Commando Operations from Gibraltar (1).

 

On the 21^st October 1942, the ex-Pacific Steam Navigation Company luxury liner, now HMS Reina del Pacifico embarked troops for the landings at Algiers and Oran, as part of Operation Torch. She was the flagship of Senior Naval Officer Landing. At 17,872 tons, 551 ft long and built for 800 passengers, her 12 cylinder oil engines and four propellers could drive her at 20 knots all day long. Passengers on this cruise were largely American Rangers, who were kept busy sewing American Flags to their field jackets, to help persuade the French defenders that they were allies. They stitched a white arm band to their left arm to aid recognition at night… whilst officers wore a band on each arm.

    

                P.S.N.C.’s Reina del Pacifico in her peacetime cruising role.

 

Torch was, for propaganda purposes, a landing by U.S. forces supported by British warships and aircraft, in the belief that this would be more palatable to French public opinion than an Anglo-American invasion. For that reason Churchill suggested that British soldiers taking part might wear US Army uniforms, and No 6 Commando, to whom this tale relates, did so. The Algiers force had to be 24 hours ahead of the Oran force, so at one point Reina had to steam back on her tracks for 8 hours to ensure passing through the Strait in darkness. 

General Eisenhower arrived at his Gibraltar HQ on 5th November and watched two darkened ship convoys from England pass through the strait heading for landings at Oran and Algiers. During the day and night prior to the invasion a severe storm buffeted the convoy, adding to general apprehension about what resistance could be expected from the Vichy regime’s French and Arab troops.

 At 3.30 pm on the 7^th November 1942, Reina met up with the equipment ships off Oran. She was on time to the minute and early the following morning a flotilla of British LCAs (landing craft assault) would take her troops ashore.

A final turkey dinner with all the trimmings was served on the night of 7^th November acknowledging the fact that some of these men might not be alive for the traditional U.S. Thanksgiving Dinner in three weeks time.

 Later, during the dark, moonless night, ships moved closer to shore and men clambered down scramble nets into landing craft heaving on the swells left by the receding storm. H-Hour arrived and the invasion began. Just before the landings U.S. President Roosevelt broadcast a message by short wave to the people of France and North Africa, speaking in French: ‘Mes Amis’ he said, ‘We come among you to repulse the cruel invaders - have faith in our words, help us where you are able - Vive La France eternelle’.

      

The assault force, wearing their American flags and armbands, would now experience their first taste of combat; shore batteries shelling the landing forces and being silenced by naval guns, fierce and sporadic ground resistance, frequent strafing and bombing attacks by enemy planes, attacks by French tanks, artillery and infantry; all complicated by some M16 half tracks being put ashore at unplanned points as surf and high tides affected the landings.

 

                  

With the assault accomplished, the Reina berthed in Oran harbour, picking up a group of young men whose part in the landings had been completed before any troops hit the beach. Codenamed Koodoo-Inhuman, they were the embryonic group which would later become COPP; the Combined Operations Pilotage Party of 101 Troop, 6 Commando. This team of Special Boat Section commandos had performed two tasks vital to achieving a successful landing.

 From the start of the war, landing on the wrong beach had been all too common… and not always the Navy’s fault. Most landings were made at night, visibility from landing craft was rather restricted, compasses often unadjusted and the crews were not always well trained. In an attempt to reduce the errors, navigation beacons were often provided, sometimes by submarine or, just as often, by canoe parties who, ahead of the main assault, marked the beaches.

COPP canoeists were also used for pre-assault reconnaissance. They would approach beaches undetected, determine tidal sets, surf lines, depth soundings, the slope of the beach, type of sand, enemy vigilance and patrols, obstructions and any other useful information. They prepared sketches and where possible took photographs.

For example, to determine the slope of the beach, the team would approach the beach unseen. The rating would stay with the boat whilst the officer would slip into the water in his paddler suit; a sort of semi-dry suit. Making his way to the tide line the officer would place a skewer in the sand from which to un-reel a marked line as he then floated seaward. At regular intervals he would take a sounding, using a weighted line which incorporated a hollowed out bottom, armed with a sticky substance, usually tallow, to collect samples of the sand, mud or gravel. The overall result was a gradient for that point of approach.  Repeated at perhaps 50 yard intervals across the beach, the series of gradients and bottom samples were invaluable to the landing parties. This activity might take three of four nights to complete, under the nose of the enemy, hopefully without being detected and equally hoping for a successful rendezvous with their submarine.   

 

 But these parties also had a second more dangerous task, standing in close to the beach in their Folbots during the actual invasion, to mark landing points by providing visual signals to guide in the invading troops.  

 Folbots is a bit of a misnomer; they were actually collapsible kayaks and were designated as cockles by the military; hence the cockleshell heroes. The first folding kayaks were produced in the early 1900s inspired by Inuit kayaks. A  German resident in America manufactured the first commercial versions, which he called Folbots. Various English versions appeared and as the 2nd World War erupted, they were eventually recognised as a useful tool for surreptitious insertion.  Eventually, because the War Department’s initial reaction was to laugh at Roger Courtney, the originator of the idea. Before the war, Roger had bought a Folbot from Selfridges for £22, which he navigated, by paddle & sail, from Lake Victoria along the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea). Roger became the founder of the Special Boat Service.

                                                       

 
 

 A key design requirement was the ability to be stored on board then deployed from submarines, where space for long, awkward objects was necessarily scarce. The 15 foot long  Mk II cockle could be collapsed to just 7 ins. high, allowing easy passage through a sub’s forward hatch.  The deck and bottom were made of laminated wood and the sides and cockpit area of rubberised canvas. The bottom had to be rigid and flat to allow the boat to be dragged over beaches and the struts holding everything apart would be folded forwards.

Considerable ingenuity went into the Mk 2 cockles, which were designed by Fred Goatley at Saunders Roe (SARO Aviation) under the supervision of Blondie Haslar; the prototype being tested at Praa Sands in Cornwall. The production items included triangular inflatable flotation-bags, for bow and stern and rigid sponsons (like a trimaran) in early models; later models having inflatable tubes in 10 foot side pockets.  

So who were the men designated to perform these tasks for Torch? They were the 28 swimmers and paddlers of 101 Troop, 6 Commando, and they arrived in Gibraltar on the 13th October '42 attached to convoy KMS 1; the officers on board HMT Rousay and - as usual Navy practice - the ratings and equipment on board another trawler. They were found accommodation in HMS Maidstone, the depot ship of the 8th Submarine Flotilla. Immediately on arrival they started serious training which was not altogether popular. One team member recorded his appraisal of the routine:

 'We were woken at 0530, given cocoa and a ships' biscuit and made to run up the Rock (altitude over 1,200 feet) before breakfast.'  

That said, life aboard HMS Maidstone had a more rewarding side. She was a floating dockyard equipped with torpedoes, ammunition, water, food, fuel oil, spare parts and all the essentials for repair work. On board her were engineers, electricians, shipwrights, doctors and even a dentist, all with magnificent workshops, foundries and surgeries. Little praise was given to depot ships but our submarines (and thus the Mediterranean war) depended on them. She was a tribute to the ingenuity of her designers despite her bulk, it seemed impossible for so many amenities to be crammed between her sides. Our correspondent continued:

'From our point of view the most agreeable of her facilities was the living space for the officers and men attached to her. The sailors had large mess decks in which to shake of their claustrophobia and the officers were given individual cabins, each a small bedsitter. There were film shows and recreational facilities too, though our life was hardly a round of giddy pleasure.'

                                    Maidstone in Gibraltar;  Capt. Barney Fawkes relocated her to Algiers on 10th December. 

What the teams were unaware of was that the reconnaissance part of their mission had already been completed, leaving them with the dangerous task of beach marking and assault pilotage for the invading forces.

Flag Office Gibraltar had forbidden covert landings on the beaches considering they would compromise security and warn the French of the invasion. So instead, surveillance was carried out by observation from submarines. A team had departed on board P222 (Lt. Cmdr. A J Mackenzie) on the 30^th September and spent ten days making periscope reconnaissances, drawing the profiles of the hinterland to target beaches. Copies of these would be used by landing craft flotillas and at least one survey showed that an intended landing point for trucks was backed by impassable cliffs. Returning on the 9^th Oct. the report was disappointing:

‘Owing to the restrictions forbidding the use of folbots, less than half the information originally desired has been obtained, and it is not possible to give more than an opinion on the suitability of the beaches inspected. This inspection was done using the periscope, i.e. from a height of eye of about 2 feet, with the swell often hiding the foreshore. The coast was again inspected at night to ascertain that marks chosen by day are, in fact, visible at night. The safety of the submarine, and possible watchers ashore, prevented approaching nearer than 1½ miles; thus it is possible that some marks may not be seen when closer than this, especially from a low height of eye, and that other better marks are then conspicuous.’

However, some data had been collected:  ‘Tidal sets variable but not more than ½ knot; no tunny nets seen at any beach; felucca fishing boats seen fishing close inshore at all beaches; the glare from the town of Mostaganem was visible about 10 miles;  Arzeu town was mostly blacked out, many individual lights showing, but no glare; lookout stations on headlands do not show lights at night or ensigns by day.’ 

Finally, they made a general comment about visibility from sea during their reconnaissance: ‘A layer of cloud to landward at about 1500 feet made any identification of hills at night extremely difficult, even at 3 miles, and objects ashore could not be identified at 1½ miles. Conditions seemed to improve further to seaward.’

Fortunately: ‘The commanding officer, HMS Minna with considerable recent experience of this coast on special service missions, reported that, with winds of Force 3 to 4 from the north east, there were six lines of surf on ‘Z’ Beach. A considerable ground swell was felt on each of our several visits to this beach, both by day and by night. Land breezes from SSW and sea breezes from NE (the latter up to Force 4) prevailed on this coast during the reconnaissance.’

These reports made it imperative that the beach marking - at least - was spot on accurate. So, whilst the troops were climbing down the nets into LCAs, No.6 Commando’s canoeists were already in place at the beaches.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Low on the water, their cockles remained unseen by the enemy and lay ready to guide the assault in. In these early days of beach marking they rigged sea facing lamps on poles; using infrared RG lamps which were visible only to the special IR receivers of the invading force.   

In the early stage of an assault, these men operated in constant danger of discovery by the enemy. In the latter stages, as the force arrived, the threat included the likelihood of being wiped out by enemy fire and possibly even friendly fire, before their role changed to joining the assault.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

L/Sgt. Weatherall of 101 Troop 6 Commando, reported:

‘On the Wednesday 4^th of November we reached the bay of Arzeu, near Oran and began a periscope recce, surfacing on Saturday 7^th November, six miles offshore. The sea was very choppy as we launched the canoe over the st’bd ballast tank and we shipped a lot of water which I baled out using my green beret. The dolphins were a nuisance, stirring up lots of phosphorescence, but we made good time and reached ‘Z’ beach, dropped our kedge anchors and sat there, wet and cold, about 200 yards offshore.’    

‘At 0015 hrs we began flashing ‘Z’ seaward by morse RG, an infra red lamp, and the U.S. Rangers’ first landing craft came in about 0115 hrs and landed on our starboard side about ten minutes later. More craft then came in, veering off to left and right to discharge their troops and all was very quiet for about an hour when the first shots were heard. We guided the last craft - a tank and jeep carrier – in just before daylight, paddled off to green and red beaches and finally boarded the Reina del Pacifico. She was under fire from a French artillery post which hit her twice before the gun was silenced. One shell which hit the ship knocked out a rivet, which landed in the Captain’s washbasin.’   

L/Sgt. Weatherall remained on board the Reina for the next few days awaiting the arrival of the former P&O liner SS Ettrick, now serving as a troop ship, for his repatriation to the UK. On the 14^th November, the Ettrick called in at Gibraltar for water and provisions and Weatherall reported to the First Officer of HMS Maidstone. He was informed that he was not to return home in the troopship as another job was in the offing.

‘I went back on board the Ettrick and rejoined our other SBS members, who sympathised with me. Next morning at 0845, I left the Ettrick with my canoe and gear and boarded the Maidstone.’

The Ettrick set out from Gibraltar joining convoy MKF-1Y but only two days later, the seven SBS members who had left with her, were returned to the Maidstone. The Ettrick had been torpedoed and sunk by U-155, around 120 miles northwest of the Rock, on her way into the Atlantic.

  

 

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First published here, December 2024.    Paul Hodkinson.