Night Raid

by Taylor Downing

  Having left the others, George Cornell and Frank Embury found the going very slow. Neither had a map, but one of them had a compass in a button of his coat. They made their way only about two miles inland to a nearby village called Tilleul, where they hid out in a barn for the rest of the night. The French farmer, named Charles Canu, found them in the morning and gave them a meal, along with coffee and calvados. But he knew the punishment for hiding them, and so he told them they had to leave, sending them off towards the hamlet of Pierrefiques. He then went in to Étretat and reported to the gendarmerie that he had seen the British, claiming they had gone off in the opposite direction.

  Realising there were more British Paras in the area, the Germans launched a full-scale search across the countryside. The two fugitives began an adventure that continued for several days. Their survival relied upon the covert support of dozens of French civilians who provided food or helped to direct them, or who simply turned a blind eye on seeing them. At Pierrefiques an English-speaking couple named Monsieur and Madame Duflo kitted them out in the blue overalls of French farm workers, a disguise which helped them to travel across the countryside more easily.

  As the search continued, the Germans stuck up ‘Wanted’ posters, warning the populace that anyone aiding Allied servicemen would be sent to a military court martial and that the penalty was death. The two fugitive Paras spent several days in the care of André Lechevallier, who eventually, on 6 March, assisted them in getting to Le Havre, where they were introduced to the French underground network that aided escaping members of RAF crews that had been shot down. Maurice Lajoye, who, it so happened, lived in the same street as Charles Chauveau, ‘Charlemagne’, now took control of the two fugitives. Lajoye and his fiancée, Mademoiselle Regnier, smuggled the two men by train to Tours.

  However, having got so far, on 9 March, when crossing a bridge over the Cher river to the unoccupied zone and freedom, Embury and Cornell’s luck ran out. An alert German sentry stopped them and began asking questions. Unable to reply in either French or German, they acted dumb. The sentry started to grow suspicious and pulled them in for further questioning. The papers the French underground had given them were in order, but they were repeatedly questioned for some days.

  Realising the game was up, Embury confessed that they were British paratroopers and the two men were arrested. They were interrogated in France and were eventually sent on to Berlin, where they rejoined their mates from C Company in the Luftwaffe interrogation centre. The French couple who had shown such bravery in helping them were also arrested at the bridge and were imprisoned. Maurice Lajoye was eventually sent to Buchenwald concentration camp and then transferred to Dachau. Mademoiselle Regnier was sent to Ravensbrück. In such camps life was harsh, brutal and short, far worse than in the military prisoner-of-war camps. The pair paid a high price for trying to help the British soldiers. But both Lajoye and Regnier survived the war and eventually returned to France, where later they married. None of the others who had helped the fugitives were ever named or incriminated for their contribution to the near escape.3

  Finally, all six British prisoners from Bruneval were sent on to a PoW camp at Lamsdorf in Upper Silesia, Poland. Lamsdorf, also known as Stalag VIIIB, was huge. More than a hundred thousand prisoners from many Allied countries passed through the camp during the war.4 The British paratroopers spent the rest of the war there. Other captured British Paras would later join them. In early 1945, before the Red Army arrived at the camp, the men were marched west as part of a huge convoy of prisoners and finally they were liberated by American troops in April 1945. All six men captured from the Bruneval raid returned to Britain at the end of the war.

  The Wehrmacht carried out an investigation into the Para raid at Bruneval and a short official report was written within days of the action. The Germans still believed that the purpose of the raid after having captured the Würzburg was to attack the Freya radar station, and that it was only the heavy fire from Le Presbytère that prevented the Paras from moving on to their next, possibly their main, objective. But by this time it was realised that before blowing up the Würzburg, the Paras had photographed it and removed parts of it.

  The report praised the sergeant and the nine men based at the Stella Maris for fighting off the Para attack for ninety minutes before being overpowered by the British fire from the woods. It noted that because the defences along the hillside above the Stella Maris had been constructed to prevent an attack from the sea, they were less well suited to defending an attack from inland. The report also recorded that ‘The commandos embarked just as strong German reinforcements reached Bruneval.’ Had the arrival of the navy been delayed further even by minutes, it is clear that, as Frost had feared, it would have been a disaster for the Paras.

  Frost had claimed, after consulting with his officers, that about forty Germans had been killed or wounded during the course of the raid. But there was always a tendency in combat to exaggerate the scale of the losses inflicted on the enemy, and in fact the numbers were much smaller. The German report cited their losses as a total of five killed (two infantrymen around the Stella Maris; three Luftwaffe men up at the Würzburg and in the Villa Gosset) and two wounded (one in the Wehrmacht and one in the Luftwaffe). It also listed five as missing. Only three prisoners were taken by the Paras (two Wehrmacht and one Luftwaffe), so it is not known what happened to the other two missing men. Perhaps they had been killed at the Würzburg but for some reason were not listed. The German report correctly lists the British as having lost two men killed and, at the time of writing, four men captured. Embury and Cornell were still at large when the report was written.

  While applauding the actions of the defenders, the German report paid a big compliment to the British Paras, stating that the operation ‘was well planned and was executed with great daring’. It went on to say that ‘For a full thirty minutes one group did not fire a shot, then suddenly at the sound of a whistle they went into action.’ The report concluded: ‘During the operation the British displayed exemplary discipline under fire. Although attacked by German soldiers they concentrated entirely on their primary task [of attacking the radar installation].’5 This was generous praise indeed and is an interesting observation from the first time German troops engaged with British Paras. In the following year in North Africa the German army was to develop a very healthy respect for the courage and determination of the Paras.

  Back in Britain, Frost had just returned from Portsmouth to Tilshead and was about to take a bath when he was told to report to London early on the following morning, as the Prime Minister wanted to see him urgently. On the Monday a staff car arrived early and took him to Downing Street, where he was ushered around the corner, through a building and down some steps to a set of underground meeting rooms. There, the model of Bruneval had been laid out and General Browning soon arrived, along with Mountbatten. A group gathered including most of the Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet. Frost was still being introduced to the dignitaries when Churchill appeared, wearing his siren suit and puffing a large cigar. Frost, in his Cameronian major’s uniform, was very conspicuous. Churchill came across and said, ‘Bravo, Frost, bravo, and now we must hear all about it.’

  Before Frost was able to utter a word, Mountbatten stepped forward and provided a clear and compelling narrative of the whole raid. He had been well briefed and the official communiqués, which he had read and approved, had been thorough. At one point Churchill interrupted and asked Frost about the accuracy of the intelligence he had received before the raid. Frost replied that it had been excellent, to the extent that they had known the names of the local German officers. Churchill was told that Mountbatten’s intelligence chief, Wing Commander Marquis de Casa Maury, was present in the group. The PM turned to him with a beatific smile before telling Mountbatten to continue.

  Delighted with the report and evidently cheered by the success of the raid, Churchill turned to Air Chief Marshal Portal, the Chief of the Air Staff, and asked what t
he RAF had got out of it. Portal began to describe the technical details of the Würzburg radar but before long, an impatient Churchill interrupted, telling him to carry on ‘in language that ordinary normal mortals can understand’. Portal quickly summarised the position, that when the scientists had got to work they would soon know a great deal about German radar and how to jam it. Churchill went across to study the model of Bruneval. He ran his finger along the beach and up the cliffs. ‘Now about these raids,’ he said slowly. ‘There must be more of them. Let there be no doubt about that.’ With that he turned around and departed.6

  By this time, everyone in Britain knew about the success of the Bruneval raid. The military commands had not wasted any time in releasing a communiqué about the brilliant success of the Para raid.

  20

  Good News

  Britain’s war effort needed some good news. After the disasters of the last month, from the defeat in North Africa to the surrender of Singapore, from German and Japanese advances to the humiliation of the ‘Channel Dash’ by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the military wanted to obtain maximum value from the Bruneval raid. It was the first ever successful use of British parachute forces and in promoting the Bruneval story the War Office was making public that it now had at its disposal a new arm of warfare, the Paras.

  BBC radio was the principal means by which the British people received their daily diet of news and information about the progress of the war. The BBC had launched a television service in 1936, but only a few thousand householders had invested in the expensive and bulky cathode ray tube television sets.1 The service was suspended at the outbreak of war in case its high frequency transmitters were used for navigation purposes by enemy aircraft, or its signals interfered with Britain’s then secret radar network. That left the radio, universally known as the ‘wireless’. Up to 23 million Britons (out of a total UK population of 48 million) listened to the main news bulletin at 9 p.m. each day. In pubs, clubs and military installations people would gather around the wireless at nine o’clock each evening. Even more heard some of the most important wartime speeches, which attracted an audience of up to two-thirds of the adult population.2 Most Britons thought that BBC news was objective, impartial and fair, although in many working-class districts listeners regarded the Home Service as horribly middle class, posh and distant. They preferred the Forces Programme, a network created in 1940 to cater for the younger members of the armed forces, and broadcasting a lighter fare of music, record requests, comedy, entertainment and sport.

  However, most people were sophisticated enough to realise that when they bought a newspaper they got the slant on the news dictated by the politics of that paper. They knew the Daily Mirror would have a different agenda from the Daily Telegraph. Polls by Mass Observation revealed that three out of four people believed that the BBC was giving them the truth and was more reliable than the newspapers.3

  In fact the relationship between the government and the BBC was a complex one. BBC managers were keen to stress their independence and not to be seen as a ‘state broadcaster’.4 On the other hand, they were happy to accept a degree of government control during wartime. The Ministry of Information had total control over news output when it came to military matters and could direct BBC correspondents to one story rather than another. They further encouraged BBC news editors not to dwell on bad news by, for instance, beginning bulletins with a list of ships that had been sunk, and requested them to spare listeners ‘unnecessary frightening details’ when reporting the bombing of British cities or military engagements overseas.5 As a last resort, the Director of Radio Relations within the Ministry could censor the news when he felt that issues of ‘national security’ were at stake, and could prevent the BBC from reporting anything the government did not want the public to know about. The system for reporting news of military activities with its various contradictions had started the war awkwardly, but was working reasonably well by 1942. And, having broadcast a chronicle of tragedies and disasters for several weeks, the news editors at the BBC were as keen as anyone to put out good news when they had a genuine opportunity.

  And so, after a communiqué was released jointly by the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry on the morning of Saturday 28 February, BBC radio news was the first to break the story of the success of the Bruneval raid in its 1 p.m. lunchtime news bulletin with the words ‘British parachute troops have been in action in northern France, where they have destroyed an important radiolocation post.’6 After weeks of secrecy that had surrounded everything they had been doing, the Paras returning to Portsmouth after the raid would have been astonished to know that the BBC had already begun broadcasting news of the successful raid while most of them and their supporting troops were still in mid-Channel. It was a risk to report the raid so early, but such was the enthusiasm to generate good news that the communiqué had been released before the men were safely back home. The BBC news report noted that the raid was the second use of British parachute troops after a drop in southern Italy just over a year ago. It did not remind listeners that this had been a disaster.

  The BBC news editors also noted the official communiqué’s recognition ‘that the enemy is now using radiolocation – the method of detecting the approach of aircraft by means of ether waves – which was used so successfully by us in the Battle of Britain’. The existence of British radiolocation, as the new science of radar was still referred to at the time, had been made public in June 1941. But this reference acknowledging the German use of the technology had to be passed by the Ministry of Information, and an official signed the script in pencil specifically to approve it. Air Ministry Intelligence was also consulted before the announcement was made.7

  It was otherwise a day full of daunting and gloomy news from the fighting fronts in Burma, Libya and Russia, and depressing reports about fuel shortages and new coal restrictions in the London area. More single women were to be called up for war work and a new fund-raising campaign had been set up to call for loans for building new warships. In the 6 p.m. news that evening the story of the raid was still therefore the leading item, with the BBC reporting that ‘our forces are now understood to be home again’. But they had no further news to add, other than that the Germans had admitted that a raid had been carried out but were playing it down by saying that British parachutists had done no more than to ‘overcome a weak coastal-defence position’ and that ‘they withdrew by sea after two hours’.8

  By the midnight news bulletin, a longer official communiqué had been released, and the BBC were able to report then and throughout the following Sunday that ‘the radiolocation post was destroyed, some German prisoners taken, and casualties inflicted.’ Quoting from the official communiqué, reports made it very clear that this was a combined operation and that ‘The Royal Navy, the Army and Royal Air Force each played an equally important and interdependent part in the raid.’ This was the message that Mountbatten’s Combined Operations team was so keen to get across. Leading individuals were named, including Wing Commander Pickard, who the BBC was sure its listeners would know as ‘F for Freddie’s pilot in Target for Tonight’. Major Frost and Commander Cook were also both referred to in person.

  It was reported that ‘the moonlight raid… went off with complete success’, and that after this ‘small-scale but successful combined operation none of our aircraft was missing and our casualties were very light. The next of kin are being informed.’ Interestingly, the news team at the BBC had amended the official communiqué to lighten it and make it easier to read. Again, an official from the Ministry marked the typed script in pencil as ‘Approved’, noting that the script ‘is more broadcastable than the communiqué’.9

  By midnight the BBC was also quoting a first, short account from Alan Humphreys, the Reuters journalist on HMS Prinz Albert. Humphreys reported that the paratroopers, whose faces were ‘blacked’, had landed ‘in the early hours of the morning’ and had covered more than half a mile to reach the radiolocation post ‘bef
ore a shot was fired at them’. He went on, ‘It was after the main part of their job was done that they came up against the serious opposition. They overcame and silenced the beach defences, sent out a signal to the naval craft waiting a little offshore and in a matter of minutes were heading across Channel back home.’ There was of course no mention of the delay and confusion over the embarkation. There was no need for the public, or the enemy, to know about that.

  The BBC report continued: ‘One of the parachutists told the correspondent they’d got away just in time. The Germans had an armoured division about fifty miles away, he said; as he left the beach he saw a column of headlights coming towards them, although it was still some way off.’ This vivid account soon entered the popular mythology associated with the Bruneval raid, although it is difficult to understand how anyone on the beach could have seen lights inland over the cliff tops.

  One key piece of information was kept out of all the news coverage of the raid. None of the reports admitted that parts of the German radar apparatus had been removed and brought back for examination in Britain. That aspect of the mission was to remain top secret.