The Coal-Scuttle Brigade
Page 15
In the morning, out of the mist which shrouded them at dawn, out to sea on the port side, comes the grumble and thump of depth-charging where a single U-boat tries to attack the convoy. This mist begins to close in on the ships; then they begin to turn, turning for France, with the sun like a pale moon above the mast, the ships huddling together, dropping fog-floats; finally, each ship is alone, hemmed in by the haze.
Bombers are passing above, all the time, the brrrp brrrp as they test their guns striking down to the Channel. An LCT suddenly appears under the bow of one of the ships, they are racing towards each other; and behind the first LCT, four more. The LCTs veer into the middle of the convoy and go down between the lines, heading for England. As the mist clears slightly, the leading frigate is visible. She is turning away to starboard, and the flashes from her lamp are winking fast at the convoy, which turns behind her. The cause — five minsweepers, with floats out, and flying red flags — loom up and shave past the convoy to port.
Rapidly, the mist is clearing. There is a complete convoy approaching, and passing down the port side — all Liberty ships; then a host of smaller vessels, then bunches of LCTs — more than thirty in the first lot. This is the conveyor-belt in operation — rather like rush-hour in Regent Street.
And then, the convoy begins to lose speed, the engines slowing down — and quite clearly now, to port, the sound of the guns.
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They were going down the side of the Liberty ship, down rope ladders, hand-over-hand, in full marching order, with rifles slung over their shoulders. Below an LCT rolled alongside, the gap between it and the transport opening and narrowing with the push and tug of the sea. It was fifty feet below them, and this was no time to slip. Above them, the ship’s loudhailer was blaring out a military march.
Then the trucks came swaying out of the hold of the transport, they swung outboard and hovered over the rolling LCT. As they came down towards her deck, the soldiers grabbed the swinging wheels of the three-ton vehicles and manoeuvred them into position on the floor of the LCT. Then the LCT drew away and anchored in the lee of ‘Gooseberry’, the soldiers taking no notice of the sunken colliers, there was so much to see. ‘What’s this place, chum?’ they asked a young rating. ‘Juno Beach, but you won’t be going in a while yet.’ Another LCT came alongside them, with half-a-dozen Polish tanks and a couple of soft-skinned vehicles aboard.
One Englishman jumped the distance, and was soon sitting in the turret of a tank, headphones on, listening to the news from London; two others had gone over the side for a swim. When the tide was right, the LCT started up at a quiet order from the Lieutenant commanding it, and headed in for the beach. The soldiers got into their lorries and tanks, the drivers started their engines. As the LCT hit the beach, there was another quiet order from the Lieutenant and two ratings, stationed forward, in three seconds lowered the bows flat on the sand to form a ramp. The trucks and tanks instantly drove forward, whined and groaned up the beach, spurting sand from wheels and tracks, and were gone amongst the dunes. When they thought about it all, later, they saw why the Germans failed in 1940 to invade at all, and if they had, would have met irretrievable disaster.
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On 6th September, the V.l bombardment of London docks ceased. The Canadians had over-run the launching sites. The German coastal batteries furiously re-doubled their fire, for they knew their hour was near. There was no point now in conserving ammunition or worrying about barrel wear.
17th September was a clear, sunny day. Third Canadian Division was spread out before Boulogne. They could actually see England, as a faint, white line on the horizon. These were the men who had bought off collier seamen splinters of shells fired by the Calais-Boulogne batteries. Now, they were going to see the batteries close up and interview the gunners personally. With them were the curious tracked vehicles of the 79th Armoured Division (the ‘Funnies’). The R.A.F. struck the first blow, with 690 bombers, and took all morning to do it, bombing from a height at target indicators planted by the Pathfinders.
The high ground where the batteries were completely vanished from sight in billowing clouds of brown and black smoke. It was, said a Canadian officer, ‘an awesome sight; it was hard to believe that any enemy troops could remain alive in the target areas.’
As the infantry, with the diamond shoulder flashes of ‘3 Div’, rose up and went forward, Spandaus began to chatter at them, and men pitched forward; then came the shellfire, heavy and accurate. The attack slowed, and there was bitter, stubborn fighting. The Germans had suffered few casualties and their fortified positions had been virtually undamaged by the bombs. The Dover batteries had done better. They had engaged the Calais guns, to prevent them joining in the battle — and they had hit and knocked out a German 16-inch gun at a range of 42,000 yards. In addition, they scored repeated hits within the battery positions.
There were four British guns taking part in this action — two 14-inchers of the Royal Marine Siege Regiment plus ‘Jane’ and ‘Clem’, two 15-inchers manned by 540 Coast Regiment, R.A. It was a brilliant performance.
The old Citadel, which had shrugged off an enormous tonnage of bombs, fell — in the best traditions of historical romance — by a French civilian claiming to know of a ‘secret tunnel’ leading into the heart of the fortifications. A single platoon of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders followed him into the tunnel — and came out in the middle of the fort, behind the German’s backs. Simultaneously, two ‘Funnies’ blew in the gate. That was too much for the defenders and ‘a host of white flags waved from the walls’.[13]
Calais was next. The 7th Brigade went for the town; the 8th Brigade for the batteries between Sangatte and Cap Blanc Nez. Again, there was the same preliminary air and gun bombardment, which served to quieten the opposition a little, psychologically at any rate. By the 26th all Germans in the battery positions were dead or taken.
Last to fall was Cap Gris Nez, twelve miles from Calais and the nearest part of the continent to England. The guns and Kesselring’s old command post fell to the 9th Brigade on 29th September, with 1,600 prisoners. The forty-nine months bombardment of the Straits was over.
The Channel was free again.
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[1] Army Group Order No. 1 for the conduct of Operation SEALION.
[2] Max Horton and the Western Approaches, p. 91.
[3] For full discussion of this subject, by fighter pilots on both sides, see: Pierre Clostermann, The Big Show, p. 166; and Adolf Galland, The First and the Last, p. 76.
[4] The Royal Air Force 1939-1945, Vol. I (H.M.S.O.).
[5] The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring, p. 63.
[6] The War at Sea, Vol. I, pp. 324-6 (H.M.S.O.).
[7] Dover did have a ‘shell-warning’ but only after the first salvo had arrived.
[8] Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War, p. 167 (H.M.S.O.).
[9] For booklength treatment of this subject, by doctors, see Lord Moran’s The Anatomy of Courage and the Medical History of the Second World War (H.M.S.O.).
[10] Admiral Sir William James, The Portsmouth Letters.
[11] Chester Wilmot, The Struggle For Europet p. 322, and anyone who saw it.
[12] It was a statistic certainty, as far as front-line troops were concerned, that almost all would be killed or wounded within six months. Some units were reduced to half strength in a month or two.
[13] Eye-witness, quoted in The Canadian Army 1939-45.
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