importance to the country because it is the first port to be reached by merchant ships bringing goods into the country from across the Atlantic.

During the First World War, British forces arriving in France landed at the northern ports of Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne or Le Harve, but a large number of American forces, having made their way across the Atlantic, found themselves stepping foot on European soil at St Nazaire. In fact the first 14,000 American soldiers who made the crossing landed there. Even though attempts had been made to keep the location a secret for fear of attack by German submarines, the first American soldiers to disembark there on 26 June 1917 were greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd of well-wishers, suggesting that secrecy hadn’t been as good as might have been hoped for. But within this story is hidden another; initially, the port of Brest rather than St Nazaire had been the intended destination.

On 6 April 1917 America declared war on Germany and plans to move her troops across the Atlantic to Europe quickly began. In early June 1917, the troop transport ships needed to carry the first batch of soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force to Europe, along with a number of escorting vessels, began gathering in New York Harbour in preparation of the 3,474 mile journey .

It was the job of twenty-one vessels which included four cruisers, thirteen destroyers, two fuel tankers and two armed yachts, to escort the seventeen troop-transport vessels, five of which were the USS Tenadores, Saratoga, Havana, Pastores, and a converted captured German merchant ship, the Dekalb.

Germany had announced that their U-boats would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare as of 1 February 1917, so over such a long journey, the US convoy was in real danger of being attacked. If proof of such a danger were needed, the Americans only had to look back to 7 May 1915, when the German submarine SM U-20 torpedoed and sank the Cunard ocean going passenger liner RMS Lusitania, eleven miles off the Old Head of Kinsale in County Cork, Ireland. Of the 1,198 passengers who perished, 128 of them were American. On 17 March 1917, U-boats sank three American merchant vessels, and three weeks later, US President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany.

By 14 June 1917, the convoy of thirty-five vessels was ready to leave New York on its potentially hazardous journey across the Atlantic. Along with the 14,000 American soldiers were a number of horses, and quantities of ammunition, supplies and equipment.

Eight days in to the journey the convoy came under attack from an unknown number of German submarines, but luck was on the side of the Americans as not one of the torpedoes found a target. The ships’ captains dealt with the situation both professionally and calmly, to such a degree that most of those on board the convoy vessels were unaware that they had been under attack. Two days later, the convoy was joined by a number of additional American destroyers off the Irish coast, to escort them on the remainder of their journey towards France.

German submarines had been spotted by French aircraft in the waters off Brest, so the convoy was diverted instead towards the port at St Nazaire, where it took some four days to unload all the troops, horses, supplies, equipment and ammunition.

In the sixteen months between that initial landing and the end of the war, more than 2 million American soldiers had crossed the Atlantic and fought on the battlefields of Europe, a large percentage of whom had arrived via the port of St Nazaire.

The building of the dry dock facility at St Nazaire, also known as the Louis Joubert Dock or the Normandie Dock, had first been considered by the Port Authority of St Nazaire at the end of the First World War. This was due to the port’s inability to accommodate any of the world’s large ocean-going passenger liners, but as with life in general, timing is all important. After four years of bloody fighting came an economic recession which was only to be expected in the circumstances. This included a massive reduction in the need for ocean-going liners as there were only a small number of people who could afford the price of the luxury offered by such ships. In a post-war era of tightening the belts, the plans for enlarging the port were shelved.

In 1925, the French shipping company, Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, internationally referred to as the ‘French Line’, commissioned the building of an ocean-going liner, it was the first such vessel built after the end of the First World War. It was launched on 14 March 1926 and its maiden voyage took place on 22 June 1927.

Work on the Louis Joubert dry dock finally began in February 1929. It had been designed by French engineer Albert Caquot, who had served in the First World War when he was mobilised with the 40e Compagnie d’Aerostiers air balloon unit, where he was commissioned with the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1931, he was responsible for the now world famous Christ the Redeemer statue, located at the top of the Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The work on the new and enlarged dry dock at St Nazaire was completed and ready for use in 1933 – ironically at about the same time the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. The dock connected one of the facility’s two original basins, the Perhoet basin, with the Loire River, and was named after Louis Joubert, the former president of the St Nazaire Chamber of Commerce who had died in 1930.

When France fell to Germany on 25 June 1940, ending fighting on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, German forces found themselves in possession of the entire port facilities at St Nazaire. Not only did it possess the only dry dock facility capable of housing her two massive battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz, but it was situated on France’s west coast, giving the German Kriegsmarine the significant advantage of direct access to the Atlantic Ocean without having to travel via the English Channel, or what is known as the GIUK gap (the area of water between the top of Scotland and Iceland, which is the link between the North Atlantic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea, and the North Sea).

St Nazaire was where the Bismarck headed after she was badly damaged during the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941; she and the German heavy cruiser the Prinz Eugen were trying to make their way to the North Atlantic to carry out attacks on Allied merchant shipping en route to British ports with much needed supplies. At about 0620 hours, HMS Prince of Wales fired a salvo of shells at the Bismarck, with three of them striking home. The second of the three shells passed straight through the Bismarck’s bow, without exploding, while the third caused damage and flooding to a generator room and a nearby boiler room. She was also leaking oil and listing slightly to her port side.

Initially the damage does not appear to have been a major concern and did not stop her from engaging with HMS Hood, striking her with a shell that caused two of her aft magazines to explode. The Bismarck also engaged HMS Prince of Wales, striking her on four occasions, but her own damage was slowly beginning to take its toll.

Ironically, the importance bestowed by Germany on the port facilities at St Nazaire ultimately resulted in the loss of the Bismarck. Admiral Johann Gunther Lutjens, who was the Fleet commander of the German navy and on board the Bismarck, prevented the ship’s captain, Kapitan zur see, Otto Ernst Lindermann, from heading towards the German occupied ports of Bergen or Trondheim in Norway, which would have meant a journey of approximately 870 nautical miles, the former being his preferred choice. Instead, Lutjens ordered that the Bismarck should head for St Nazaire. This was a strange decision and made absolutely no sense, as St Nazaire was some 1,390 nautical miles from the Bismarck’s position, which meant having to travel an additional 520 nautical miles – a potentially dangerous journey even for an undamaged Bismarck able to travel at maximum speed.

Despite this, Lutjens decided that St Nazaire was the best place to head for. He reasoned that the journey to get there would provide the best opportunity to shake off the British ships who were chasing after her. It was out of the flying range of RAF bomber aircraft, and there was the possibility of finding assistance from both German naval vessels and submarines operating out of Brest.

Lindermann was not the only one to find Lutjens’ decision to head for St Nazaire somewhat bizarre; it had also caused utter confusion among the German hierarchy in Berlin, and had even reached the ears of Adolf Hitler.

Bismarck’s attempt to reach the dry dock at St Nazaire failed. The pride of the German navy was attacked by British Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers which had taken off from HMS Ark Royal. One of the torpedoes struck the Bismarck and damaged her rudders, making steering impossible.

On the morning of 27 May 1941, while laying crippled in the North Atlantic, the Bismarck was attacked by the British battleships, HMS King George V and HMS Rodney, along with the cruiser HMS Dorsetshire, with the latter of the three ships dealing the final blow that caused her to sink. Only 115 out of Bismarck’s total crew of 2,200 survived.

Chapter Two

Operation Chariot – Conception of the Raid on St Nazaire

British Commandos had already shown their worth in the Second World War, particularly so in Operation Claymore, the raid on Norway’s Lofoten Islands on 4 March 1941.

Their formation had come about as a result of a note sent by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to his chief military assistant, General Hastings Lionel ‘Pug’ Ismay, on 6 June 1940, which spoke of a need for specially trained troops, all of whom would be volunteers. The work they would be expected to carry out would more often than not either be behind enemy lines or into enemy-held territory.

What is accepted as the first British commando raid of the Second World War was Operation Collar. It was undertaken by No. 11 Independent Company on the night of 25/26 June 1940, and came in the form of a reconnaissance type raid near to Le Touquet, which is situated in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France.

The second commando raid, Operation Ambassador, took place just three weeks later, on the night of 14/15 July 1940, and was more significant than the first raid had been, not because of anything that it might have achieved, but because it was actually carried out on British soil, albeit that of a British Crown Dependency in the form of the island of Guernsey. The 140 men who took part in the raid were from ‘H’ Troop of No. 3 Commando, and No. 11 Independent Company.

By the end of the Second World War, British commandos would see active service in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa as well as the Pacific and the Arctic Circle, such was the demand for their skills and attributes.

On Saturday 28 March 1942, what has gone down in the annals of British military history as one of the greatest amphibious commando operations of the Second World War took place when British forces carried out an attack on the dry dock facility at the port of St Nazaire – Operation Chariot.

The dry dock facility at St Nazaire could cater for some of Germany’s largest warships such as the Admiral Graf Spee, the Bismarck, or the Tirpitz, in the case of them needing repairs or maintenance work. Without access to the facilities at St Nazaire, these vessels would then have had to return to Germany, and to do so would have meant them having to sail either through the English Channel or across the North Sea, which in turn then presented the British navy with the opportunity to engage and destroy them. The port area at St Nazaire also provided a base and secure shelter for a large number of German U-boats; from here they were able to attack the much-needed supply convoys making their way to the UK from America.

The idea for such an operation had originated from the Battle of the Denmark Strait, a naval engagement which had taken place on 24 May 1941, between the British navy vessels HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Hood, and Germany’s Kriegsmarine vessels Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. The head-to-head exchange saw the sinking of the battlecruiser HMS Hood after she was hit by a shell from the Bismarck; it took less than three minutes for her to go down. The Prince of Wales was damaged, also after an exchange with the Bismarck, and was damaged sufficiently enough for her to have to retire from the fight. On the German side, the Bismarck was also damaged, albeit slightly, but it was still enough for her to take in water. The decision was taken for it to disengage from the battle, and make its way to St Nazaire, but before it could get there, it was attacked and sunk by British forces.

The loss of the Bismarck had simply highlighted the importance to the Germans of the dry dock facility at St Nazaire, and with battleships such as the Tirpitz still at their disposal, something needed to be done, and fast. The last thing Winston Churchill or President Roosevelt wanted was for the Tirpitz to be able to navigate her way around the world’s shipping lanes at will, which she potentially could if she had the dry dock facilities of St Nazaire at her disposal.

The North Atlantic was an important stretch of water for both Britain and America. If they wanted to stay in the war they could ill-afford to have it controlled by Germany’s Kriegsmarine and ships, with the potential killing power possessed by that of such a vessel as the Tirpitz.

If the Kriegsmarine were unable to use the dry dock facilities at St Nazaire, the likelihood was that the Germans would be less likely to risk having the Tirpitz patrolling in the North Atlantic. Winston Churchill was rightly worried about the threat posed by the Tirpitz, but he also realised that the key to dealing with her was St Nazaire. If he could somehow put the dry dock out of action, then there was every chance he could keep the Tirpitz out of the North Atlantic which, if achieved, meant Britain was still in the war and would be for some time.

When the planning for the raid began, different options were considered. An airborne raid by paratroopers was looked at, but because of the heavy defensive armaments in place at St Nazaire, it was felt that there was a risk that casualties would be extremely high. There was also the risk that in inclement weather, parachutists could easily end up being blown way off course, which would have potentially meant hundreds of British soldiers landing in German-occupied France, miles away from their intended target.

A raid by aircraft from the RAF’s Bomber Command was also considered, but then quickly dismissed for two reasons. First, there were concerns about the number of aircraft and crews that would be lost due to the great number of anti-aircraft batteries Germany had in place in and around the port area. Second, there was also the question of accuracy when dropping bombs from thousands of feet up, as there was no certainty that enough (or even any) bombs would actually hit the dry dock gates. Such a scenario would make the subsequent aerial losses sustained, even harder to bear.

Another dimension to an air raid was the French civilian population, as the dock area at St Nazaire was very close to the homes of hundreds of local people. Accidentally killing a large number of French civilians, no matter what the reason, would understandably not be viewed positively by the French.

It was felt that the only feasible option left on the table, which not everybody was totally convinced about, was a joint naval/commando raid. But it was known from the outset that the risks involved in carrying out such an operation were great, and there was still no guarantee of success. The biggest problem was how to get a surface ship of any great size, undetected, up the Loire estuary, to the port at St Nazaire, a distance of about six miles. With the combined defensive firepower installed on both sides of the estuary by Germany, any vessel attempting such a journey would, if discovered, be shot to pieces.

In June 1940, Roger Keyes (later to become Sir Roger Keyes) was appointed as the first Head of Combined Operations, a department of Britain’s War Office, which had been specifically set up to carry out combined army and navy raids on identified military targets along the coastline of German-occupied Europe.

In October 1917, during the First World War, Vice-Admiral Roger Keyes became the director of what was entitled the ‘Plans Division’ at the Admiralty. Less than two months later, on 3 December, Keyes submitted detailed plans for the blocking of Zeebrugge harbour, by using old and obsolete cruisers in a night-time operation. There had been similar plans submitted to the Admiralty earlier in the war but they had all been rejected for one reason or another. One of the rejected proposals had been submitted by the eminently qualified Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, who was the commander of the Harwich Force. In August 1914 he had been involved in the Battle of Heligoland Blight. In December the same year he saw action during the raid on the Imperial German navy at their base in Cuxhaven, and in January 1915, he was involved in the Battle of Dogger Bank. Not put off by the rejection of his proposed plan, he submitted an even more audacious plan to attack Zeebrugge harbour, capture the Mole before moving on to capture the town and holding it before advancing on Antwerp. Despite Tyrwhitt’s enthusiasm for such derring-do, his revised plan was also rejected by the Admiralty.

It was not until Keyes altered and tweaked another version of Tyrwhitt’s plan, which had been submitted by Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Baker, commander of the Dover Patrol, on 18 December 1917, that the Admiralty approved a plan for a raid on Zeebrugge.

As head of Combined Operations, Keyes oversaw commando training, which was then in its relative infancy. He drew on all the knowledge and experience from his service in the First World War, especially his involvement in the Zeebrugge raid, to come up with innovative ideas for similar style raids on German occupied territories. But not only did the Joint Chiefs of Staff not like his suggestions and ideas, they were thought them so unworkable that in October 1941, he was removed from his position as Head of Combined Operations.

Despite the lack of any movement on a plan of how best to deal with the St Nazaire situation, Winston Churchill was not prepared to forget the idea. There were important issues at stake, including the merchant seamen who would lose their lives if something wasn’t done to stop Germany’s massive battleships, like the Tirpitz, from being able to use and operate out of St Nazaire. To this end, Churchill contacted Lord Louis Mountbatten, who had taken over from Keyes as