by Mark Zuehlke
Although most villas proved deserted, an old Frenchman wearing nightclothes was spotted in a garden as Mills-Roberts passed by. When two commandos pointed their guns at him, a young girl asked flatly, “Are you going to shoot Papa?” After announcing that they were British soldiers, Mills-Roberts had the two commandos escort the old man to his house. It was 0540 hours, and the plan called for ‘C’ Troop to engage the battery no later than 0615. Lovat would then attack at 0628. Time was wasting.19
While ‘C’ Troop’s main force made for the battery, a small subsection under Lieutenant E.L.K.A. Carr peeled off westward—its job was to protect ‘C’ Troop’s right flank from the Germans at the lighthouse. They were also to locate and sever the communication cable linking the observation post to the battery.20
Mills-Roberts dashed with the mortar detachment, signallers, and his personal runners through a wood and paused on its fringe. Ahead, the battery fired a salvo. Mills-Roberts heard the gunnery commander shout a command. He could only assume the battery was firing on the main landing force. It was urgent to stop this. Spotting a small salient of woods extending towards the battery, Mills-Roberts led his men into it. They stopped in front of a barbed-wire obstacle that seemed to encircle the battery. Mills-Roberts decided he did not have to breach the obstacle. A runner was sent to tell Style and Dawson to finish clearing the villas and get “forward at once to prepare to open fire on the battery.” At 0550 hours, twenty-five minutes early, ‘C’ Troop had everything ready except the mortars. These were still being carried into range. Mills-Roberts ordered the other heavy weapons to start firing from where he had positioned them around a large house alongside the road. Another Bren fired from scrub at the tip of the salient. Soon the 2-inch mortar arrived and started firing from a room inside the house. Its first round fell short, but the second struck a munitions magazine “and a blinding flash resulted, which silenced the guns at 0607 hours. [This action may have also coincided with Lieutenant Carr’s cutting the communication line and effectively blinding the gunners.] At this point the battery was being engaged by small-arms fire and all efforts to fight the fire were heavily sniped. I ordered the Bren gun in the scrub patch... to fire bursts at the flames and I was sniping figures around the main conflagration.” Mills-Roberts heard the cries of Germans caught in the terrific blast of the cordite and shells detonated by the mortar round. Signallers had managed to string a telephone line back to the beach, allowing Mills-Roberts to check with an observer posted there on whether the guns’ rounds had struck any of the main landing force. The observer reported all shells had fallen harmlessly into the sea and well short of the vessels sailing towards Dieppe.
By now the 3-inch mortar was in action and firing a mix of explosive and smoke rounds. The blanketing smoke further confused the German defenders. Next to the battery guns stood a tower mounted with anti-aircraft guns that the Germans depressed to fire on the commandos. As 20-millimetre rounds sizzled into the salient, Mills-Roberts and his men slithered frantically to escape the line of fire. Gunner Thomas McDonough cracked off sixty rounds from the Boys gun in rapid succession, which finally silenced the anti-aircraft guns.21
Snipers were at work. The most deadly sniper was Corporal Richard Mann. Face and hands painted green to blend with foliage, Mann lay in low bush 150 yards from the battery and picked off several Germans with precise fire.22
Corporal Koons found a horse stable, “a splendid spot for sniping... I fired through a slit in the brick wall. I was standing up to do so and the wall gave me very good cover... I fired quite a number of rounds at any stray Germans who sometimes appeared and I am pretty sure I got one of them.”23
The commandos held the initiative. Their fire—particularly that of the Bren gunners—silenced a light machine gun on the roof of a building next to the battery and two other machine-gun positions set behind the perimeter wire. But a lot of small-arms and mortar fire still came at them.24
Mills-Roberts was “desperately anxious to know how Lovat’s main assault force were getting on.” Attempts at wireless contact had proven fruitless. If no main attack had developed by 0630, his instructions were to assault the battery. Chances of success were slight. Although “we were getting away with it better than expected,” ‘C’ Troop had casualties, and ammunition was running low. Suddenly, the mortar fire intensified. Mills-Roberts glanced at his watch. The second hand was approaching 0628, when a strafing run by cannon-firing fighters was scheduled. Two minutes after that, he would have to attack.25
At 0605 hours, just thirty-five minutes after landing at Orange II, Lovat’s men reached the western edge of the woods that were to cover their approach on the coastal battery. A “heavy volume of small arms fire” told Lovat that Mills-Roberts was heavily engaged. Then a sudden, terrific series of explosions was heard, and he knew a devastating hit had been scored on the battery’s munitions. When the 3-inch mortar’s “heavy crump” joined the chorus, Lovat’s spirits soared.26
The commandos found the wood “exceedingly thick and dense.” All the countryside seemed more thickly wooded than indicated by the aerial photos, maps, or scale models. But that was fine. It provided “numerous covering lines of approach to enable trained men to do their evil stuff.”27
Lovat’s force split inside the wood to carry out a pincer assault. Captain Webb’s ‘B’ Troop approached from the left and ‘F’ Troop, under Captain Roger Pettiward, the right. Lovat, meanwhile, advanced his headquarters through the wood to an orchard edged up against the battery’s wire perimeter. The signallers immediately set up and contacted Mills-Roberts, who “gave a heartening situation report.” Lieutenant Veasey’s ‘A’ Troop were contacted next. Veasey’s troops “were covering the western flank of the battery”; they had put a second flak tower out of action and eliminated several defensive positions behind the wire. Having arrived at the battery perimeter just after first light, they had since inflicted heavy casualties on the gunners “and subsequently during attempts by the gun crews to beat out the flames started by [the] mortar bomb. Some of the men were using a house that provided a vantage into the battery perimeter for cover.”28
Pettiward’s men, meanwhile, surprised a platoon of about thirty-five infantrymen next to a farmhouse, who were being organized by an officer “for what was clearly to be a counterattack on Mills-Roberts.” ‘F’ Troop killed these Germans with point-blank fire.29 At 0610 hours, ‘B’ Troop’s Webb reported having exited the wood and “worked forward across orchards and small enclosures” to a final assault position. Bangalore torpedoes ferreted into the wire were ready to ignite at Lovat’s signal. A minute later, ‘F’ Troop reported ready. They had been under accurate fire from a sniper on the flak tower, but Gunner McDonough had silenced that threat. More snipers—including the battery commander—fired from windows of the battery headquarters and other buildings to their left.
Precisely at 0628, a dozen Spitfires of 129 Squadron careened in with guns firing. But they were also dodging several German Focke-Wulfe 190 fighters attacking from above, so their fire was erratic. A burst slammed the house being used by ‘A’ Troop, and one of the commandos was seriously wounded. The 3-inch mortar, which ‘C’ Troop had been firing, chucked out ten smoke rounds, and then its crew shut down for fear of hitting Lovat’s assaulting force. As soon as the mortar quit, Lovat checked his watch—0630 hours. He signalled the attack by firing three Verey lights.30
The Verey lights appeared none too soon for Mills-Roberts, who wanted to get on with his next task. All No. 4 Commando was to evacuate from Yellow I. ‘C’ Troop was to establish a defensive line around the gully and cover the withdrawal of the others. Just as Mills-Roberts ordered his men to start falling back on the gully, an 80-millimetre mortar found the range. One round exploded in a tree Mills-Roberts was standing under, and a large branch crashed down beside him. Private William Owen Garthwaite, the troop’s medical orderly, was killed. Lieutenant David Style suffered a bad leg wound but
continued leading his section. This included the 2-inch-mortar crew and the Bren gunners, who kept the forward German positions under fire to prevent their disrupting ‘C’ Troop’s withdrawal.
Once everyone passed Style’s men, they fell back as well. With most of ‘C’ Troop concentrated around the entrance to the gully, Mills-Roberts sent a patrol forward to secure the road running from it to the battery. Except for a few snipers, it was found to be clear and so could be used to bring out No. 4 Commando’s wounded. Accompanied by his runner, Mills-Roberts walked up the road towards the battery to personally contact Lovat.31
‘B’ and ‘F’ Troops charged the battery at 0615 hours with bayonets fixed. “It was a stupendous charge,” Lovat wrote, “in many cases over ground swept by machine-gun fire, through a barbed wire entanglement, over running strong points and finally ending on the gun sites themselves.”32
‘F’ Troop went in “yelling like banshees.” ‘B’ Troop came on just seconds later, Captain Webb running with a pistol in his left hand and right arm flapping uselessly. “Razor sharp, Sheffield steel tore the guts out of Varengeville battery,” Lieutenant Donald Gilchrist wrote. “Screams, smoke, the smell of burning cordite. Mad moments soon over.” A commando in ‘B’ Troop fell wounded, and the German who shot him dashed out of a barn, jumped up, and crashed his boots down upon the commando’s face. Gilchrist and three others raised their weapons, but a corporal signalled them to hold fire, aimed his rifle and squeezed the trigger. The German fell, clutching his stomach “as if trying to claw the bullet out. He tried to scream, but couldn’t. Four pairs of eyes in faces blackened for action stared at his suffering. They were eyes of stone. No gloating, no pity for an enemy who knew no code and had no compassion. We doubled across the yard to where the two wounded lay side by side. For our comrade—morphine. For the beast—a bayonet thrust.”33
‘F’ Troop charged straight into fierce fire that toppled several men. A grenade killed Pettiward, and Lieutenant John Alexander Macdonald, the troop’s other officer, was mortally wounded. Captain Pat Porteous, a liaison officer, rushed to steady the men and keep them advancing. A slug tore through his right hand and arm. Seeing the German who had shot him, Porteous switched his pistol to his left hand and fired a fatal bullet. Nearby, Sergeant Major Bill Stockdale was down with part of a foot blown away by a grenade. Porteous rushed a German closing on the sergeant, wrestled his rifle away, and stabbed him to death with its fixed bayonet. Rallying ‘F’ Troop’s survivors, Porteous led them in a charge that secured the battery’s guns. Shot through the thigh, he fell, bleeding heavily beside one gun. Struggling to his feet, Porteous retained command until all enemy resistance in the battery ended. As several commandos started rigging the guns with explosives, Porteous, bleeding heavily, finally fell unconscious.
Porteous would be awarded a Victoria Cross for his “brilliant leadership and tenacious devotion to duty.” He dismissed it all as “just luck.”34
There had been much luck in No. 4 Commando’s assault. But there had also been fighting skill and the ability to precisely implement a simple tactical plan. Lovat had seen the task clearly. “In and out—smash and grab,” he described it. That’s exactly how the raid played out. Two hours after the initial landing, five coastal guns were blown, “charges being placed to destroy both breach blocks and barrels.” But there were supposed to be six guns. Finally, Lance Corporal J.C. Skerry found the sixth in a position well off from the rest. Stuffing the barrel and breach with plastic explosive, he blew the gun.35 Sergeant Jimmy McKay had seen to stuffing charges into the other five gun barrels. “They fit like a glove—just like a glove,” he told Gilchrist.36
At about 0715, the “subterranean stores and ammunition dumps were blown sky high... The gun sites were in a remarkable state. Burnt and mangled bodies were piled behind two of the sandbag dugout works which surrounded the guns... Many Germans had been badly burnt when the cordite had been set alight in the early stages of the operation.”37 The commandos gathered their dead comrades and laid them beside the “now useless guns... Before they left, the Union Jack was run up over the British dead.”38
The commandos started withdrawing as soon as Mills-Roberts told Lovat the road was open. Stretcher cases were carried out with the walking wounded in company. There being too few stretchers, some men were put on doors torn from hinges. Four German prisoners were put to carrying stretchers. Before the commandos left, all buildings inside the battery perimeter were set on fire. The buildings had also been rifled for documents that might provide useful intelligence.
As Mills-Roberts approached the gully, he was intercepted by the old Frenchman, whose nightdress had been exchanged for a black coat and striped trousers. He offered a glass of red wine, but Mills-Roberts refused for lack of time. Apologizing for his men having trampled the garden, Mills-Roberts carried on.39
Corporal Frank Koons also encountered French civilians during the withdrawal. Having volunteered for the rearguard, he had been falling back from one hedge to another while watching for pursuing Germans, when several civilians approached. On learning he was an American, several “grabbed hold of me and shook me by the hand.” A man said there were ten Germans covering the road to the gully. Koons and the commandos with him went back carefully but found these Germans had already been killed. Koons looked on his first German corpse, “lying on the road. He looked a strong healthy lad about 22 years old and had been killed by the bursting of one of his own grenades.”
Koons was in awe of the commandos. “The English,” he wrote, “are very calm and quiet.” When he reached the beach, the landing craft waited. Tide out, they stood off to avoid grounding on rocks. Koons and some other commandos located a small French rowboat and put a few of the wounded aboard. The men then wrestled it over rocks and floated the wounded to MGB312. Koons climbed aboard. As the boat headed for Newhaven, he “had the wonderful experience of watching dog-fighting between Spitfires and Messerschmitts fought at a height of not more than 700 or 800 feet.”40
No. 4 Commando’s losses totalled forty-five, of which two officers and ten other ranks were killed. Three officers and seventeen other ranks were wounded and successfully evacuated. Another thirteen men were missing, having been left behind. Included in this tally were the commandos struck on Orange II by the German mortar fire and left behind because they were too badly wounded to endure the hard march to reach the battery on schedule. Despite being unwounded, medical orderly Private Jim Pasquale had stayed with these men. All five U.S. Rangers and two French commandos came through unscathed.
Aboard MGB312, Lovat had Lieutenant Commander Mulleneux intercept the main fleet so he could personally report to Major General Ham Roberts aboard Calpe. When Roberts did not come out on deck for a personal briefing, someone told Lovat via loudhailer that his commandos “might as well go home.”41 Some of the more seriously wounded were transferred from MGB312 to HMS Fernie.42 At 0850 hours, Lovat sent a signal to Mountbatten at Uxbridge. Claiming to have been met by resistance from about 250 Germans, Lovat ended the message, “Every one of gun crews finished with bayonet. OK by you?”
The German defenders actually numbered no more than 112 men and perhaps as few as 93 (German records differ). Losses were about 30 killed and another 30 wounded, a proportion that, as the Canadian Army historian noted, “reflects the use of the bayonet.”43 The point of the operation, of course, had been to destroy the coastal guns rather than inflicting German casualties. “In this very brilliant affair,” as one army commentator wrote, No. 4 Commando carried out an attack that was “a model of bold action and successful synchronization.”44
For their parts, Lovat received a DSO and Mills-Roberts a Military Cross. When the commandos reached Newhaven, hundreds of civilians were waiting on the docks. All the soldiers had been soaked to the armpits gaining the landing craft, and uniforms were still wet. Faces were streaked with war paint, sweat, and powder burns. Lovat had lost his woollen ca
p. He stood on the dock, sporting rifle casually slung over a shoulder, chatting with the men. Mobile canteens doled out hot tea and cigarettes, while the sergeants took the roll and a final accounting of losses for the adjutant. A lot of press hung about seeking a telling quote. Special Service Brigade commander Brigadier Bob Laycock, mouth slightly covered by one hand, quietly warned Lovat, “Go easy with the press. The Canadians have taken losses.”45
15. The Real Thing
At no. 11 Fighter Group Headquarters in Uxbridge, Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory had set the raid’s complex air support program in motion at 0303 hours.1 With eight hundred aircraft, Leigh-Mallory had to maintain a continuous blanket of protective cover over the navy and army forces for the raid’s duration. Simultaneously, attacks were required against the coastal gun batteries. These five batteries were code-named Hess (behind Orange I), Goebbels (at Berneval), Rommel (inland of Blue Beach), Hitler (on the high ground next to the River Arques behind Dieppe), and Goering (southwest of Dieppe). Also prime targets were the two fortified headlands on either side of Dieppe—Bismarck to the east and Hindenburg to the west. These headlands were to be regularly bombed or wreathed in smoke to blind the defenders. Tactical reconnaissance planes, meanwhile, would fly deep inland to keep “close watch on the movements of the enemy in order to discover any attempt to reinforce the garrison of Dieppe by land.” During the night, as the fleet had closed on the French coast, RAF Coastal Command patrolled the channel for signs of German surface vessels—but had failed to detect the convoy that ran into Group 5 to such disastrous effect.2