A COMMANDO RAID

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 26, 13 November 1942, Page 1

A COMMANDO RAID

(Condensed from an Article in ‘‘Service News,” England). The British raid on Vagsoy, a coastal point, opposite the Faroes and only 22u miles from the Shetlands, where the German troop convoys head around Norway to the fighting front in Finland, was a lesson in co-ordination and timing. It was really another rehearsal in the long, hard training of a smart, fast manoeuvering, heavily armed British Army being fitted to invade Europe. It was perfectly executed; bombers appeared on time; gunfire began and ended on time -every man was in the right place at the right time; and there had been no leak beforehand. In the dawn murk of 0831 hrs on December 27th last, one minute behind schedule, an assortment of small vessels, guarded by escorting warships, sailed up to the Norwegian coast. With the roar of approaching Hampden bombers coming faintly from seaward, the warships opened fire on the village of South Vagsoy and its offshore garrison island of Malloy. Beautifully timed, the Hampden bombers rolled overhead and following the coast and fjord line, dotted the shores with smoke bombs to blanket the landing. Already the armoured landing' barges were speeding towards the beaches from the shelter of their parent ships. It was still dark as the attack opened and the Germans, first appraised of •the raid by a warning from their lighthouse keeper at the mouth of the fjord, were shooting blind in the smoke and murk of the dawn. THE LANDING. Crouched in their beetle boats, guided by a helmsman in the eye-slitted ar moured tower, the raiders were safe against small arms fire and, to the bagpipe skirling of. a British major, the Britons set foot on Hitler J s Europe. One man in his excitement to be the first to set foot on the hostile shores, jumped too soon and was run down by the heavily armoured bow of his boat. The landing successful, every man knew he had six hours and six hours only in which to complete the task. Like a battalion on parade ’ the force split into two groups; orders were not necessary; every man knew his allotted position, and with the first half skirt- ' ing the shore to get behind the village, the remainder* charged up the slope under the snowy crags of Vagsoy to the main street. In the meantime the Hampden bombers had finished their task of laying a smoke screen and had turned south to Herdla Island, the nearest Nazi airfield, and crossing and recrossing the runways, rendered the landing ground unfitfor use for some time to come. The first man to enter Vagsoy was a sixfoot five British Captain who, hearing the crackle of a machine-gun in the dark, halted his company and went ahead himself to silence it. It was located in a hut, a few yards from where he was standing and bursting in he shot the gunner and his number one, only to meet his end at tHe hands of a third German crouched in a corner. Edging cautiously up the street, the raiding force proceeded to carry out its allotted tasks. SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION. As ' each building, or installation, noted for destruction was reached, those previously detailed off to attend to it, left the main group and soon the street and the surrounding -’area resounded to the crash of dynamite and falling buildings. By now every bush, window and vantage point spouted fire from the German garrison. One British Colonel, marching up the street as if on parade, was barely missed by a grenade dropped from the window of a house bordering the Street. The German,, unable to resist the temptation to view’ the effects of his act, poked his head out, only to receive, squarely between the eyes, the full impact of a .303 fired from point blank range.

. Slowly, but methodically, the work continued, each demolition squad attending to its. pre-allotted task, and, j their work done, • they took up sentry posts, keeping up a continuous fire against the German snipers. . From house to house, the Commandos moved in groups of at least three men, the leader armed with a Tommy-gun and Jill weighed down with a plentiful supply of grenades. As the houses spaced out, ‘the task of mopping up became more difficult. The Germans fought stubbornly and efficiently, but against the drum-, I fire of groups of Commandos, they were I gradually wiped out. Here on the out--1 skirts of the village, a three-storied ; house holds out, while on the hillside above, two snipers give covering support. “KNOCKER” WHITE And The - THREE-STORIED HOUSE. “Orders is orders,’’ says “Knocker” White, a British corporal, “we gotta turn ’em out. Lets knock them —’s orf the ’ill first. ’ ■ And with that he takes up’ a regulation firing position behind a heap of stones, and proceeds deliberately, like Sergeant York, of picture fame, to pick them off. Behind him ' stands his, Commandos, eyerymye om the . alert for danger. “Yess/’’ says' one, as blat-blat-blat-blat goes his tommy-gun, and a sniper, from a side window of a house, shows himself for a second as he takes a snap shot at White and then slowly tumbles out of the window to fall to the ground riddled with bullets. They now turn their attention to the three-storied house and under the protection of the concentrated fire of his mates,Knocker runs across the open space to the wall. From I the bag at his side he pulls a grenade 1 and hurls it at the top window. It I misses and he presses close to the wall I while the jagged bits of metal from the [bursting 'grenade spatter around him. One piece pings on the edge of his tin hat. Too risky, he decides, to try again 'at ■ that height. Meanwhile his mates I keep up a hot fire on every window. Knocker pulls out five grenades from the bag and lays them on the ground. 'Measuring the second story with his eye he carefully takes aim and, counting three he lets fly with the first grenade. 'lt’s a bull eye and quickly the other four follow it, to be followed by five shattering bursts in quick succession. Soon the inside of the building is a raging inferno and as the enemy snipers jump from the windows, they are shot down by the British. No time now to take prisoners, they are six minutes behind schedule, and there’s one more job to do before its time to trek back. EVACUATION. In all, the demolition squads blew up the radio station, several factories, one lone .tank, several gun batteries, the barracks, oil tanks, stores and eight ships totalling 15,000 tons. While the catch of Germans was 120 dead men, 95 prisoners. Norwegians, too, fought beside the British, and to reduce Nazi reprisals., they and other patriots who wanted to be taken to England, were evacuated, together with their whole families. At 1430 hrs. the evacuation started and by 1445 hrs. the last man stepped aboard the barges. Quickly and carefully the few casualties that had been sustained were hoisted aboard the convoy ships, and the beetle boats again securely I stowed, the troop ships moved off under the protection of the escorting warships. As they v moved down the fjord, German mobile artillery opened up from the mainland, but a cruiser quickly' silenced every gun. As the light failed and the shores receded in the darkness, the patriots of Norway drank a toast to victory and sang a Norwegian Christmas song, while in the hold forward the Quislings cowered in terror.

Sidon fell because the French didn’t know which side to Sidon.