Psychic
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2015
- Messages
- 3,164
- Reaction score
- 29
- Country
- Location
Background
The 'Hunter-Class' soldiers
The British Commandos were initially raised in the United Kingdom in June 1940, within days of the miraculous evacuation of Dunkirk, at Prime Minister Winston Churchill's direct request. The Commandos were supposed to strike back hard at German-Occupied Europe. These elite troops, all picked volunteers from regular British army, employed highly aggressive irregular fighting methods while carrying out their specialist 'hit and run' role from the sea. The Commandos were trained to conduct an unconventional form of warfare against the enemy and in the years 1940-41, they carried out a series of raids against the Wehrmacht in the Channel islands, Scandinavia and France. The Commandos were quickly lionized by the British public(starved of military success in 1940-41) and inspired fear among their opponents.
Commando armed with a tommy gun
Commandos in North Africa
In North Africa, the British forces, after foiling the Italian advance towards east, were now poised to throw Italian troops out of Libya...However, all that changed when Rommel and his Afrika Korps came to the rescue of his Italian comrades. The British were pushed back and Rommel laid siege to the strategic town of Torbuk.
'L' Detatchment, Special Air Service
'Lay force' was a commando brigade formed at the end of 1940 in the United Kingdom to assist the British forces in North Africa. The brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Laycock, it was made up of following units:
No. 7 Commando:----------------------------------Formed August 1940
No. 8 Commando:----------------------------------Formed June 1940 (Brigade of guards, Royal Marines and Somerset Light Infantry personnel)
Special Boat Section:------------------------------Formed Arran, Scotland, in June 1940, with 2 officers and 15 men, and sent to Middle East with 8 Commando.
No. 50 Commando and N0. 52 Commando:-----Two small forces of mixed Army and Royal Marines, raised in Middle East, Early 1941.
Long Range Desert Group (LRDG)
The Long Range Desert Group was a special unit created for acts of sabotage and intelligence in the desert. It's counterpart was the Brandenburgers, the German organization to fight behind enemy lines.
The long range desert group was composed of commando volunteers. It's headquarters were in the caves of Siwa Oasis and later at Kufra. From there they carried out audacious raids, several hundred miles behind the enemy lines. Outstanding actions were the attacks on German airfields which lay 350 miles behind the front. The commandos were away for weeks on ends in a few trucks. They reached their objectives and destroyed aircraft on the fields. They blew up petrol dumps, caused heavy casualties among the airfield staff and even took some prisoners on their long journey back to the caves of Siwa.
Suppose such fellows were used against Rommel! They could shoot the much feared General or take him prisoner; it was merely a question of discovering Rommel's habits.
Western Desert 1942: A raiding patrol of 'L' Detatchment, SAS Brigade. Officers and men are bearded and are wearing Arab-style head cloths. The jeeps have modified radiator condenser systems rigged, and many jerrycans of water and petrol mounted on the bonnet, sides, and rear. Twin Vickers K .303 machineguns with drum magazines have been mounted on the front of the first two jeeps. A .50 cal is mounted on the front of the last jeep, probably as an anti-aircraft weapon.
The British planned various small commando operations behind the enemy's lines ahead of the offensive of the 8th Army. The objective of these operations was to support the forward thrust of the 8th Army, plans were laid out to disorganize communications in the enemy's rear so as to create maximum confusion among the ranks of German and Italian armies.
Among those plans the most ambitious and audacious of all was 'Operation Flipper' ; to land commandos from submarines behind the enemy's lines, with the objective of putting Rommel's headquarters out of action and 'getting' Rommel himself.
For executing the operation, six officers and 53 Other Ranks of 11th Scottish Commando, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, were placed under the operational command of the 8th Army. These men were chosen out of a hundred officers and men who had undergone several weeks' intensive training in London. The second-in-command of Keyes was Captain Campbell who spoke fluent German and Arabic. They were to become part of a depleted Layforce---commandos under Col R.E. Laycock---whose units had been partly disbanded because of a shortage of manpower in the 8th Army and the impossibility of obtaining reinforcements for so unorthodox a force. Commandos were still regarded by some army commanders as something of an unnecessary luxury.
For the execution of a commando action of such a type, accurate intelligence is considered a vital prerequisite. The preliminary intelligence work was done by Captain Jock .E. Haselden, already a legendary figure in the desert. Attached to the Lybian Arab force, Haselden, who spoke perfect Arabic and Italian wandered freely in the enemy held territory and had the confidence of those Arabs who were anxious to free themselves from Italian rule. On October 10, the submarine Toorbay dropped him and an Arab of the Libyan Arab Force on a beach near Hamma. They spent some days spying out the land and Haselden was brought back to Alexandria by the Long Range Desert Group on October 27.
Rommel's headquarters or the so-called 'Rommel's villa' was a prefecture building standing among some stone buildings in a village named Bedda Littoria, far behind the front, in Cyrene area. The building was selected by the Quartermaster- General Panzer Gruppe Afrika, Major Schleusener, as his headquarters in late 1941. That was where Rommel worked or slept---according to the British Secret Service, and this information had been confirmed by Haselden from Arab agents' report. According to British intelligence, the offices of Rommel and his staff were in the prefecture building and several other buildings in the neighborhood had also been requisitioned. In the village, apart from the suk or market, buildings were in European concrete style. The main road to Egypt, built by Mussolinni, ran through the main square.
On a beach near Alexandria, Keyes and his men had in the meantime been practicing landing techniques, and were working out the final plans for the raid. On practice runs, the commandos had been able to land 25 men in an hour on the beach. Everything had been planned in the office of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, the father of Lieutenant Colonel Keyes. The Admiral was head of all Special Commandos and raiding parties on the British side.
Colonel Laycock's opinion as to the success of the raid seemed from the outset pessimistic. He rated the chances of any of the raiders being evacuated as very slender, and attack on Rommel's headquarters as desperate in the extreme. He thought that even if the attack were successful it meant almost certain death for those taking part, and when he voiced these opinions to Keyes, he was asked not to repeat them in case their pessimism should result in the raid being canceled. Laycock agreed and decided to accompany the raiders as an observer to remain in the landing place.
The raiding party gathers
Haselden was dropped in by parachute to the landing area meanwhile the raiding party boarded the submarines Toorbay and Talisman on November 10. With Keyes in Toorbay were two other commando officers and 25 other ranks, including a Palestinian soldier to act as interpreter and two Senussi guides. Keyes and his men also carried a letter from Syed Idris---Chief of the Senussi who was in exile in Egypt---instructing his subjects to render all aid to Keyes. The submarines also carried two folboats with an officer and a man for each from the Special Boat Service to act as beach party, and 14 rubber dinghies, each capable of landing two men with equipment and stores. All was set for a strike against the brain and nerve-center of the enemy at a critical moment.
On November 13, Haselden arrived at the house of Mudir of Slonta (a pro-British Arab), borrowed a horse, and with an Arab guide left for Hamma on the coast to guide in the commandos. On the same day Toorbay and Talisman arrived off the coast. So far, all had gone according to plan, but now the weather was bad and showed every sign of getting worse. A big sea was running and conditions bore little resemblence to the practice conditions on the peaceful beach near Alexandria. As darkness fell Toorbay closed with the beach while Talisman kept watch. Despite bad weather the party on Toorbay's deck saw the winking signal from the punctual Haselden.
The conditions for landing became worse, one of the folboats were launched to make a preliminary reconniassance, the rubber dinghies were passed through the forward hatch, and stores in waterproof containers were loaded into those dinghies. But as the submarines rolled in the heavy seas, dinghies on the deck were swept overboard and those already afloat capsized. It was six hours before seven of the boats were launched and put safely ashore, the crews were wet and exhausted. It was bitterly cold.
All this time Talisman had stood out to sea to keep watch, and Colonel Laycock was on the point of postponding the landings when the signal came that Toorbay's party was ashore. He then had only three-and-a half hours of darkness left, but he decided to risk the landing. In the rough sea Talisman touched ground and seven boats and 11 men were swept overboard. By the time they had been recovered the moon was up and Talisman's commanding officer decided to withdraw, so only four boats from Talisman reached ashore. The submarines had to stay there and await the return of the commandos. Before the sun came up, the Commandos moved to a nearby wadi, where they would spend the next day.
The next morning the sun shone---so the commandos, soaking wet and frozen, were at least able to dry their weapons and clean their weapons. But now they did not constitute the force which Keyes had reckoned on, only thirty men had landed ashore, two had drowned. Because of reduced strength, plans had to be hurriedly changed.
The original plan had four objectives:
1- Raid the villa used by Rommel and German rear headquarters.
2- Sabotage the Italian headquarters at Cyrene by cutting the telephone and telegraph communications.
3- Assault the Italian intelligence centre at Apollina.
4- Wreck communications between Faidia and Lamluda.
Keyes decided to abandon the attacks on Cyrene and Apollina and concentrate on the German headquarters and 'Rommel's villa', with a subsidiary party to blow up the steel telegraph pylon where enemy communications met at the cross roads near Cyrene. As the two Senussi guides had been lost during the disastrous Talisman landing, a guide was borrowed from Haselden. After lending them a guide, Haselden left---He was an important asset behind the enemy's lines and was not allowed by the MI5 to take part in action. Thirty men were now formed into two parties, one to hit telephone and telegraph communications, and the other, under Lieutenant Colonel Keyes with 18 other Commandos, to attack 'Rommel's villa".
Normally at this time of the year the North African climate is dry, even if cold at night---but now it was both wet and cold. On the bright side, the noise of the storm and bad visibility could help them in avoiding detection by enemy guards.
Approach towards Bedda Littoria
Colonel Laycock remained behind at the landing place with three men to cover the reembarkment after the action while Keyes marched on with his men in bad weather and complete darkness. On November 15, the commandos crossed the steep and rock stewn country with difficulty and reached the top of the first escarpment half-a-mile inland, at about 21:00 hours.
At midnight the Arab guide left them for fear of getting caught, so from this time Keyes had to rely on a bad map and a compass.
Just before the first light the commandos dispersed among the scrub to spend the day under cover trying to sleep, and preparing for the dangers ahead. During the day Keyes was approached by a group of Arabs, one of whoom actually agreed to guide them to Rommel's headquarters for a thousand lire. When the darkness came they all set off again towards Beda Littoria, the small Italian settlement where 'Rommel's villa' was situated. After two and a half hours they reached a cave five miles from Beda Littoria, and which seemed to Keyes an admirable place to camp for the night. There was a strong smell of goats but the cave was dry.
Next morning Keyes set off with a small reconnaissance party to plan the final assault, but a torrential rain came, Keyes who wanted all of his men dry for the final attack, ordered them back to the cave. He therefore sent an Arab boy to spy out land. The boy returned with information from which Keyes was able to draw a map showing the relationship of the headquarters to the villa. The boy also told him the position of the guard tent and suggested that if it was raining, the guards would be inside.
Meanwhile, the Quartermaster-General, Major Schleusener was not in the villa as he had gone down with dysentery; he lay in hospital in Appollonia...Like his deputy who suffered from inflammation of the lungs. The deputy's adjudant also suffered from dysentery and lay in the same hospital. Acting Quartermaster-General was therefore Captain G. Weitz, Major Poeschell was acting second-in-command.
Keyes briefed his men that afternoon. His men were to form three groups, first group was to put the electric light plant out of action, second group was to enter the headquarters and third group was to watch the road leading upto the headquarters. The password was 'Island' and the counter 'Arran'.
At 1800 hours that night, in a thunderstorm, the party blackned their faces and moved off. Keyes allowed himself six hours to reach his objective, in view of the weather, the pitch black night, and the fact that conditions under foot deteriorated every hour.
In the 'Rommel villa'; Captain Weitz and Major Poeschell along with a couple of dozen officers, orderlies, runners, drivers and usual personnel to be found on a Quartermaster's staff were sitting in the gloomy building of old perfecture listening to the rain pouring down. Shortly before night, they retired to the various rooms on the ground and first floors where they slept on camp beds.
There were no sentries. A lone MP kept watch in the corridor below. His sole weapon was a bayonet. He was less a guard than a distributer of late-arriving mail. In the guard tent, a private soldier, Mat Boxharunner, was on late duty, where he was allowed to lie down on his camp bed after midnight.
Bedda Littoria was asleep. But the commandos were on their way to the 'Rommel villa', They made their first halt about a quarter of mile from Bedda Littoria, and then went down the track to the back of the village.
As the commandos reached the square, the guides, feeling no doubt that they had earned their money, refused to go further and so were left to await the return of the party, when they were to be paid.
The assault
Keyes, Campbell, Sargeant Terry and two privates crept towards the entrance of the prefecture. Three others made their way back round to the back door. Two Commandos were to keep a watch outside, in the garden. The German sentry stood in the open front door of the corridor. Sergeant Terry was to knife him---but the blade missed it's mark and in a slash there was a tussle in the corridor. The German called loudly for help but the thunder and the noise of the storm drowned his cries. The storm also drowned the sound of the demolition of an electricity power house thirty paces from the house; it was blown sky high by men of the Commando.
The corridor of the prefecture
During the struggle in the dark corridor the raiders could not use their tommy guns. They tried to grab the sentry and silence him. But the German soldier was a strong man and defended himself bravely. Finally he fell against the first door of the corridor---the door of the munitions office. Sergeant-Major Lentzen and Sergeant Kovacic, who were sleeping in the munitions office, woke up, jumped from their beds and grabbed their .08 Lugers---Upstairs during the same time, Lieutenant Kaufholz also heard the noise, he jumped out of his bed to fetch his pistol from a chest. Sergeant-Major Lentzen leaped to the door and pulled it open, raised his pistol and fired. At the same moment Keyes hurled two hand grenades which flew past Lentzen's head and exploded in the middle of the room. The blast knocked Lentzen over but he was unhurt. Kovacic who was on his way towards the door received full benefit of the blast and lay dead on the tiles. A third NCO who was about to jump out of bed, was able to fall back and was remained unscathed. The blast virtually flung Lieutenant Jaeger out of his bed, who was sleeping in the room next to the munitions office. His room was separated from munitions office by a partition of three-ply wood. It was smashed to pieces. Jaeger in his pyjamas jumped out of the window and ran outside...
Now the moment when the grenades exploded, Lieutenant Kaufholz was running downstairs with a pistol in hand. By the light of the explosion he caught sight of the British soldiers. Lieutenant Kaufholz fired at Keyes who slumped to the ground with a little cry of pain. At the same moment Campbell's tommy gun barked. The burst had hit Kaufholz. While the Lieutenant fell to the ground, he fired and hit Campbell in the shin. The British officer collapsed.
Thus the two leaders of the raid were out of action. In the dark corridor remained only Sergeant Terry and two privates. Voices ran out from the first floor and German officers rushed from their rooms. The surprise was now over---But where were those three men who were to enter from the back door?
At this moment there was wild gun fire outside. A commando left for watch outside in the garden had riddled Lieutenant Jaeger with bullets from a distance of ten feet. Jaeger, in his light pyjamas had run straight into the British sentry's tommy gun.
The shots which killed Jaeger made Sergeant Terry think that a fight has broken out outside. Deprived of their leaders, they decided to retreat and rushed into the open air---virtually abandoning their task of 'getting Rommel'.
Gunner Boxhammer, who had been in the guard tent, came running towards the source of the firing and ran straight into retreating Sergeant Terry and his men who mowed him down with a burst of tommy-gun fire in his belly.
These shots had the same effect on the second Commando team which was still outside the back door, unable to get inside. Actually these men had the best prospect, if not of capturing Rommel, of putting the Q.M.G's headquarters out of action five hours before the British offensive. A can of water ruined the party!
The back door story
The back door led into a small office. It was crammed full of files and office tables. A small hatch at the back of the room led via a spiral staircase to a cellar. Here Sergeant-Major Alfons had his sleeping quarters. He was an elderly man who hated to have open doors at night. Since the back door had no lock, he placed a full can of water before the door every evening and barricaded it from behind with a cabinet. Although the raiders tried to force it but the door did not even budge. They remained outside and when the gunfire which mowed down Lieutenant Jaeger was heard from the garden, the troops at the back door suspected a trap, and took to their heels.
The Finale
Everything so far had happened very quickly...The explosions, shootings in the corridor and in the garden, retreat of Terry's men out in the open---These events happened in quick succession...
The German officers on the first floor came down with their torches and weapons. On the stairs they found the dead Lieutenant Kaufholz and in the corridor lay a British officer with a blackened face: the courageous Lieutenant Colonel Keyes.
He had been killed by a shot through the chest which broke his stemum and had entered his heart and lungs. He had a second light wound in the thigh (this shot had been fired by Sergeant-Major Lentzen). The shot that killed him was fired by Lieutenant Kaufholz.
Captain Campbell, who was hit in the shin, was lying near the door of the munitions office, near the dead body of the MP. Campbell had obviously tried to crawl out. Outside, the Germans came across the body of Lieutenant Jaeger and gunner Boxhammer.
The nightmare was over. The great adventure had failed. It failed as a result of a few unforseen circumstances and the work of a few men. It is unthinkable what would have happened had they managed to enter the prefecture without making a sound and destroyed the whole of Q.M.G's apparatus five hours before the British offensive started.
Where was Rommel?
The use made by Rommel of the headquarters at Bedda Lettoria was infrequent. At the time of the raid, Rommel was where one would have expected a General of his ability and temperament to be at the time of an impending attack---at his forward headquarters at Gazala, about 33 miles from Torbuk. When he did visit Beda Littoria with his staff, a house was reserved for him which became known locally as 'Rommel-Haus' and from this, Arab intelligence sources seemed to have assumed that Rommel lived there regularly.
Fate of the Commandos
Captain Campbell received a gunshot at close quarters which had completely smashed his shin bone in the center. By rights, the leg should have been amputated since the prospect of healing was very small and the danger of infection very great. Doctor Werner Junge, the surgeon at German hospital in Dema, did not amputate but tried to save the leg. Since junge spoke fluent English, he was given order to question Campbell. Campbell, who knew German, saw at once through the doctor's game and said in German "You needn't bother---you won't get anything out of me."
Doctor Junge kept Campbell in plaster for fourteen days hospital until Dema had to be evacuated and the patient was sent by air to an Italian hospital.
The fleeing commandos had not dared to return immediately to the waiting submarine. Fearing that a large search party would be sent out they hid with the Arabs. Not until the next morning a thorough combined German-Italian search made! For days on end the countryside was combed. Arab huts were ransacked and Military Police searched every corner. Nothing could be got out of the Arabs---not a British soldier, not a piece of uniform.
Then an Italian Carabiniere(Military Police) arrived who had lived for many years in the region and knew it like the palm of his hand. "I will show you how you should act", he said proudly. He fetched an Arab girl from the village and had a long gesticulating palaver with her. The sense of it was as follows:
"You and your family will be given eighty pounds of corn and twenty pounds of sugar for each Britisher that you betray to us."
Eighty pounds of floor and twenty pounds of sugar---they represented a real treasure for the Arabs of that period. Their greed for this treasure was stronger than the British pound notes or the Senussi Chief's talisman which the commandos carried representing a kind of passport. The lady left and soon the first British were taken from the very huts which the German military police had searched so thoroughly. They were clothed in Arab rags. Eventually the entire commando fell into German hands. Only the crafty Sergeant Terry managed to escape with two men. The prisoners were not treated according to Hitler's orders as partisans, which would have meant that they would have been shot; Rommel ordered them to be treated as prisoners of war. The fallen Lieutenant Colonel Keyes was buried in the cemetery of Bedda Littoria with full military honours next to the four dead Germans.
Sergeant Terry arrived, late in the afternoon, the next day, near the beach and found Colonel Laycock waiting there. At dusk that evening, Laycock saw Toorbay fully surfaced about a quarter of a mile out. Laycock's signals remained unacknowledged and Toorbay came no closer in. Later they saw Toorbay signaling them but their replies remained unacknowledged and no boats were sent to pick them from the beach. The night wore on and it became obvious that no evacuation could now take place until the following night, so the 22 survivors moved into a nearby wadi to lie up for the day.
Here, about noon on November 19, Colonel Laycock ordered his men to split into groups, giving them the choice of heading for the LRDG in the area of Slonta, returning to the beach in the hope of being picked up by the submarine, or hiding in the wadis near Cyrene in the hope that advance of the 8th Army would rescue them. Whatever choice they made, they were all captured with the exception of Colonel Laycock and Sergeant Terry, who met the advancing 8th Army at Cyrene 41 days after they had set from the beach.
Critical Analysis
The official British account of this operation is somewhat different than the above account, but is inaccurate.
The 'Hunter-Class' soldiers
The British Commandos were initially raised in the United Kingdom in June 1940, within days of the miraculous evacuation of Dunkirk, at Prime Minister Winston Churchill's direct request. The Commandos were supposed to strike back hard at German-Occupied Europe. These elite troops, all picked volunteers from regular British army, employed highly aggressive irregular fighting methods while carrying out their specialist 'hit and run' role from the sea. The Commandos were trained to conduct an unconventional form of warfare against the enemy and in the years 1940-41, they carried out a series of raids against the Wehrmacht in the Channel islands, Scandinavia and France. The Commandos were quickly lionized by the British public(starved of military success in 1940-41) and inspired fear among their opponents.
Commando armed with a tommy gun
Commandos in North Africa
In North Africa, the British forces, after foiling the Italian advance towards east, were now poised to throw Italian troops out of Libya...However, all that changed when Rommel and his Afrika Korps came to the rescue of his Italian comrades. The British were pushed back and Rommel laid siege to the strategic town of Torbuk.
'L' Detatchment, Special Air Service
'Lay force' was a commando brigade formed at the end of 1940 in the United Kingdom to assist the British forces in North Africa. The brainchild of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Laycock, it was made up of following units:
No. 7 Commando:----------------------------------Formed August 1940
No. 8 Commando:----------------------------------Formed June 1940 (Brigade of guards, Royal Marines and Somerset Light Infantry personnel)
Special Boat Section:------------------------------Formed Arran, Scotland, in June 1940, with 2 officers and 15 men, and sent to Middle East with 8 Commando.
No. 50 Commando and N0. 52 Commando:-----Two small forces of mixed Army and Royal Marines, raised in Middle East, Early 1941.
Long Range Desert Group (LRDG)
The Long Range Desert Group was a special unit created for acts of sabotage and intelligence in the desert. It's counterpart was the Brandenburgers, the German organization to fight behind enemy lines.
The long range desert group was composed of commando volunteers. It's headquarters were in the caves of Siwa Oasis and later at Kufra. From there they carried out audacious raids, several hundred miles behind the enemy lines. Outstanding actions were the attacks on German airfields which lay 350 miles behind the front. The commandos were away for weeks on ends in a few trucks. They reached their objectives and destroyed aircraft on the fields. They blew up petrol dumps, caused heavy casualties among the airfield staff and even took some prisoners on their long journey back to the caves of Siwa.
Suppose such fellows were used against Rommel! They could shoot the much feared General or take him prisoner; it was merely a question of discovering Rommel's habits.
Western Desert 1942: A raiding patrol of 'L' Detatchment, SAS Brigade. Officers and men are bearded and are wearing Arab-style head cloths. The jeeps have modified radiator condenser systems rigged, and many jerrycans of water and petrol mounted on the bonnet, sides, and rear. Twin Vickers K .303 machineguns with drum magazines have been mounted on the front of the first two jeeps. A .50 cal is mounted on the front of the last jeep, probably as an anti-aircraft weapon.
Target: Rommel
In the autumn of 1941 both sides in the North African theater were poised for offensive. The British Commander-in-Chief Middle East, General Auchinleck was planning for a major offensive which was to be carried out by the British 8th Army under General Cunningham. The objective of this offensive, known as 'Operation Crusader' was the relief of Torbuk. Torbuk had been under siege for seven months and was now being held with difficulty. The date fixed for the offensive was November 18. Across the desert General Rommel planned to attack Torbuk on November 23, seven days after the date chosen by Auchinleck.
The British planned various small commando operations behind the enemy's lines ahead of the offensive of the 8th Army. The objective of these operations was to support the forward thrust of the 8th Army, plans were laid out to disorganize communications in the enemy's rear so as to create maximum confusion among the ranks of German and Italian armies.
Among those plans the most ambitious and audacious of all was 'Operation Flipper' ; to land commandos from submarines behind the enemy's lines, with the objective of putting Rommel's headquarters out of action and 'getting' Rommel himself.
For executing the operation, six officers and 53 Other Ranks of 11th Scottish Commando, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, were placed under the operational command of the 8th Army. These men were chosen out of a hundred officers and men who had undergone several weeks' intensive training in London. The second-in-command of Keyes was Captain Campbell who spoke fluent German and Arabic. They were to become part of a depleted Layforce---commandos under Col R.E. Laycock---whose units had been partly disbanded because of a shortage of manpower in the 8th Army and the impossibility of obtaining reinforcements for so unorthodox a force. Commandos were still regarded by some army commanders as something of an unnecessary luxury.
For the execution of a commando action of such a type, accurate intelligence is considered a vital prerequisite. The preliminary intelligence work was done by Captain Jock .E. Haselden, already a legendary figure in the desert. Attached to the Lybian Arab force, Haselden, who spoke perfect Arabic and Italian wandered freely in the enemy held territory and had the confidence of those Arabs who were anxious to free themselves from Italian rule. On October 10, the submarine Toorbay dropped him and an Arab of the Libyan Arab Force on a beach near Hamma. They spent some days spying out the land and Haselden was brought back to Alexandria by the Long Range Desert Group on October 27.
Rommel's headquarters or the so-called 'Rommel's villa' was a prefecture building standing among some stone buildings in a village named Bedda Littoria, far behind the front, in Cyrene area. The building was selected by the Quartermaster- General Panzer Gruppe Afrika, Major Schleusener, as his headquarters in late 1941. That was where Rommel worked or slept---according to the British Secret Service, and this information had been confirmed by Haselden from Arab agents' report. According to British intelligence, the offices of Rommel and his staff were in the prefecture building and several other buildings in the neighborhood had also been requisitioned. In the village, apart from the suk or market, buildings were in European concrete style. The main road to Egypt, built by Mussolinni, ran through the main square.
On a beach near Alexandria, Keyes and his men had in the meantime been practicing landing techniques, and were working out the final plans for the raid. On practice runs, the commandos had been able to land 25 men in an hour on the beach. Everything had been planned in the office of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, the father of Lieutenant Colonel Keyes. The Admiral was head of all Special Commandos and raiding parties on the British side.
Colonel Laycock's opinion as to the success of the raid seemed from the outset pessimistic. He rated the chances of any of the raiders being evacuated as very slender, and attack on Rommel's headquarters as desperate in the extreme. He thought that even if the attack were successful it meant almost certain death for those taking part, and when he voiced these opinions to Keyes, he was asked not to repeat them in case their pessimism should result in the raid being canceled. Laycock agreed and decided to accompany the raiders as an observer to remain in the landing place.
The raiding party gathers
Haselden was dropped in by parachute to the landing area meanwhile the raiding party boarded the submarines Toorbay and Talisman on November 10. With Keyes in Toorbay were two other commando officers and 25 other ranks, including a Palestinian soldier to act as interpreter and two Senussi guides. Keyes and his men also carried a letter from Syed Idris---Chief of the Senussi who was in exile in Egypt---instructing his subjects to render all aid to Keyes. The submarines also carried two folboats with an officer and a man for each from the Special Boat Service to act as beach party, and 14 rubber dinghies, each capable of landing two men with equipment and stores. All was set for a strike against the brain and nerve-center of the enemy at a critical moment.
On November 13, Haselden arrived at the house of Mudir of Slonta (a pro-British Arab), borrowed a horse, and with an Arab guide left for Hamma on the coast to guide in the commandos. On the same day Toorbay and Talisman arrived off the coast. So far, all had gone according to plan, but now the weather was bad and showed every sign of getting worse. A big sea was running and conditions bore little resemblence to the practice conditions on the peaceful beach near Alexandria. As darkness fell Toorbay closed with the beach while Talisman kept watch. Despite bad weather the party on Toorbay's deck saw the winking signal from the punctual Haselden.
The conditions for landing became worse, one of the folboats were launched to make a preliminary reconniassance, the rubber dinghies were passed through the forward hatch, and stores in waterproof containers were loaded into those dinghies. But as the submarines rolled in the heavy seas, dinghies on the deck were swept overboard and those already afloat capsized. It was six hours before seven of the boats were launched and put safely ashore, the crews were wet and exhausted. It was bitterly cold.
All this time Talisman had stood out to sea to keep watch, and Colonel Laycock was on the point of postponding the landings when the signal came that Toorbay's party was ashore. He then had only three-and-a half hours of darkness left, but he decided to risk the landing. In the rough sea Talisman touched ground and seven boats and 11 men were swept overboard. By the time they had been recovered the moon was up and Talisman's commanding officer decided to withdraw, so only four boats from Talisman reached ashore. The submarines had to stay there and await the return of the commandos. Before the sun came up, the Commandos moved to a nearby wadi, where they would spend the next day.
The next morning the sun shone---so the commandos, soaking wet and frozen, were at least able to dry their weapons and clean their weapons. But now they did not constitute the force which Keyes had reckoned on, only thirty men had landed ashore, two had drowned. Because of reduced strength, plans had to be hurriedly changed.
The original plan had four objectives:
1- Raid the villa used by Rommel and German rear headquarters.
2- Sabotage the Italian headquarters at Cyrene by cutting the telephone and telegraph communications.
3- Assault the Italian intelligence centre at Apollina.
4- Wreck communications between Faidia and Lamluda.
Keyes decided to abandon the attacks on Cyrene and Apollina and concentrate on the German headquarters and 'Rommel's villa', with a subsidiary party to blow up the steel telegraph pylon where enemy communications met at the cross roads near Cyrene. As the two Senussi guides had been lost during the disastrous Talisman landing, a guide was borrowed from Haselden. After lending them a guide, Haselden left---He was an important asset behind the enemy's lines and was not allowed by the MI5 to take part in action. Thirty men were now formed into two parties, one to hit telephone and telegraph communications, and the other, under Lieutenant Colonel Keyes with 18 other Commandos, to attack 'Rommel's villa".
Normally at this time of the year the North African climate is dry, even if cold at night---but now it was both wet and cold. On the bright side, the noise of the storm and bad visibility could help them in avoiding detection by enemy guards.
Approach towards Bedda Littoria
Colonel Laycock remained behind at the landing place with three men to cover the reembarkment after the action while Keyes marched on with his men in bad weather and complete darkness. On November 15, the commandos crossed the steep and rock stewn country with difficulty and reached the top of the first escarpment half-a-mile inland, at about 21:00 hours.
At midnight the Arab guide left them for fear of getting caught, so from this time Keyes had to rely on a bad map and a compass.
Just before the first light the commandos dispersed among the scrub to spend the day under cover trying to sleep, and preparing for the dangers ahead. During the day Keyes was approached by a group of Arabs, one of whoom actually agreed to guide them to Rommel's headquarters for a thousand lire. When the darkness came they all set off again towards Beda Littoria, the small Italian settlement where 'Rommel's villa' was situated. After two and a half hours they reached a cave five miles from Beda Littoria, and which seemed to Keyes an admirable place to camp for the night. There was a strong smell of goats but the cave was dry.
Next morning Keyes set off with a small reconnaissance party to plan the final assault, but a torrential rain came, Keyes who wanted all of his men dry for the final attack, ordered them back to the cave. He therefore sent an Arab boy to spy out land. The boy returned with information from which Keyes was able to draw a map showing the relationship of the headquarters to the villa. The boy also told him the position of the guard tent and suggested that if it was raining, the guards would be inside.
Meanwhile, the Quartermaster-General, Major Schleusener was not in the villa as he had gone down with dysentery; he lay in hospital in Appollonia...Like his deputy who suffered from inflammation of the lungs. The deputy's adjudant also suffered from dysentery and lay in the same hospital. Acting Quartermaster-General was therefore Captain G. Weitz, Major Poeschell was acting second-in-command.
Keyes briefed his men that afternoon. His men were to form three groups, first group was to put the electric light plant out of action, second group was to enter the headquarters and third group was to watch the road leading upto the headquarters. The password was 'Island' and the counter 'Arran'.
At 1800 hours that night, in a thunderstorm, the party blackned their faces and moved off. Keyes allowed himself six hours to reach his objective, in view of the weather, the pitch black night, and the fact that conditions under foot deteriorated every hour.
In the 'Rommel villa'; Captain Weitz and Major Poeschell along with a couple of dozen officers, orderlies, runners, drivers and usual personnel to be found on a Quartermaster's staff were sitting in the gloomy building of old perfecture listening to the rain pouring down. Shortly before night, they retired to the various rooms on the ground and first floors where they slept on camp beds.
There were no sentries. A lone MP kept watch in the corridor below. His sole weapon was a bayonet. He was less a guard than a distributer of late-arriving mail. In the guard tent, a private soldier, Mat Boxharunner, was on late duty, where he was allowed to lie down on his camp bed after midnight.
Bedda Littoria was asleep. But the commandos were on their way to the 'Rommel villa', They made their first halt about a quarter of mile from Bedda Littoria, and then went down the track to the back of the village.
As the commandos reached the square, the guides, feeling no doubt that they had earned their money, refused to go further and so were left to await the return of the party, when they were to be paid.
The assault
Keyes, Campbell, Sargeant Terry and two privates crept towards the entrance of the prefecture. Three others made their way back round to the back door. Two Commandos were to keep a watch outside, in the garden. The German sentry stood in the open front door of the corridor. Sergeant Terry was to knife him---but the blade missed it's mark and in a slash there was a tussle in the corridor. The German called loudly for help but the thunder and the noise of the storm drowned his cries. The storm also drowned the sound of the demolition of an electricity power house thirty paces from the house; it was blown sky high by men of the Commando.
The corridor of the prefecture
Now the moment when the grenades exploded, Lieutenant Kaufholz was running downstairs with a pistol in hand. By the light of the explosion he caught sight of the British soldiers. Lieutenant Kaufholz fired at Keyes who slumped to the ground with a little cry of pain. At the same moment Campbell's tommy gun barked. The burst had hit Kaufholz. While the Lieutenant fell to the ground, he fired and hit Campbell in the shin. The British officer collapsed.
Thus the two leaders of the raid were out of action. In the dark corridor remained only Sergeant Terry and two privates. Voices ran out from the first floor and German officers rushed from their rooms. The surprise was now over---But where were those three men who were to enter from the back door?
At this moment there was wild gun fire outside. A commando left for watch outside in the garden had riddled Lieutenant Jaeger with bullets from a distance of ten feet. Jaeger, in his light pyjamas had run straight into the British sentry's tommy gun.
The shots which killed Jaeger made Sergeant Terry think that a fight has broken out outside. Deprived of their leaders, they decided to retreat and rushed into the open air---virtually abandoning their task of 'getting Rommel'.
Gunner Boxhammer, who had been in the guard tent, came running towards the source of the firing and ran straight into retreating Sergeant Terry and his men who mowed him down with a burst of tommy-gun fire in his belly.
These shots had the same effect on the second Commando team which was still outside the back door, unable to get inside. Actually these men had the best prospect, if not of capturing Rommel, of putting the Q.M.G's headquarters out of action five hours before the British offensive. A can of water ruined the party!
The back door story
The back door led into a small office. It was crammed full of files and office tables. A small hatch at the back of the room led via a spiral staircase to a cellar. Here Sergeant-Major Alfons had his sleeping quarters. He was an elderly man who hated to have open doors at night. Since the back door had no lock, he placed a full can of water before the door every evening and barricaded it from behind with a cabinet. Although the raiders tried to force it but the door did not even budge. They remained outside and when the gunfire which mowed down Lieutenant Jaeger was heard from the garden, the troops at the back door suspected a trap, and took to their heels.
The Finale
Everything so far had happened very quickly...The explosions, shootings in the corridor and in the garden, retreat of Terry's men out in the open---These events happened in quick succession...
The German officers on the first floor came down with their torches and weapons. On the stairs they found the dead Lieutenant Kaufholz and in the corridor lay a British officer with a blackened face: the courageous Lieutenant Colonel Keyes.
He had been killed by a shot through the chest which broke his stemum and had entered his heart and lungs. He had a second light wound in the thigh (this shot had been fired by Sergeant-Major Lentzen). The shot that killed him was fired by Lieutenant Kaufholz.
Captain Campbell, who was hit in the shin, was lying near the door of the munitions office, near the dead body of the MP. Campbell had obviously tried to crawl out. Outside, the Germans came across the body of Lieutenant Jaeger and gunner Boxhammer.
The nightmare was over. The great adventure had failed. It failed as a result of a few unforseen circumstances and the work of a few men. It is unthinkable what would have happened had they managed to enter the prefecture without making a sound and destroyed the whole of Q.M.G's apparatus five hours before the British offensive started.
Where was Rommel?
The use made by Rommel of the headquarters at Bedda Lettoria was infrequent. At the time of the raid, Rommel was where one would have expected a General of his ability and temperament to be at the time of an impending attack---at his forward headquarters at Gazala, about 33 miles from Torbuk. When he did visit Beda Littoria with his staff, a house was reserved for him which became known locally as 'Rommel-Haus' and from this, Arab intelligence sources seemed to have assumed that Rommel lived there regularly.
Fate of the Commandos
Captain Campbell received a gunshot at close quarters which had completely smashed his shin bone in the center. By rights, the leg should have been amputated since the prospect of healing was very small and the danger of infection very great. Doctor Werner Junge, the surgeon at German hospital in Dema, did not amputate but tried to save the leg. Since junge spoke fluent English, he was given order to question Campbell. Campbell, who knew German, saw at once through the doctor's game and said in German "You needn't bother---you won't get anything out of me."
Doctor Junge kept Campbell in plaster for fourteen days hospital until Dema had to be evacuated and the patient was sent by air to an Italian hospital.
The fleeing commandos had not dared to return immediately to the waiting submarine. Fearing that a large search party would be sent out they hid with the Arabs. Not until the next morning a thorough combined German-Italian search made! For days on end the countryside was combed. Arab huts were ransacked and Military Police searched every corner. Nothing could be got out of the Arabs---not a British soldier, not a piece of uniform.
Then an Italian Carabiniere(Military Police) arrived who had lived for many years in the region and knew it like the palm of his hand. "I will show you how you should act", he said proudly. He fetched an Arab girl from the village and had a long gesticulating palaver with her. The sense of it was as follows:
"You and your family will be given eighty pounds of corn and twenty pounds of sugar for each Britisher that you betray to us."
Eighty pounds of floor and twenty pounds of sugar---they represented a real treasure for the Arabs of that period. Their greed for this treasure was stronger than the British pound notes or the Senussi Chief's talisman which the commandos carried representing a kind of passport. The lady left and soon the first British were taken from the very huts which the German military police had searched so thoroughly. They were clothed in Arab rags. Eventually the entire commando fell into German hands. Only the crafty Sergeant Terry managed to escape with two men. The prisoners were not treated according to Hitler's orders as partisans, which would have meant that they would have been shot; Rommel ordered them to be treated as prisoners of war. The fallen Lieutenant Colonel Keyes was buried in the cemetery of Bedda Littoria with full military honours next to the four dead Germans.
Sergeant Terry arrived, late in the afternoon, the next day, near the beach and found Colonel Laycock waiting there. At dusk that evening, Laycock saw Toorbay fully surfaced about a quarter of a mile out. Laycock's signals remained unacknowledged and Toorbay came no closer in. Later they saw Toorbay signaling them but their replies remained unacknowledged and no boats were sent to pick them from the beach. The night wore on and it became obvious that no evacuation could now take place until the following night, so the 22 survivors moved into a nearby wadi to lie up for the day.
Here, about noon on November 19, Colonel Laycock ordered his men to split into groups, giving them the choice of heading for the LRDG in the area of Slonta, returning to the beach in the hope of being picked up by the submarine, or hiding in the wadis near Cyrene in the hope that advance of the 8th Army would rescue them. Whatever choice they made, they were all captured with the exception of Colonel Laycock and Sergeant Terry, who met the advancing 8th Army at Cyrene 41 days after they had set from the beach.
Critical Analysis
- The planners and leaders of such operations must verify the intelligence reports, and if possible, verify them personally.
- Total surprise is a precondition for the success of commando raids. Surprise must last at least for several minutes into the final assault.
- If the commandos could not locate Rommel, the secondary objective was to put the Q.M.G headquarters out of action. But this had to be done quietly. The firing of weapons and grenade explosions doomed the action to failure from the start. If this had been infact an army headquarters, the commandos wouldn't have been able to flee, for the sentries would have intervened immediately.
- Properly led and with the necessary means, which the English commandos had at their disposal, the operation could have achieved it's purpose against the real headquarters of General Rommel. Rommel would have lost his life or seriously injured. It would have been difficult to take him along as prisoner.
- Assuming that the General escaped harm, a few of his staff officers would have been incapacitated in any case. During the offensive, the functioning of the HQ would have been seriously disrupted. Even a partial success of any such operation would have had a negative effect on the morale of German troops;not only in Africa but in other theaters as well.
- The Germans needed to rethink about the inadequate security of German Army Headquarters. Against a determined and well planned commando operation, the German headquarters behind the frontlines were guarded by a bunch of insufficiently armed sentries.
The official British account of this operation is somewhat different than the above account, but is inaccurate.
PRIMARY SOURCES
The foxes of the desert-Paul Carrel
History of the second world war magazine-part 24
@Vauban @Slav Defence @WAJsal @AUSTERLITZ @GufiThe foxes of the desert-Paul Carrel
History of the second world war magazine-part 24
Last edited:
and what a guy he still ordered to treat his attackers RESPECT!! Btw thanks for the tag 
oh check out our post count same same 
