![\"HMS](\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Wstnazaire.jpg\")
<\/a>HMS Campbeltown after ramming the dock gates at Saint-Nazaire, 28 March 1942 [Bundesarchiv Bild 101ll-MW-3722-03 \/Kramer\/ CC-BY-SA]<\/p><\/div>This week in the war, on 26 March 1942, a force of British commandos left Falmouth in Cornwall on board a flotilla of destroyers and motor-torpedo boats heading for the German naval base at Saint-Nazaire on the Loire estuary on the western coast of German-occupied France.<\/p>\n
The British ships included the destroyer HMS Campbeltown<\/em>, an old American destroyer that had been one of fifty transferred to the Royal Navy in 1940 as part of the ‘destroyers for bases deal<\/a>.’ Several tons of explosives had been packed into her bows. The object of the mission, coded named Operation Chariot<\/em>, was to destroy the dock gates at Saint-Nazaire.<\/p>\n As of January 1942, the Bismarck<\/em>‘s sister ship, Tirpitz<\/em>, was fully operational and the British admiralty feared a repeat of the Bismarck\u2019s foray<\/a> into the Atlantic. If the Tirpitz<\/em> headed into the Atlantic and returned to port in Western Europe for repairs, the only dry dock large enough to take her was the one at Saint-Nazaire—hence the importance of its destruction.<\/p>\n In the early hours of the morning of 28 March 1942, HMS Campeltown<\/em>—flying a German naval ensign as a ruse de guerre<\/em>—smashed through the harbour boom defences and, while under heavy fire, rammed the dock gates at full speed. Commandos landed from the Campeltown<\/em> and from launches and began blowing up harbour installations, including the pumping station and machinery for operating the gates.<\/p>\n Because of the (possibly faulty) timing mechanism on the fuse, the explosives aboard HMS Campeldown<\/em> did not detonate till noon. When they did so, the dry dock was utterly destroyed and over three hundred men were killed. They included a party of senior German officers who were on board for an inspection tour.<\/p>\n Of the approximately 600 British commandos and naval personnel who took part in the Saint-Nazaire raid, slightly over on third returned to England, slightly over one third were captured, and somewhat under one third were killed.<\/p>\n The lock gates were never rebuilt and the German battleship Tirpitz<\/em> never risked venturing into the Atlantic. She was sunk by the RAF in late 1944.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week in the war, on 26 March 1942, a force of British commandos left Falmouth in Cornwall on board a flotilla of destroyers and motor-torpedo boats heading for the German naval base at Saint-Nazaire on the Loire estuary on … Continue reading