Operation Neptune

by Kenneth Edwards

  There was no doubt that the enemy was operating the explosive motor boats and midget submarines from the large islands which form an archipelago just to the north of the mouth of the Scheldt. These provided an ideal strategic base very close to what was at that period the greatest and most important focal point of maritime trade in the world. The numerous narrow channels between the Islands, and the entrances to the canals made ideal “hide-outs” for these little craft, which could easily be shifted from one such base to another and thus greatly reduce the chance of detection. At sea the patrols and the convoy escorts had to guard against attack by these German weapons, but in the waterways which separated what was then German held territory from that which was in our hands, the patrolling had to be done by the small craft of “Force T.” Small support landing craft were used for this patrolling.

  It was also necessary for “Force T” and the Royal Marine Commandos with whom they operated to keep a constant watch upon the movements of German troops and formations, for such information might well give warning of some enemy intention. It was, for instance, a raid carried out by “Force T” and the Royal Marine Commandos which told us that the German garrison in Schouwen had suddenly been increased from some 700 men to 6,000—an event which confirmed suspicions that the enemy contemplated an attempt against the islands of North and South Beveland and Walcheren in order to close once again the approach to Antwerp from the sea.

  The left flank at that time was a part of the world where men had to keep very wide awake and he very efficient if they wished to live long. Danger and, in winter, extreme discomfort was their portion. They had to operate in gales and pouring rain and sometimes in deep snow. They had to live in scattered villages where their craft could “lie up” in a canal or creek, where there were no amenities and supplies were frequently short. As late as April, for instance, the “Force T” accommodation in Goes on South Beveland had water only every other day and it had to be brought by road.

  Nor was “Force T” concerned only with the Dutch islands. The great rivers of the Maas and the Waal on their western reaches across Holland to the sea also had to be watched and patrolled, as had some of the canals in what was for a long time virtually a “no man’s land.” In retrospect it seems astonishing that this great and dangerous amphibious flank was held so efficiently with so small a force. The truth of the matter is that by sheer audacity “Force T” and the Royal Marine Commandos early established a moral ascendancy over the enemy and this they exploited and continually increased.

  In the spring of 1945 the author had the opportunity of spending some little time with “Force T” and taking part in some of the operations and then going with them to the Second Battle for Arnhem. The following accounts were written at the time and may be considered as typical of the activities of “Force T” and the Royal Marine Commandos on this left flank.

  The headquarters of “Force T” were then at Bergen-op-Zoom, which was well within sound of the guns which fought a fairly continuous artillery duel between the mainland and the eastern end of Overflakkee. One could not go far from Bergen-op-Zoom without getting into territory where precautions had to be taken against gunfire and even long-range snipers.

  It was about midnight on a clear dark night with no wind—the sort of night when sound travels far—when we set off from Bergen-op-Zoom in a jeep. The job was to plant a “Cuckoo” on the island of Overflakkee. The “Cuckoo” technique was one way, not only of gaining information about the enemy, but also of maintaining and increasing our moral ascendancy over the Germans in the islands and keeping them “jittery.”

  The “Cuckoo,” which might consist of a single officer or man or a small party, was landed by night and lay up in the upper part of one of the many flooded buildings among the polders. The “Cuckoo” was then, of course, well within the German nest. Usually he had to swim through the floods in order to reach the building selected as a “hide out” and frequently he remained behind the enemy’s positions for as long as three days.

  Not only was a close watch kept on the enemy by this means, and sketches made of his strongpoints from the German, and therefore most vulnerable side, but our artillery was frequently “put on” to targets which could not be seen from outside the high dyke surrounding the islands, and of which our gunners would therefore be unaware. This had a pronounced moral effect upon the Germans. Sometimes a digging party working under the shelter of the dyke and out of sight of the British observation posts would suddenly come under shell fire. Sometimes a patrol or fatigue party would be shelled when they considered themselves quite safe. The previous “Cuckoo” which had been landed on Overflakkee had distinguished himself at the expense of a party of German officers. They had emerged from a headquarters and were walking down the road under the shelter of the dyke when shells began to land very close to them. They took to their heels and sprinted for a slit trench, but the shell bursts followed them and probably their last coherent thoughts were wondering how such seemingly miraculous gunnery was achieved. It was all very bad for the German nerves and correspondingly good for our morale. The “Cuckoo” which we had to land, and which consisted of one officer and two men, was, of course, determined to outdo its predecessor.

  Half a mile up the road from Bergen-op-Zoom we stopped at a control post and were given the password for the night—it was “Clam.” A little farther on we were stopped again—by a sentry who let us pass on giving the word, but told us to proceed without any lights at all. The road was swinging to the northward, that is, towards the German positions on Overflakkee. The enemy was only about two miles away and his look-outs would have seen even side lights. We did not want to arouse his suspicion or draw his fire. Still less did we wish to draw his attention to our activities. The lives of brave men in a very hazardous operation depended upon secrecy and silence.

  Before long we were stopped and challenged again. It was the rendezvous. We left the jeep and clambered down the slope from the road. Below us was a lock—one of those which separate the smaller canals from the tidal waters of the channels between the islands. In the lock lay an LCA. (Landing Craft, Assault). In darkness and silence we clambered on board. No man spoke above a whisper, for we were within a few hundred yards of the German positions on the southern dyke of Overflakkee. The lock was flooded slowly and the gates, which had previously been well greased, opened without a creak. The LCA, glided almost soundlessly out into the channel between Overflakkee and the mainland.

  The spot chosen for landing the “Cuckoo” was three or four miles up this channel. Going slowly up the channel, the outline of the Overflakkee dyke to port could be plainly seen and it seemed incredible that the LCA. was not seen. It was almost like boating on the Suez Canal with one bank held by a skilled enemy with a plentiful supply of automatic weapons.

  The LCA grounded four times in those three miles, but each time only for a very few minutes. That was to be expected, for navigation under those conditions was largely guesswork and luck. None of the channels had been surveyed for five years, and the sandbanks had shifted so that they had little or no relationship to their charted positions. It was for that reason that these operations were always carried out soon after low water, so that there would be a rising tide throughout the operation to float off a craft which grounded, for it would have been certain death to he caught by the dawn while still aground within a hundred yards or so of the German positions.

  At last the LCA reached the position where the “Cuckoo” was to be landed. She lay stopped for several minutes while those on hoard stood listening intently and examining the skyline of the dyke through night glasses.

  Everything was quiet and there was no sign of movement, so the LCA swung round and glided very slowly towards the Overflakkee dyke until, with a barely perceptible crunch, the bows “touched down” on German-held territory.

  In complete silence the commando men who were to guard the LCA from surprise while she lay under the shadow of the dyke clambered up to the top of the d
yke and fanned out to port and starboard, There was another silent wait before the signal was made that everything was quiet. Then the three men of the “Cuckoo” went ashore.

  For half an hour the LCA lay nosing the bottom of the dyke. Then, from the “Cuckoo’s” “walkie-talkie” wireless set came the news that it was established and “happy.” The scouts and guards were brought in. Then the LCA went astern, swung round, and headed back to its “hide out” in the lock. The operation of landing the “Cuckoo” had been successfully carried out.

  It was three days later that this “Cuckoo” was taken off. An attempt had been made to take them off on the previous night but, although the LCA reached its appointed place, the “Cuckoo” reported that it could not reach the craft as there were Germans between its “hide-out” and the dyke.

  That “Cuckoo” had a very successful time. It brought back a detailed sketch of a new strongpoint on which the Germans were working. Moreover, it directed our shell fire on to a German patrol. This it did in such a way that the first shells landed just behind the Germans. No sooner had they begun to run up the road towards the nearest cover than the “Cuckoo” gave a correction to the guns so that the shells began to fall just ahead of them. When the Germans turned about and began running in the opposite direction the process was repeated. As the “Cuckoo” said. “We made ’em sweat before we killed them.”

  Sitting in an armchair this seems rather cruel, and horrible, and unnecessary, but it was not. Human life was a very cheap commodity in that area, and the more we were able to show the Germans that they were never safe, the safer our own men would be. The incident of that patrol must have been witnessed by many other Germans. The story must have gone round, and the moral effect must have been great.

  A few nights later a very different type of operation took place on the island of Schouwen. It was just before the second battle for Arnhem, and it was very necessary to find out what was going on in the islands, and particularly an Schouwen. There had been certain indications of unusual German troop movements, and our air reconnaissance had reported the arrival of some big Dutch barges at Zerikzee, the little port up a canal running north into the island of Schouwen. With the great battle for Arnhem imminent, it was very important to know what these indications meant.

  The operation on Schouwen was very carefully planned. For some time the Germans had been showing increasing reluctance to leave the shelter of their strongpoints at night. They had been caught so often when they had sent out patrols which had suddenly become aware that British Commando men had materialised apparently from nowhere and had glided up close behind them, pressed the muzzles of tommy-guns or Sten guns into their ribs and hissed an order to “keep on going”—to a waiting LCA, interrogation and captivity—that they seldom sent out patrols, even when their suspicions had been deliberately aroused. The security of a strongpoint armed with machine-guns and protected by minefields seemed to them infinitely preferable.

  Much thought had therefore been devoted to the preparation of a scheme which, it was thought, must force the Germans to send out from one of their strongpoints a patrol to investigate. Moreover, the spot at which the Commando troops were to be landed on the island of Schouwen was carefully selected midway between two known German strongpoints. For this reason, and because of the steps to be taken to lure the enemy into the open, it was a more dangerous operation than an ordinary raid. Moreover, it soon became clear that the Germans were very wide awake and “up to something” unusual.

  The operation began when twenty-five men of the Royal Marine Commandos assembled in what had been the bar of a public house on the waterside of Colijnsplaat at dusk. Colijnsplaat is a village on the extreme northern coast of North Bevel and, and opposite to about the centre of the south coast of Schouwen. At that comparatively early hour it was already obvious that the Germans on Schouwen were themselves contemplating some sort of operation that night. First indication of this came just before dusk, when the Germans shelled Colijnsplaat for a short time. This they had not done for some weeks, although it had at one time been a regular occurrence. The shelling did little damage and caused no naval or military casualties, although it killed one girl in her ’teens, blew the leg off another, and inflicted serious head injuries to a small boy. The Royal Marine Commando swore that they would exact vengeance before dawn.

  The bar of that little Dutch public house, with its dirty mural paintings, and crowded with men in combat dress and with blacked faces and hands, was thick with smoke and lit only by a hurricane lantern on a central table. It would have made an ideal subject for a Vermeer.

  There were snatches of laughter and song. Spirits were undoubtedly high. Then there was a hush as the Commanding Officer came in to give his final “briefing.” It was short and very much to the point, and then we filed out and along the dyke to the rendezvous with the LCA which was to take the Commando men over to Schouwen.

  The trip across to the selected landing place on Schouwen was fairly long, and it was soon made clear that the Germans really were “up to something.” Away to the westward there was great flare activity, which continued through most of the night. This was in addition to the normal German system by which every German post fired a white flare at intervals as a signal that all was quiet. A red flare instead of a white was the alarm signal. These intermittent flares were fired all along the coast of Schouwen, but over at West Schouwen the flare activity was such that there were seldom fewer than fifteen or twenty flares in the air at the same time. What it all meant we had no idea, but hoped to be able to find out.

  It was only with difficulty that the selected landing place was found. It was recognisable because the wall along the top of the dyke fell away for a few feet, but it proved difficult to find as, from the direction of our approach, it was in line with the tops of some trees inland on Schouwen. Being midway between two German strongpoints, moreover, there was no margin for error. We crept along dead slow in the still night and keeping about two hundred yards off the dyke—made at intervals to feel very naked by the flares—until the correct spot was identified. Then the LCA turned and glided in towards the dyke.

  The LCA “touched down” at the foot of the dyke so gently that it was barely perceptible. Then suddenly we heard a sound and remained absolutely motionless. The sound got louder and was identified as the unmistakable noise of a horse and cart coming along the road which ran about halfway down the landward side of the dyke. It was getting on for midnight. No Dutch farmer would be out with horse and cart in German occupied territory at that time of night, so it must be Germans. The night was so still that a gently rolling stone could have been heard for some distance, so that it was too dangerous to risk trying to disembark the Marines. There was only one thing to do—to keep absolutely still and hope that the Germans would not look over the wall on the top of the dyke. If they did our situation would be exceedingly uncomfortable, for they could not have helped seeing the LCA lying within a few yards of them. The Marines, huddled together in the craft, would have been massacred by automatic weapons—and there was a German strongpoint on each side of where the LCA lay.

  The voices of the Germans with the cart could be heard as they passed, but fortunately they were incurious of anything on the seaward side of the dyke and passed harmlessly along the road to the south-eastward.

  The moment it was possible, the Marines disembarked and made their way to the top of the dyke. As they reached it they heard the sound of another horse and cart coming along the road. It turned out to be more than one cart. It was a convoy of twenty four-wheeled wagons, heavily laden with equipment and with German soldiers riding on them. The wagons were escorted by other German soldiers on foot and with bicycles. There must have been fully a hundred men, and they passed within half a dozen yards of the Marines lying hidden on the top of the dyke. Had the Marines been in greater force it might have been possible to mop up the entire convoy and its escorts, but it would have been madness to take on odds of more than three to one
within a few hundred yards of two enemy strongpoints where there were known to be Spandaus and would probably also be mortars. There was nothing to be done but watch them pass, listen to their conversation, and hope that there would be a straggler or two who could be silently dealt with and taken back to Colijnsplaat for interrogation.

  As luck would have it there were no stragglers, so two scouts were sent off to trail the convoy and find out where it was going. After what seemed an interminable wait the scouts came back to say that they had trailed the convoy into the village of Zerikzee, where it had halted near the little harbour where the barges had been reported.

  This information was valuable, as far as it went. We had discovered that the Germans were moving troops and equipment out of Schouwen by barge. The barges would have to go “west about” to reach Dortrecht or the Rotterdam area, and this probably explained the flare activity off West Schouwen. Moreover, the shelling of Colijnsplaat may have been intended to discourage our patrols. We did not, however, know the total number of men being moved or their destination, although it looked as if the Germans were either trying to pull out of Schouwen or were sending reinforcements to the area in which we planned to deliver the big attack against Arnhem and the river line. The missing pieces in this jigsaw puzzle might be secured if we could take a prisoner.

  After waiting some time to ensure that all was quiet after the passage of the convoy and that no further troops were coming along that road, the plan for tempting a German patrol out of the strongpoints was put into action. This consisted of starting up an outboard motor which sounded like a small motor cycle. Then an explosive charge was to be fired and the outboard motor stopped. This was supposed to represent the motor cycle running into a land mine. Finally, the explosion was to be followed by a voice calling for help in German. It was thought that the Germans would have to send out a patrol to investigate if they thought, as they were intended to, that one of their dispatch riders had fouled a land mine and was injured.