Raiders (10 page)

Out on the Ulvesund,
Onslow
and
Oribi
had just finished sinking the steamers and the armed trawler when a German merchant ship, the
Anita L.
M.
Russ
, accompanied by a tug, appeared from the north.
By the time they realised their blunder, the guns of the destroyers were already lined up.
Seconds later, both vessels had been holed and were sinking fast.
In a matter of minutes, the destroyers had eliminated 15,000 tons of enemy shipping.
Their tasks completed, Group 5 withdrew to the landing site to re-embark the
Oribi,
harassed by a platoon of German infantry all the way to the shoreline.
Seeing the threat to the Commandos, the captains of
Onslow
and
Oribi
turned all their guns towards land and opened up on the enemy, which allowed the men to clamber aboard without taking casualties.

The Norwegian troops under Captain Linge, back in their homeland, were desperate to get into the fight.
In addition to their assault role, they were tasked with rounding up collaborators and seizing documents from the HQ.
Working close to 4th Troop, led by Captain Forrester, they made their way along the buildings on the waterfront towards the German HQ in the Ulversund Hotel in the middle of the main street.
The HQ had become a strongpoint of German resistance, commanded by the naval harbourmaster who had earlier ignored the lookout who had raised the alarm about the approaching naval force.
Speed was of the essence if they were to take the HQ before the Germans
had a chance to destroy the paperwork – but progress was hard.
Fourth Troop had already lost two officers – Komrower, crushed beneath the flaming landing craft, and another taken out by a sniper bullet to the neck.
The fighting was confused and intense.
Gunfire crackled across the town, and the air was filled with the shrieks and groans of injured and dying soldiers and petrified civilians against a backdrop of exploding grenades, mortars and naval shells.
The Commandos poured fire from their Tommy guns and Bren guns into windows and doorways, shattering glass, splintering wood, and kicking up puffs of ice and snow.
The difficulty of the assault was made worse by having to ensure that Norwegian residents cowering in their homes did not end up as collateral casualties.
Bursting in and out of houses and rooms, the Commandos had a split second to decide whether to open fire.
Before lobbing a hand grenade through a window they had to make sure it was a German and not a local in there.

It was a similar story on the inland side of the main street where 3rd Troop were edging forward through a withering hail of fire coming from all angles.
They were led from the front by Captain Giles, an outstanding athlete and the heavyweight boxing champion of Southern Command, worshipped by his men.
The defence on this side of town was concentrated in a large stone house, and no amount of fire was able to dislodge the Germans.
Eager to maintain some momentum to their advance, Giles decided to go for broke.
Followed by his men, he raced across the open ground and crashed through the entrance.
Bursting into every door, the Commandos tossed grenades and sprayed
the rooms with machine-gun fire.
Those who survived the onslaught fled through the back door, chased by Giles.
But as the burly young captain emerged in the open, he was shot in the stomach by a wounded German on the ground.
He died where he fell.
Almost immediately, his second-in-command, Lieutenant Hall, was cut down by a sniper bullet, and the two men who went to his rescue suffered the same fate.
Command automatically passed to Giles’s younger brother, Bruce, but he was so shaken by the sight of John’s death that the attack stalled and the troop was left without effective command.

Two hundred yards away, 4th Troop had fought their way up to the Ulversund Hotel.
Unaware that the hotel was bristling with enemy, Captain Algy Forrester led a frontal assault on the building, his NCOs firing Tommy guns from the hip as they charged.
Sprinting towards the main entrance, Forrester was a few yards short when he pulled the pin on his grenade and was shaping to hurl it when he was cut down by enemy fire and slumped on top of his grenade which, to the horror of his men, exploded beneath him.
Two others were hit and the troop withdrew to consider their options.
At that moment, Linge and his Norwegians arrived on the scene and immediately took command of the leaderless troop.
Ever eager to take the fight to the enemy, Linge ordered another direct assault, in spite of the misgivings of some of the troops.
Having gathered his men behind an adjacent building, leading from the front he gave the order to charge, but he had barely appeared in the open when an enemy bullet thumped into his chest.
He dropped like a stone.
His
sergeant tried to pull him clear but another bullet smacked into Linge’s body and the men were again forced to withdraw.
Two assaults, two commanders dead.
(Linge is still honoured in the Norwegian Army, which named a Commando Company after him.
A large statue stands where he fell.)

From intelligence sources, the assault group knew there was a tank inside the garage next to the hotel.
It was an outdated model, captured during the Fall of France, but in close-quarters fighting against lightly armed troops it had the capacity to cause havoc if its crew managed to bring it onto the streets.
As planned, after Forrester’s 4th Troop had cleared the area around it, two sappers, Sergeant Cork and Trooper Dowling, dashed into the building and laid a string of charges around the armoured vehicle.
Dowling had just crawled out of the door when Cork lit the fuses.
Usually, the fuses are cut to a length to burn just long enough for the demolition team to scramble to safety but, inexplicably, on this occasion the explosion was instantaneous.
Cork never stood a chance and, such was the force of the blast, men over 200 yards away were hit by flying shrapnel.
Incredibly, Dowling escaped without a scratch.

With all British officers and senior NCOs in 4th Troop and the Norwegian contingent either dead or injured, command fell to Corporal White.
Distraught at the death of their leaders, whose bloodstained bodies lay scattered in the snow all about them, the men of both units were baying to storm the hotel and exact revenge.
Aware that a change of tactics and more firepower were required to crack the German stronghold, White beckoned
over a mortar unit crouched in the shadows of a neighbouring building.
Minutes later, ten 3-inch bombs, fired by a Sergeant Ramsey, rained down on the hotel.
As the upper floor burst into flames, White gave the order to charge.
Several dozen men rushed along the street, guns blazing, before hurling themselves at the foot of the front wall.
Each man reached for his Mills bombs, the distinctive iron-cast ‘pineapples’ that the British Army had been using as hand grenades since the First World War.
Pulling the pins, they counted ‘One, two .
.
.’
then stood up and hurled them through the windows and into the entrance.
‘.
.
.
Three, four!’
A succession of explosions rocked the building.
Glass shattered and clouds of dust, plaster and smoke filled the interior as White and his men, hollering, burst inside.
Within minutes the hotel, the largest public building in town and the fulcrum of the German resistance, was cleared, and White’s casualty-ravaged unit reassembled to the rear of the hotel.

Casualties were mounting so fast that Durnford-Slater called for all spare troops to be brought forward.
The clock was ticking, and if the demolition teams were to complete all their scheduled tasks, the Commandos had to secure the northern end of the town first.
As it was, the assault party was still pinned down at the southern end and had advanced only a few hundred yards from the landing site.
Churchill, who had completed his work on Maaloy, sent over half of No.
6 Troop, commanded by Captain Peter Young, a highly talented young officer destined for high rank.
The floating reserve was brought ashore and the reserve unit at Durnford-Slater’s HQ was also sent into action.
This was
the critical juncture of the action and every available body was committed to the fight.

As Durnford-Slater reinforced and reorganised his men, thirteen Blenheims from 114 Squadron, each carrying four 250-lb bombs and a batch of incendiaries, arrived over the Norwegian coast 100 miles to the south shortly before midday.
Dropping to a height of 250 feet, the squadron lined up and swept towards the Luftwaffe aerodrome at Herdla, the wooden collection of huts and timber runways clearly visible in the snow-bound landscape.
Air-raid sirens wailed and puffs of flak filled the air as one after another the Blenheims went in and dropped their devastating payload.
Explosions tore up the earth, splintered the runways into kindling, and one Me109, which had been taxiing into position, flipped onto its back under the force of an explosion.
Flames and smoke poured from the buildings.
Hit by flak, one Blenheim lost control and veered violently off course, straight into the path of another as it pulled up and turned for home.
The aircraft were so low the crews had no chance to bale out, and both plunged into the water.
The raid was all over in seconds and by the time the last aircraft pulled up steeply and banked away, the runway had been turned into a mess of mud and scattered wood.
Images from the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit taken immediately after the attack revealed over twenty craters.
Operation ARCHERY could now proceed without significant interference from the air.
Only aircraft making the long trip from Trondheim, and the last detail to have left for Vaagso, could trouble them now.

The action was intensifying on land, sea and in the air.
Back at Vaagso, HMS
Offa,
protecting the naval force from the west, reported a merchant ship, the SS
Anhalt
, and an armed trawler escort named
Donner
, proceeding to Vaagsfjord from the north.
It was just after noon and the last of the RAF bombs were falling on Herdla, 100 miles along the coast.
Unable to hear or see the fighting on the other side of the mountain, the two vessels realised their error as soon as they rounded the point and saw the Royal Navy warships strung out before them.
Ordered to capture the vessels,
Offa
chased the
Donner
as it made a dash for the open sea.
It was a race the converted fishing boat was never going to win.
Offa
could make thirty knots to her ten and she quickly closed on her prey with her guns at the ready.
Offa
fired a warning shot, but still the trawler refused to stop.
Offa
fired again, this time with deadly intent, and after securing a number of hits, the crew abandoned ship.
Offa
went alongside the trawler and picked up the survivors.
Unfortunately, the
Donner
had insufficient fuel for the return passage to Scotland under a prize crew, and was promptly sunk.

While
Offa
dealt with the trawler,
Chiddingfold
went after the
Anhalt
, which had turned hard and was steaming as fast as it could for the shore.
She succeeded in beaching herself in shallow water and the crew were clambering into their rowing boats when the captain of the
Chiddingfold
, using the loud hailer, ordered the oarsmen, in German, to bring their boats alongside, warning that they would be fired upon if they disobeyed.
The oarsmen kept pulling,
Chiddingfold
opened fire, sinking one boat
and damaging the other.
At that moment, enemy aircraft appeared overhead and, as the
Chiddingfold
’s guns were elevated to deal with the threat, the survivors of the second boat were able to scramble to safety – for the time being at least.

On his arrival at Durnford-Slater’s command post, a few hundred yards away from the naval engagements taking place, Young was informed that only one officer was left amongst the original force troops fighting their way through the town.
Up the road lay a scene of hellish devastation.
Much of the waterfront was ablaze, and clouds of smoke rose into the bright morning sky; casualties were being carried or helped back to the shoreline for treatment.
Men crouched behind walls and the corner of buildings.
The attack had ground to a halt.
The new plan was for Young’s men to sweep along the waterfront, clearing the enemy from the wharfs and warehouses while the men of the floating reserve were to advance down the main street.
From the outset, both parties were met by very stiff resistance, but sheer weight of numbers and firepower helped the British raiders regain the initiative and build some momentum.
Houses and buildings were flushed of the enemy or set ablaze as the forces nosed northwards.
Snipers once again were the greatest threat to progress.
When three of Young’s men dropped in rapid succession, hit by a sniper in the upper window of a building to their rear, the rest scrambled into a small woodshed close to the water.
As more enemy guns opened up, thirty men, including Young and Durnford-Slater, crowded inside the small structure, attracting increasingly heavy fire.
Bullets tore splinters from the piles of
logs and timber and the men crouched behind any cover they could find.
It was obvious to all that they could not survive there for much longer, but it was the same problem that had dogged the force all morning – they had no idea where the fire was coming from.