Forget Olympians and over paid footballers, forget the politicians and great leaders. Forget the tv personalities and over exposed celebrities. In fact, not even the nurses and doctors quite measure up. The greatest of heroes are the individual men who fought for Great Britain and the allies - they are head and shoulders above anything this country has produced since. True heroes.
Unfortunately, we only hear a handful of great stories; yet every hour between 6th June 1944 and the 7th May 1945 hundreds of men did heroic acts, most of which we will never even know about. Some stories do survive though and they act as a reminder of just how few of us can ever hope to measure up to these great mens' courage and heroics. One such example, in the wake of the Germans control of the Atlantic threatening to starve Britain of supplies and food, is the St.Nazaire raid in 1942...
"The St. Nazaire Raid (also called Operation Chariot) was a successful British seaborne attack on the heavily defended docks of St. Nazaire in occupied France on the night of March 28, 1942 during World War II. The operation was undertaken by Royal Navy and Army Commando units under the auspices of Louis Mountbatten's Combined Operations.
The obsolete destroyer HMS Campbeltown commanded by Stephen Halden Beattie and accompanied by 18 shallow draft boats, rammed the St. Nazaire lock gates and was blown up, ending use of the dock. Commandos landed on the docks and destroyed other dock structures before attempting to fight their way out. All but 27 of the commandos were either killed or captured: 22 escaped back to Britain in the motor torpedo boats and 5 escaped to the Spanish border.
The loss of St. Nazaire as a dry dock would force any large German warship in need of repairs to have to return to home waters.
Five Victoria crosses were awarded to men involved in the raid, which has been called The Greatest Raid of All." (wikipedia)
Of course, that does not begin to tell you just how amazing this raid was. To put in perspective what they were up against, the Commandos sailed an old decommissioned boat, roughly painted to look German and with little defenses, up a narrow channel straight in to the German control docks. This is what they had to contend with:
Both sides of the estuary approach were fortified and were manned by 280 Naval Artillery Battalion (commanded by Edo Dieckmann) and 22 Naval Flak Battalion (commanded by C. C. Mecke). Fortified guns on the northern shore included four 150 mm howitzers, four 170 mm guns and four 75 mm guns at Chémoulin, south-west of St. Nazaire and four 88 mm guns and ten 20 mm or 40 mm guns at Villès Martin closer to St. Nazaire. Further away at La Baule were four 105 mm guns and two 240 mm railway guns. Across the estuary from St Nazaire were four 75 mm guns at St Gildas, another four at Le Pointeau and ten or so 20 mm guns at Mindin. In the harbour area were around 30 single 20 mm guns, two quad 20 mm guns, around fifteen 40 mm guns and a flakship, the Sperrbrecher 137 just off the new port. Heavy anti-aircraft defences were also in the town. Radar stations were operating at Le Croisic and at St Marc and all the German positions had searchlights. Around 1,000 troops manned these defences and there were a further 5,000 or so military personnel in the town. Excluding submarines the naval power in the town was limited to ten minesweepers, four small Hafenschutzboote and four torpedo boats.
This really was Mission Impossible combined with Operation Certain Death. It is little wonder that of the 611 men that went, only 27 survived.
If you have a spare hour, then I strongly recommend you watch the BBC documentary about the raid. One of the best hours of television you are likely to watch.
(When part one has ended, the remaining parts can be found on Youtube)
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