Night Raid

by Taylor Downing

  The coast of northern France was guarded against attack from the sea by troops of the Wehrmacht. The intelligence section at Combined Operations knew that the forty-five-mile stretch of coast from Le Havre north-east to Sotteville-sur-Mer was guarded by the German 336th Infantry Division, largely recruited from Saxony, under the command of Lieutenant General Johann Joachim Stever. A Prussian, upright, formal and strict, a professional officer not a committed Nazi, Stever had been in the army since before the First World War. In 1940 he had led a Panzer division in the assault on France and Belgium, but it was thought he had not been a success as a Panzer commander and so in late 1940 he was put in command of the 336th Infantry Division. This would have been seen as a severe demotion.

  A German infantry division was made up of several regiments and the unit based around Bruneval was the 685th Infantry Regiment, a new regiment formed at the end of 1940 to provide garrison troops for occupied France. In command of the 685th was another experienced professional officer, Colonel von Eisenhart-Rothe. The soldiers at Bruneval were part of the 1st Battalion of the 685th and the battalion was charged with the defence of a twelve-mile stretch of coast from Criquebeuf-en-Caux, to the north-east, to just south of Bruneval. The commander of this battalion was Major Paschke.

  Down the steep slope from the cliff-top radar site, where the road came out to the sea, there was a network of German defences, as the underground agents had reported on their recce. Here the old villa known as Stella Maris and the road heading inland was surrounded by barbed wire approximately ten feet deep. The garrison consisted of a platoon of thirty men under the command of a sergeant. Five of these men slept in the villa, which had become a guard post manned twenty-four hours a day. The remainder were based at the Hotel Beau-Minet, which was about five hundred yards back up the road heading inland. The troops stationed at the Hotel Beau-Minet and the Stella Maris were from the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion under the command of Oberleutnant Huhn.

  Above and behind the Stella Maris were a series of machine-gun positions and pillboxes facing out to sea and across the beaches. This was the defensive position called Beach Fort in the British plan. There were the two positions halfway up the cliff on either side of the road that Pol and Charlemagne had spotted. On aerial photographs, interpreters had sighted further machine-gun nests along and above the road heading inland. In addition to the open machine-gun positions there were a small number of concrete pillboxes that were still under construction. Most of these overlooked the beach and the road, and communication trenches linking them were being dug. But the photo interpreters had noted that in recent weeks a pillbox had been built on the shoulder of the cliff opposite the Stella Maris. This was a single, powerful position with a commanding view of both the beach and the valley inland. The intelligence team called this the Redoubt.

  It was clear that a heavier defensive shield was under construction to prevent an enemy force from advancing up the road. As the pillboxes were roofed over it was obviously impossible to identify from aerial photos what guns were stationed inside. But from their size, the photo interpreters concluded that they contained nothing larger than machine guns. It was even possible that, as the defensive line was so recent and was still under construction, weapons had not yet been brought in.

  British Intelligence knew that there was a further garrison from the 1st Company in the small village of La Poterie, only two and a half miles from Bruneval. The garrison amounted to the rest of the company, seventy men, and was Major Paschke’s headquarters. The problem for these men was that they had no vehicular transport and so would be expected to march to the coast to provide assistance. By the time they had been alerted, in the middle of the night, had rallied and marched up the coast road, it was likely that they would not arrive on the scene for a couple of hours.

  Further afield, at Étretat, a seaside town about six miles up the coast, there was another company of regular German infantry. Again, it was critical to estimate how quickly they could be expected to arrive on the scene. The planners at Combined Operations concluded that even if they were accommodated in barracks or in billets over a very small area, ‘they cannot be expected to arrive on the scene of action within one hour of a warning being received, and it is highly probable that three hours would elapse before their arrival.’1 Finally, British Intelligence knew that there was a reconnaissance battalion based at Yport, about sixteen miles away. This unit was equipped with armoured cars and it was possible that one or two of these vehicles, if alerted early enough, could arrive on the scene within about an hour. However, it would take much longer for a larger force to reach Bruneval and organise itself. The intelligence report for the Bruneval raid concluded with words that no doubt greatly relieved Major Frost and his lightly armed force: ‘No tanks have yet been located in the neighbourhood.’2

  The headquarters of the 1st Battalion of the 685th Infantry Regiment was about seven miles by road from Bruneval in a village called Bordeaux-St-Clair. From here the battalion commander kept in touch with his various outposts by field telephone. The Combined Operations planners thought there was a strong possibility that failures of communication would occur between the Wehrmacht units and the Luftwaffe soldiers, no doubt knowing how such failures frequently occurred between different elements of the British armed services. But it seems that on this stretch of coast, the local Luftwaffe commander, Oberleutnant Melches, and the senior army commander, Major Paschke, had met as recently as mid January to divide up and agree their respective defensive responsibilities. At the time of the British raid, co-operation between the two German military services was excellent.

  Although there was no reason to doubt the determination of the German troops, British Intelligence did not know much about the quality of the soldiers the raiders would face, or about their morale. Overall, life for the troops defending this stretch of coast was reasonably good. Haute Normandy was a prosperous, farming region and there were all sorts of farm produce to be traded from the locals. Like all soldiers on garrison duty, the principal problem they had to fight was sheer boredom. Their guard rosters were long and passed slowly. It was easy for a rather sleepy atmosphere to prevail. To keep them alert, the regular soldiers made frequent patrols across the region, but never at predictable or regular times. They would appear out of the blue and challenge the local sentries. Passwords would change daily and those guarding the facilities would be put on a charge if they got that day’s password wrong. As the radar installations themselves were top secret Luftwaffe installations, the army patrols were never allowed to enter them and probably had no idea what they were for. But overall, at this stage of the war, the soldiers guarding the French coast had a pretty easy life, certainly by comparison to their colleagues fighting the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

  The German soldiers did not mix much with French civilians, although as with all occupying armies, some liaisons with local girls developed. There were few problems from the Resistance at this time. And most of the soldiers knew that even with the Americans now in the war, the Allies did not have the capacity to mount any sort of invasion. The garrison soldiers, like troops anywhere, longed for a break or a visit home to Germany to see their wives, families and loved ones. The food they ate, the music they listened to and the papers and books they read were mostly imported from home, and each outpost brought a little bit of Germany to occupied France.

  No matter how reassuring the intelligence reports and briefings sent to Frost and his team, it was possible that units could be changed during the course of a day. As the Allies would find two and a half years later, on D-Day, relatively weak units were swapped with hardened troops at a moment’s notice and the Allied troops found themselves up against much tougher defenders than they had anticipated. Nevertheless, the analysis of enemy positions and reinforcements in the area had been extremely thorough and Major Frost and his officers felt that they were going into battle with an immense amount of information about their enemy. Frost reflected that rarely had men
been given so much information about the enemy they were coming up against: ‘the strength, the billets, the weapons and even the names of some of the Germans were known.’3

  The conclusion of the intelligence assessments was that the troops in the immediate vicinity of the drop zone were a mixture of radar and communication specialists defended by relatively lightly armed soldiers. But the machine-gun nests were clearly an issue, and although primarily positioned to fire across the beaches it was clear that they could also be used to fire across the valley and along the road that would be one of the vital routes for the Nelson group. The Wehrmacht units were scattered across the countryside and the possibility of their quick response underlined the need for speed throughout the raid. If the paratroopers were held up at any point in the mission it would give critical minutes for large numbers of German reinforcements to arrive. Of course, it was not known how determined any of these defenders would be, or how well they would fight when surprised by British paratroopers in the middle of the night. Only during the raid itself would the real combat calibre of the enemy forces become apparent.

  In the week before the raid on Bruneval was due, as called for in the plan, the RAF began to fly more and more raids across the coastal region between Le Havre and Dieppe. Every time RAF aircraft crossed the Channel in this area the Freya radar operators would pick them up and sound the alarm. When they were twenty-five miles off the coast the Würzburg team would begin to track them. The RAF raids took place throughout the night. They put immense strain on the radar operators, who telephoned their information as to the sightings of the enemy aircraft as soon as they had fixed on an identification. The generally rather lazy atmosphere grew more fervent. It was clear that something was up and that the RAF were now hitting hard at targets across northern France.

  15

  The Drop

  There were only three nights in which conditions needed for the raid, a full moon with a high tide, were ideal – the nights of Tuesday 24 to Thursday 26 February. The final exercise had only finished on the Sunday before. Having checked their weapons and packed their equipment, on the morning of 24 February the men nervously waited to hear that the mission was on. The containers were then taken off to the airfield, and the men were told to rest and get some sleep if they could. They would be driven the few miles across Salisbury Plain to the airfield at Thruxton in the late afternoon for emplaning. Weather conditions had to be just right for the RAF to fly its sorties, for the parachute forces to jump and for the navy to get the men off the beaches.

  Tuesday had dawned stormy and blowy. Gale force winds were reported in the Channel. With all the containers packed, a call came through from divisional HQ in mid afternoon. The high winds over the north French coast meant that conditions were not suitable for a parachute drop. The operation was postponed for twenty-four hours.

  In the preceding rush of activity, the men had been focused on last-minute preparations, using their time to study the maps, photographs and models in order to imprint in their minds what lay ahead of them. Now, in the hours following the postponement, they had an opportunity for the first time to reflect on all that might go wrong. It was not a good few hours. Nevertheless, on Wednesday morning, the men of C Company went through the whole process again: checking weapons, packing containers and studying their operational orders. Then, again, in the middle of the afternoon a call came through from headquarters. The strong winds in northern France meant that the navy could not guarantee that the landing craft would be able to get in to the beach successfully. The mission was postponed for another twenty-four hours. This time it was worse. Not only the men but their officers, Major Frost included, became broody. Having reached a pitch of preparedness, all this time to think was definitely not good for morale.

  On the morning of Thursday 26 February, for the third time, the men packed the containers and checked their weapons, while the officers carried out inspections. This morning the rumour went around that a further postponement would involve missing the necessary combination of moon and tide, and the whole raid would almost certainly be postponed for at least a month until the conditions were propitious once again. The men were convinced that the divisional commanders would do anything to avoid this, and so would probably take a risk and launch the raid even if the weather was less than perfect. This meant that they would probably be jumping in dangerous conditions. But once again, in mid afternoon, the call came through and the raid was postponed. Everyone was downcast and thoroughly miserable. After all their training and preparation, they had been defeated by the weather.

  On the following morning, Friday 27 February, the men awoke to a bitterly cold but bright, clear winter’s day. For the first time that week, the wind had died down. Anyone who knew about weather conditions could see that the south of England was under an area of high pressure. Major Frost thought that at any moment he would be ordered to stand the company down, send the men on leave with plans to reorganise and recommence training in a couple of weeks. But then a messenger arrived from Airborne HQ saying that they had decided to keep open the window of opportunity for the raid for one more night. Everyone was instructed to repeat one final time the whole procedure they had carried out three times already. The men grudgingly packed the containers and prepared their weapons once more. But few did so with much heart. Listlessly and without enthusiasm they went through the motions. Only Company Sergeant-Major Gerry Strachan exuded confidence, telling everyone he was convinced that this was the night. As he bounded about encouraging them, no doubt most of the men thought this was just an act to get them to complete their preparations for a fourth, fruitless time.

  That morning a meeting took place in Portsmouth between Commander Cook and Admiral James, the commander of the operation. James had been bombed out of his old office and had moved on to HMS Victory, which was in dry dock. In the bizarre setting of Nelson’s historic cabin, Cook and James reviewed the latest weather forecast delivered by the RAF meteorological team. Aircraft from Coastal Command flew regular sorties out in the Atlantic to take readings of wind speed and direction, air pressure, temperature and humidity. From this data future weather conditions could be predicted in some detail.1 Even though the ideal moon and tide conditions had passed, the forecast predicted good weather that night with calm seas and little wind, for the first time that week.

  James was still hesitant, as he feared that by the time the landing craft came in the tide would be going out, making embarkation difficult. Cook, eager to avoid the crashing disappointment of a postponement of the operation, produced what he described as his ‘trump card’. He had found a pre-war picture postcard of the beach at Bruneval showing a lady bather in summertime standing near the sea. From this it was possible to see that the beach on which the embarkation was to take place was less steep than they had imagined, and so the change in tidal conditions would be less critical. As a result James was persuaded that the raid should definitely go ahead.2 But first he rang Group Captain Norman and General Browning to get their views. Both were keen to commit to the raid. James needed to decide before lunchtime, as the Prinz Albert had to depart on its Channel crossing in the afternoon in order to be in position, with the landing craft standing by, in the early hours. He hesitated only briefly and then sent out the signal: ‘Proceed with Operation Biting.’

  Once again, soon after lunch, Major Frost was called to the telephone at Tilshead camp. He was sure that he would be told to stand down. But this time he was given a different instruction. The mission was on and the men were to prepare for transport to the aerodrome. Immediately, as the news rapidly spread, everyone was galvanised. As the men rushed around finalising their own personal affairs and checking their identity tags, some of the doubters were still saying that the whole thing would be cancelled once again. But, as if to confirm everything was now set to go, a selection of the men were issued with French currency, ten-franc notes, in case they were left in France and needed cash, while a few of the Paras received handkerchiefs with
a map of France printed on them. Then, in his immaculate uniform and looking every inch the commander of men in battle, General Browning himself appeared at Tilshead to wish the men luck and give them a final pep talk about the importance of the mission they were about to undertake. There was no doubting now. This was it.

  The men were given a hot meal at Tilshead, and soon after tea time vehicles arrived to ferry them the few miles to the airfield at Thruxton. Frost had his meal with officers from the Glider Regiment with whom he was sharing the billet. The glider troops were still blissfully ignorant about what their colleagues in C Company were up to. Frost had to remain silent about the raid and remembered thinking as he looked at the other officers around the table, ‘You have no idea. In two or three hours I’ll be flying off to France. I have a rather exciting appointment.’ However, at the end of the meal, his mood changed and as the officers from the Glider Regiment settled down in the mess for a quiet doze around the fire, Frost thought, ‘Lucky devils, soon going off to bed in a warm little hut while we’ll be shivering and miserable somewhere up above, going to goodness knows what.’3 With these thoughts in mind, he and his batman boarded their vehicle and headed off for Thruxton.