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2The St. Nazaire Raid

The German battleship Bismarck had been sunk by the Royal Navy in 1941, but that wasn’t the end of its threat—the Bismarck had a sister ship called the Tirpitz. To neutralize the threat, the British planned a raid on the French dry dock of St. Nazaire, the only dock on the Atlantic coast which could hold the Tirpitz. Destroying the docks called for an unorthodox plan—an old US Navy destroyer, HMS Campbeltown, would have to be packed with explosives and rammed into the dock gates. Then, commandos would blow up the other buildings, including the U-boat pens.

HMS Campbeltown was stripped of all nonessential equipment to save room and weight for explosives, and two of her four funnels were removed so she bore a better resemblance to a German frigate. Extra steel was plated on at the front to protect the commandos on board. On March 26, 1942, the flotilla—made up of two destroyers, 16 motor launches, and HMS Campbeltown—set off from Falmouth, Cornwall, reaching the dock on March 28. Flying the German naval ensign, HMS Campbeltown accelerated to full speed on the river leading to the docks. With the gates in sight, the Royal Navy flag was raised, and seven minutes later, the destroyer hit the gates and the commandos sprang into action.

Unfortunately, the commandos on board the motor launches didn’t fare well. Of the 265 who landed, only five made it back to England. The rest were killed or captured after many of the motor launches were damaged or destroyed. At 10:35 AM on the March 29, HMS Campbeltown exploded, killing 250 Germans on board and destroying the docks, rendering them out of service for six years. Five Victoria crosses were awarded in the aftermath, and even today, it is regarded as the greatest military raid of all time.