XD Operations

by C Brazier

  A broadcast at that time by Ferdonnet, the French Lord Haw Haw stated that the Germans would capture the oil plants on the Seine in spite of the large British forces defending them. By the fifth of June things were getting bad; enemy planes were over the whole length of the Seine at frequent intervals and the intelligence reports from British HQ gave the situation as grave, in the face of persistent enemy attacks. The admiral at Le Havre, where many large fires were burning, gave orders for the evacuation of all but key personnel. Partial evacuation of Rouen was carried out and an ad hoc British division just outside the city was taking heavy punishment. All industrial plants were closing and their staff being sent away from the area. The last train from the city passed our HQ not only packed to a point of suffocation, but with people actually sitting outside on the roof.

  At ten o’clock the British intelligence report told of enemy columns, tanks and armoured infantry all moving southwards through the gaps in the defences, of sections of the railway being bombed and stations on fire. The previous day the French had been heavily attacked from Neufchatel to Forges and the enemy was over the River Brest. Later we heard that orders had been given to Brigade Commanders to blow bridges at their discretion. At the same time our liaison officer came to our HQ with the intelligence summaries which still gave the situation as favourable, adding a rider to the effect that they expected a further engagement within two days which they confidently felt would be in their favour – it was difficult not to feel sorry for them.

  An additional worry cropped up at this stage. It was the discovery in one of the plants of 10, 000 gallons of tetraethyl lead in drums, both dangerous and poisonous stuff to have on our hands in an emergency, but too important to neglect and a commodity which required special care.

  The following day the sound of heavy gunfire came with the first streaks of dawn; later this was supplemented by fairly general but scattered bombing throughout the whole course of the Seine. All our dispatch riders brought in similar reports. In the afternoon the town major called at our HQ to say goodbye and to warn us about being hoodwinked by a German who was said to be in a British Staff car and was dressed as a sapper major. This bogus major turned up in Rouen the same morning, appropriately dressed and walked up to a subaltern, who had just stepped out of his car onto the pavement. The young man was very foolishly alone and unarmed, the ‘major’ engaged him in polite conversation and told him not to be alarmed at what he was about to witness, stepped back into the car and drove off! It is a matter of conjecture as to what the young man’s feelings were when he reported the incident to his CO and what happened to him. Although I felt satisfied that no stranger would get entry to our projects I immediately spread the story to all concerned with the obvious injunctions. As the town major left and was saying goodbye, he expressed the view that Rouen would be occupied before morning and told me enough to convince me that his views were well founded. By this time the writing was on the wall.

  I sat down with my guide, philosopher and friend, the adjutant, and between us we drafted final orders covering the party’s last job in this sector of France. Everything was in readiness and arrangements outlined for withdrawal by small groups to a rendezvous fixed in the market square of St Pierre some thirty miles to the west. Having sent these orders out in the early evening, we fed and had baths, on the grounds that it might be some time before another opportunity occurred, and went to sleep with the now commonplace thump of bombs and the crack of the ack-ack gunners’ reply, as a background to receding consciousness.

  Towards 9.00 p.m. an orderly woke us up with an urgent message from the French liaison officer to go down to the nearby plant at once. As we went down from the villa there was a fairly good clatter going on up in the hills on the other side of the river and an air raid seemed to be in progress over Rouen. The news was that the general had ordered all sections to stand prepared on one hour’s notice. We got this over by telephone in code to some of the plants but the more distant installations had to be advised by dispatch riders working along the small roads. All night, until 2.00 a.m. the following day this state of tension remained, with everybody at their posts spread out amongst those ghostly oil tanks, now hardly discernible in the pitch black summer night. Meantime the gunfire and general racket continued. It was the same at Le Havre, but the intermediate places along the river were quiet.

  After 2.00 a.m. gunfire seemed to be taking place behind us a few miles away as well as across the river. This was somewhat disturbing. I asked the French officer to either let us get on with the job or at least to urge such a course on his HQ as there seemed a fair chance of the Germans capturing the place lock, stock and barrel. The French either ignored his request or procrastinated; to give them their due they had a lot on their hands during those last few hours. At 2.30 a.m. a staff officer from the French District HQ, came dashing in with the news that the enemy had passed by Rouen, crossed the Seine at Elbeuf about eight miles away and circled round all the nineteen installations in the horseshoe bend of the river in the Rouen district. It was not absolutely clear if they had got across all roads and we took a chance and sent our dispatch riders to all our sections with instructions to blow on the close approach of the enemy in force, unless previously ordered to do so. I also sent a message saying that I had decided in view of the very confused situation now prevailing, instead of rendezvousing as arranged, all sections should make their own way south-west to St Nazaire. The dual control from naval and military sources made things a bit tricky at this stage and one was anxious that this job should not slip through our fingers. The dawn came, then daylight, and at last at 5.00 a.m. the word came through that the French HQ had withdrawn during the night and that we were to blow up all the twenty-nine installations at 5.45 a.m., i.e. in three-quarters of an hours’ time! It was also alleged that we were cut off! This was our last contact with the French HQ. Meantime the general racket increased, rifle fire and the nearby stutter of machine guns seemed to confirm this last communication quite convincingly. As security did not matter at this point, we telephoned most of the plants to order them, in clear, to carry out final demolitions, at the appointed 5.45 a.m. and we sent dispatch riders to the others, with instructions to the riders not to come back here but to throw in their lot with the last section they visited.

  So, 5.45 a.m. one fine summer morning, twenty-nine refineries and oil storage plants with just over a million tons of fuel and lubricating oil were fired. The method used was the well tried one of earlier XD operations in the Low Countries; the blowing of the outlet valves with gun cotton and then, when a sufficient pool of oil had formed inside the bund, their firing. In the case of pools of only bunker oil, blankets soaked in kerosene were used.

  The conflagration was probably one of the biggest of its time, extending as it did over sixty miles along the riverfront. The flames were several hundred feet high and above all a dense pall of black smoke again several hundred feet thick, drifted slowly over the surrounding country. The fires were punctuated with explosions; some were from our charges while others were simply caused by partly full tanks getting very hot, exploding and taking off into the air.

  Joe Hawes and I pulled out and drove down the road, south-west, too tired to worry much, with St Pierre in mind. As our car climbed on to high ground we looked back and could trace the course of the river for many miles by the large areas of fire. The most amazing feature was the darkness and chill due to the pall of smoke cutting off the sun’s rays. This was particularly noticeable over the central sectors where the very large plants were situated.

  My batman, Holland, was driving and we had not been going long before we came to a crossroads and ran right into what appeared to be a scrap between a French seventy-five battery and some German vehicles. The Germans appeared to be in some force and it was either capture or evasive action; a burst of machine-gun fire was enough to promote a quick decision. As this was on the outskirts of the Forêt Londe, the scene of the spy hunt, it did not take us long to turn off
the road into one of the rides cut through the trees and onto a minor road leading towards the coast. Underneath the trees were thousands of refugees in varying states of exhaustion. Progress was well nigh impossible at times as they clung round the car begging for lifts, food or water. Moreover craters in the road from recent bombing raids, necessitated detours over rough ground making progress difficult; at one place where a single railway line formed a level crossing with the road, the car had to take a detour into the forest for some distance.

  At 10.00 a.m. we arrived at the rendezvous not particularly expecting to meet any of the sections. Nevertheless St Pierre was more or less on the direct route south-west for some of them so I was not too surprised when up came several of our sections who had been operating midway between Le Havre and Rouen. The latter reported that all had gone according to plan and the fires of adjacent plants could be seen as far as Le Havre. They had crossed the Seine without casualty but were exhausted after hours of standing to, ready to carry out the demolitions and suffering from hunger. Later, other groups, operating nearer the estuary, passed through telling a similar story and confirming that the Le Havre plants had been blown up, with the enemy on the outskirts of the town. We had heard from Lieutenant Don Terry, our officer in charge that his party was going to withdraw seawards in a British destroyer after helping out with the demolition of the port installations. Other sections were now also pulling out after having completed their tasks. Nearly all the plants were on the north or wrong side of the river for withdrawal. The first bridges over the Seine from Le Havre at the mouth of the river were at Rouen. However there were a number of ferries that might or might not be operational. When the situation had become critical most of the section officers had sent their 15cwt trucks over to the south bank. In the original operation order for the Seine operation the sections were warned that they might have to construct rafts in order to get back over the river after firing the oil. In the event this did not prove necessary. There were as many as a dozen men on some of these 15cwt trucks designed for six men in the back. Fortunately there was a comfortable perch for two men to sit between the bonnet and the front mudguards, which helped to relieve congestion.

  By now most of the men were accounted for, which was reassuring news. Later I set out with the adjutant and Corporal Holland to make Nantes the same day. We had reason to believe that we could telephone to England from there as it was in use as a British base. I was anxious to report the conclusion of our mission and to get directions for any further tasks.

  The long drive of over 200 miles was difficult and it was almost impossible to keep awake, so we each took it in turns at the wheel, while the other two immediately sank into oblivion. Travelling against time, making the best speed we could in the circumstances, we nearly piled up a dozen times when the one driving lapsed into a semi-comatose state. Towards the end, we were changing places every fifteen minutes as no one could be trusted to stay awake! It was late that night when we pulled into the British HQ at Nantes. Having spoken to Military Operations at the War Office in England by telephone and reported our arrival to the duty officer at the local HQ, we were directed to a rest camp at Savenay about twenty miles along the road to St Nazaire. This last stage was about the limit of our endurance. Fortunately it was pitch black, so that we had to crawl. It was about midnight when we entered the camp and fell in a heap on the floor of the first vacant hut. All three participants still regard this most curious journey as half dream, half reality.

  Chapter Six

  EVACUATION

  Savenay was a rest camp between Nantes and St Nazaire, situated just above the small Breton town in pleasant open country. The huts were built near what appeared to have been the local racecourse and very few troops were in occupation. It was presided over by an elderly gunner subaltern who had been a ranker in the First World War and knew what the men wanted so he applied himself with some diligence to making the place comfortable. When our sections arrived, after their withdrawal from the Seine and the long trek westwards across France, Savenay seemed like a benediction on the weary travellers. Here they could eat, bathe and sleep without even an air raid. This lasted for several days. An occasional visit to the local estaminet enabled them to listen to wireless reports from the BBC and Radio Paris, at the same time as sampling the excellent meals and marvellous cellar. Life would have been fairly kind but for the ominous news reports.

  When all the sections had got back to Savenay, apart from Don Terry’s party, it transpired that the oil tanks at Honfleur across the Seine estuary from Le Havre had not been destroyed. The omission had come about because the officer in charge of the most westerly of the oil installations at Le Havre, Don Terry, had been under naval command at the port and had not appreciated that the Honfleur tank farm was part of his ‘show’. Don Terry and his section, after helping to destroy the port installations had, as you will remember, already left for England on a destroyer.

  Tommy Goodwin with Second Lieutenant Whitehead, Lance Sergeant Ward and about eight sappers very courageously volunteered to go back the whole way to Honfleur despite the very fluid situation as regards mechanized German patrols.

  When I arrived at Savenay I found that Peter Keeble, who had done the original reconnaissance, had arrived before us and had moved out with his party on his own initiative to tackle another dump. He had been advised when he initially came over to France, not only of the details of the Seine installations but, in passing, he was told that there was an enormous BEF fuel dump in the forest of Blain down near St Nazaire. Although it had nothing to do with our tasks on the Seine, he had remembered this information.

  The dump turned out to be of considerable size and area. Here at Blain was a prize indeed for the Germans. The huge dump of petrol in forty gallon drums and four gallon tins were in well separated piles as a precaution against fire accidentally spreading. These were piled up in square stacks leading far into the forest with a complete network of roadways and paths. It stored the main BEF stocks of petrol and aviation spirits for the RAF. Despite the obvious hazards in tackling this dump Keeble made the very courageous decision to carry on although he was doing it on his own initiative. This task was quite different from any of the previous ones and in any case by now they had expended all their explosives. They had no alternative but to resort to the highly dangerous practice of breaking open the drums of volatile liquid with pickaxes and bayonets; sparks were inevitable. The weather was hot and it had not rained for some days so everything was tinder dry. When they had finished holing a few of the drums in every pile, the smell of petrol vapour inside the forest was almost overpowering. In these circumstances Keeble decided to light the dump at the upwind end and allow the wind and burning tinder to do the rest of the job. The party withdrew to the upwind side of the wood and Keeble ignited the nearest drums by firing a Very Light cartridge into the petrol on the ground; the fire spread at a frightening pace down the length of the whole wood. One pile of drums had accidentally caught fire prematurely, nobody was quite sure how, and two men came out very badly burned. And at the end of the task when Keeble checked the numbers there was one man missing. Though they searched for him as best they could it was impossible to get inside the forest which was now engulfed in flames and sadly what happened to him will never be known. The two men with burns survived and happily made it back to England.

  Through the last peaceful day or two that ensued we had little accurate knowledge of what was happening. Daily intelligence reports collected from British HQ at Nantes told at first of enemy pressure and withdrawals, but latterly the situation became more confused. The French radio news distribution, right up to the last, glossed over the true state of affairs and was usually rounded off by encouraging speeches and appeals to the nation by ministers. They extolled the French army and encouraged the people to stand firm. Life at Nantes seemed to be going on very much the same as in peacetime; there was little attempt at blackout and cars used headlamps at night!

  Towards the e
nd of the week I went to the local HQ and , as I went up the drive, I noticed that smoke was issuing from the chimneys and a party was burning papers at the side of the house! This looked ominous enough – I had seen the same thing before earlier in the campaign. The Commander told me that things were pretty bad and that he could not say more at the moment but he was obviously a worried man.

  As I was leaving the building, I met an acquaintance who rather shocked me; firstly by telling me that he knew the purpose of our mission, which was a closely guarded secret, and secondly that he felt it was his duty to tell me that the French were about to conclude an armistice. Apparently the British had been given a brief spell to effect a withdrawal from France. He volunteered the information that French resistance had almost ceased and the Germans were marching westwards practically unopposed. This put an end to the brief peaceful existence at Savenay. Before leaving I found the name and address of an RASC officer connected with petrol supplies who had an intimate knowledge of the local installations, and immediately set out to find him. The officer was run to earth at the Donges refinery just outside St Nazaire. At first he was, quite naturally loath to talk, but after having impressed upon him the serious implications and consequent dangers of these supplies falling into enemy hands, he put me ‘in the picture’ and cooperated fully. Time was pressing. To cut a long story short, a party was sent out to Donges immediately upon my return and demolition was timed for 9.00 p.m. that evening. Back at Savenay the remaining sections were getting ready to move to St Nazaire at midnight for, by this time, the order for general evacuation had been made for the remainder of British Forces in that part of France. They were tramping their weary way towards the roads leading to the port.