Great and Bold World War II Raids

18. Attacking a Land Fortification From the Air

In the wee hours of May 10^th, 1940, at the start of the German blitzkrieg against the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France, a company of 80 elite German Fallschirmjaegers, or paratroopers, led by Hauptman (Captain) Walter Koch, boarded gliders tethered to Ju 52 transport airplanes, which towed them to the vicinity of Eben-Emael and released them on an approach path to their target. The gliders landed atop the fortress, which had been built to thwart attacks from land. The designers had not thought about a direct assault from up above by airborne soldiers. The German paratroopers exited the gliders, quickly formed into assault teams, and threw explosives down Eben-Emael’s ventilation shafts to explode within the fortress’ vitals. With an aggressive display of shock tactics, in which flamethrowers featured prominently, the Germans soon paralyzed the defenders, who found themselves trapped inside a fortress whose exits had been blocked.

17. Aggression, Shock, and Speed Seized and Maintained a Small Attacking Force’s Initiative Over a Vastly More Numerous Foe

German paratroopers rained down explosives upon Eben-Emael’s defenders from above, followed by aggressive room clearing tactics with which the garrison was unfamiliar and against which it had not trained. The demoralized defenders were steadily pushed deep into the bowels of the fortress, and away from the guns commanding the roads and bridges leading into Belgium’s heartland. With the guns unmanned, other paratroop units seized and secured the vital bridges Eben-Emael had been built to protect. The paratroopers suffered heavy casualties, but stubbornly held on to the bridges. They beat back Belgian counterattacks long enough for relief to arrive from regular German army units that raced from their jump off positions, to secure the objectives seized by the paratroopers. Inside Eben-Emael, their situation now hopeless, the garrison surrendered early in the morning of the following day, May 11^th. They had capitulated within 24 hours of the gliders’ landing atop the fortress.

16. Italian Commandos Were Surprisingly Effective

The Italian military in WWII earned a deserved reputation for general ineptness and haplessness. However, there were exceptions, such as some special forces units that displayed great elan and competence. On December 3^rd, 1941, an Italian submarine left La Spezia, Italy, with three manned torpedoes. It stopped at the island of Leros in the Aegean to pick up three crews of two men each to man the torpedoes, then set course for the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt – the British Royal Navy’s Mediterranean headquarters and main base. It was the start of one of WWII’s most daring raids, carried out with great skill and courage. The raiders were members of the Italian Decima Flottiglia MAS, or “10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla” – an Italian navy unit of specially trained frogmen who, as seen below, were quite effective.

15. Riding Manned Torpedoes

The Italian manned torpedoes were 22-feet-long, battery powered, with a speed of 2.5 miles, a range of 10 miles, a submersible depth of about 100 feet, and a detachable 660 pound explosive charge. On December 19^th, 1941, the submarine carrying the manned torpedoes got to within a mile and a half of Alexandria’s harbor, then launched the frogmen on their way. Through aerial reconnaissance and agents in Alexandria, the Italians had an accurate picture of the harbor’s defenses. It included shore artillery and machinegun emplacements, minefields, net barriers, and intense patrolling on water as well as ashore. The sole entrance was sealed with an antisubmarine net that was only removed to allow authorized vessels to enter or exit the harbor.

14. An Ambitious Attack Plan

The raiders lurked underwater near the entrance to the harbor, and snuck in when the submarine barrier nets were temporarily removed to allow three British destroyers to enter. The frogmen quickly followed the destroyers in. Steering their manned torpedoes, the crews separated, each to their assigned target. The Decima Flottiglia attackers were tasked with the destruction of the battleships HMS Valiant and Queen Elizabeth, and an aircraft carrier that turned out not to be present. So the crew assigned to attack the aircraft carrier settled on the tanker Sagona, instead.

13. An Audacious Effort

The raiders evaded the extensive protections within the harbor, and maneuvered their vessels above or below torpedo nets until they reached their targets. The frogmen dove beneath their targeted ships, removed the warheads from their torpedoes, affixed them to the bottom of the enemy hulls, set timers for the explosives to go off at 6AM, and beat a retreat. One crew was spotted and captured as soon as they surfaced inside the harbor. The other two crews swam ashore and made it into Alexandria, but were captured by Egyptian police within a few days. The explosives went off on time, and both battleships suffered extensive damage that kept them out of action for a year. As to the tanker Sagona, it was destroyed outright, and a destroyer that had been refueling from it at the time suffered significant damage.

12. A Desert Raid to Disrupt the Enemy’s Rear

British raiders from No. 7 Commando launched a surprise amphibious landing at Bardia, a small coastal town in eastern Libya near the Egyptian border, on the night of April 19-20, 1941. They were backed by a small tank contingent and supported by a small Royal Navy detachment comprised of a cruiser and three destroyers. Their mission was to disrupt the enemy rear by destroying an Italian supply dump and an artillery installation. Planning had started in January, 1941, when a 2000-man task force of Commandos, designated Layforce after its commander, Colonel Robert Laycock, was gathered in Britain and sent to Egypt, to train for special operations. An amphibious landing and raid on Bardia was to be their first mission. As seen below, it did not go smoothly: poor intelligence, poorer foresight by planners, and mistakes on the ground caused more losses than enemy action.

11. A Cascade of Mishaps

Things got off to an iffy start when the raiders were landed at night behind schedule and on the wrong beach. However, they managed to sort things out and find their way to Bardia, which they were surprised to discover was lightly defended. The Commandos located and destroyed an Italian supply dump, as well as an artillery installation, all for the loss of a single officer, mistakenly killed in a friendly fire incident. The raiders then trudged back to the beach for re-embarkation – and that was when the consequences of poor preparation manifested themselves. A contingent of 70 Commandos got lost in the dark, and after a cascade of mishaps, ended up going to the wrong beach. There, they waited futilely for boats to pick them up. They were left behind, and all were captured by the enemy in the following days.

10. Success Despite Mistakes

Despite the poor planning and resultant mishaps, the Bardia Raid was a success. It disrupted the enemy rear, destroyed its assigned targets, and as an added bonus, caused the Axis high command to pull a German armored brigade from the front lines and divert it to provide rear security. That had a significant impact on the battlefield, as the British at the time were hard pressed by the recently arrived Afrika Korps, under the command of Erwin Rommel. The diversion of a German armored brigade from the front lines eased the pressure, and gave the British enough breathing space to stabilize the situation.

9. Getting Rid of Rommel

Operation Flipper was a daring British Commando raid to kill or capture Erwin Rommel. Had it succeeded in its objective, it would have nipped in bud the career of the Afrika Korps commander nicknamed the “Desert Fox” by his foes, and reduced him to a bit of historic trivia and footnote before he had cemented his reputation as a legendary commander. The raid was a prelude intended to disrupt the Axis command on the eve of Operation Crusader, an ambitious British offensive intended to lift the siege of Tobruk and relieve a mostly-Australian garrison that had been cutoff and surrounded there during a retreat, and eliminate the Axis threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal once and for all. It was thought that eliminating the brilliant German general who had chased the British out of Libya and led the Axis to Egypt’s border would be a good start.

8. Missteps and Mishaps

The Commandos were directed to kill or capture Rommel at his residence in a headquarters villa in the Libyan town of Bayda; destroy a nearby intelligence center and wireless station; attack the nearby headquarters of an Italian division; and otherwise attack and destroy upon targets of opportunity in the vicinity. On November 10^th, 1941, two submarines set out from Alexandria, Egypt, carrying a force of 59 Commandos between them. They reached their landing site on the night of November 14^th, where an advance team that had been parachuted in earlier awaited them. One submarine landed its contingent, but the other was struck by a squall and ran aground. As a result, only 7 of its Commandos reached shore, while the rest were stranded. With the available attack force thus drastically diminished, the mission was revised and reduced to only attacking Rommel’s headquarters and that of the Italian division.

7. A Tactically Successful Raid, that Nonetheless Missed its Target

The Commandos set off to their targets on November 15^th, and despite heavy rains, reached their attack positions on the night of November 17^th. At midnight, they struck in a meticulously executed attack – and discovered they had been acting on poor intelligence. Rommel was not at the targeted HQ, but in Italy, where he had been since November 1^st. The Desert Fox would not return to the field until November 18^th – the day after the raid. Only 3 German supply officers and an enlisted soldier were killed, and a fuel depot was destroyed. In exchange, the raiders were wiped out, and only two members managed to evade pursuit and reach British lines 37 days later. All the rest were either killed or captured.

6. A Plan to Destroy an Enemy’s Naval Shelter

Operation Chariot, or the St Nazaire Raid, was a surprise attack launched by British Commandos and the Royal Navy on March 28^th, 1942. Its target was the Normandie dry dock in St Nazaire, on the Atlantic coast of German-occupied France. That dry dock was the only Axis-controlled one on the Atlantic that could accommodate the giant German battleships Bismark and Tirpitz. Its loss would cause severe difficulties to those behemoths if they ever broke into the Atlantic Ocean and suffered damage there. Were that to happen, then rather than return for repairs to a convenient haven on the Atlantic, they would be forced to steam all the way back to Germany. To reach Germany from the Atlantic would require the battleships to run a dangerous gauntlet of British-controlled waters in either the English Channel, or the naval chokepoints of the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap north of Scotland.

5. Raiders Stranded in Enemy Territory

The Commandos set off in a flotilla of 18 small craft, intended to be the raiders’ ride back home after completion of their mission. They were accompanied by an obsolete destroyer, HMS Cambeltown, packed with well-concealed delayed-action high explosives. The raiders sailed from British ports down the English Channel and into the Atlantic, and set course for St Nazaire. When they reached their target, the Cambeltown rammed the gates of the Normandie dry dock, and came to rest above them at an angle. The Germans, unaware of the destroyer’s deadly cargo, concentrated on fighting the Commandos, who had disembarked to attack and destroy other vital installations, facilities, and machinery around the port. In the resultant heavy exchanges of fire, the Germans destroyed nearly all the British small craft that were supposed to take the Commandos back home, and thus stranded the raiders.

4. Success Despite Great Loss

The Commandos tried to make their way inland, but most were killed or captured after their ammunition ran out. The raiders suffered heavy losses: 169 were killed, and another 215 were captured, in addition to the loss of 13 motor launches, a torpedo boat, a gun boat, and two airplanes. It was worth it, however, and the mission became a resounding success, literally, later that day. Just when things had quieted down and the Germans began cleanup efforts, swarming aboard HMS Cambeltown as it rested at an angle above the dry dock gates, the delayed action explosives within the destroyer detonated. The massive explosion not only killed hundreds of Germans and wounded hundreds more, but also accomplished the mission’s primary objective: it put the Normandie dry docks out of commission for the rest of the war, and for five years more beyond that.

3. A Russian Tank Raid

The Tatsinskaya Raid, also known as “Red Christmas” or the “Christmas Raid” because it took place on Christmas eve, 1942, was a Soviet armored raid deep into the German rear to destroy the Tatsinskaya airfield. From that air base, Luftwaffe transport planes were frantically airlifting supplies to the besieged German 6^th Army in Stalingrad. Planes flying out of that airfield were the surrounded Germans’ only lifeline, so its destruction, along with the irreplaceable Ju 52 transport planes based there, would seal the 6^th Army’s doom. The raid, conducted by the 24^th Tank Corps, struck the airfield from three sides and caught the Germans by surprise. T-34 tanks rolled down the tarmac, machine gunning and shelling facilities and installations, as well as the precious planes – some still in crates on railway cars that had recently brought them to Tatsinskaya.

2. Tanks Rampaging on an Airfield

When the T-34s ran low on ammunition, they simply rammed the airplanes, smashing through their aluminum frames and crushing them and their engines beneath tons of armor. German pilots and crews desperately raced to their airplanes in an attempt to get them airborne and away to safety, only to get ruthlessly cut down or ran down and ground into pulp beneath Soviet tank treads. Once the raid had accomplished its goal, however, the attackers were cutoff, and found themselves encircled and unable to breakout back to Soviet lines. They suffered heavily: the 24^th Tank Corps lost most of its tanks, was nearly destroyed, and had to be reconstituted. The task however had been accomplished, and the result was a Soviet strategic victory: the attackers claimed 300 aircraft destroyed, while the Germans admitted to the loss of 72 irreplaceable Ju 52 transport planes.

1.     A Strategic Success, at a High Cost

Whatever the actual loss figures, the destruction of the Tatsinskaya airfield and the loss of transport planes and their trained pilots, crews, and maintenance personnel, was severe enough to seal the fate of the Germans surrounded in Stalingrad. The supply situation of the besieged 6^th Army, already dire before the raid when the Luftwaffe transport arm had been operating at full capacity, now became impossible after the destruction of so many transports and their base of operations. With aerial resupply cutoff, German resistance inside Stalingrad crumbled. The last besieged survivors were forced to capitulate a month later in the greatest German defeat of the war until then. That outcome in turn altered the balance of the conflict, placed the Germans in the strategic offensive, and the Soviets in a strategic offensive that culminated two years later with the Red Banner raised over the German Reichstag in Berlin.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Asher, Michael – Get Rommel: The Secret British Mission to Kill Hitler’s Greatest General (2004)

Borghese, J. Valerio – Sea Devils: Italian Navy Commandos in World War II (1952)

Chappell, Mike – Army Commandos, 1940-1945 (1996)

Combined Operations – Operation Chariot: St. Nazaire, 28^th March 1942

Combined Operations – Operation Flipper: Commando Raid to Capture Rommel

Dorrian, James – Storming St Nazaire: The Gripping Story of the Dock-Busting Raid, March, 1942 (1998)

Glantz, David M. ­- From the Don to the Dneper: Soviet Offensive Operations, December 1942 to August 1943 (1991)

Greene, Jack, and Massignani, Alessandro – The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima Mas (2004)

History Collection – Agent 50: The Heroic Spy Who Saved Hundreds from Japanese Clutches in World War II

McRaven, William – Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare (1995)

Mrazek, James E. – The Fall of Eben Emael (1991)

Saunders, Hilary Aidan St. George – The Green Beret: The Story of the Commandos 1940-1945 (1949)

Stalingrad Net – The Tatsinskaya Raid