Renaldo (66 page)

team history, but he, like his father, had more pressing matters to attend.

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After completion of his preparatory education at Eton, Reggie had enrolled

in the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. He had completed two years of

training when the conflict broke out against the Axis forces in Europe. The lad

was a gifted athlete who had been a championship swimmer at both Eton and

the college. He had developed a striking physique from his pool activities and

hours of canoeing on the River Dart. The early morning sorties up the Dart in

his one-man Rob Roy canoe left him invigorated and ready to tackle the day’s

more mundane classroom activities.

Reginald Russell was a bright, energetic student. A voracious reader, he

would tackle the complex questions of mathematics, astronomy, and naval

warfare with an inquisitive mind. His shock of unruly blond hair was always

distinguishable in the lecture halls, no matter how closely cropped the seaman’s

cut. Although he felt his appearance too angular to be considered handsome,

the young ladies of Dartmouth obviously disagreed.

The aristocratic lad from London was the most popular of all the aspiring

officers whenever college dances permitted female guests on the grounds. He

was a spinner of yarns, and as smooth on his feet as he was quick with his wits.

His years at the college were the happiest of his young life, but it was a lifestyle

that came to an abrupt end when England learned the deadly meaning of the

word ‘blitzkrieg’ in the fall of 1939.

The world was at war again, and every able-bodied man was needed to

protect the Empire. After lengthy discussions with his father, Reggie decided to

forgo the balance of his accelerated naval training and the assured commission

as an officer upon graduation. Instead, he enlisted as a recruit in the Royal

Marines, as was the family’s military tradition.

Events moved quickly in Europe, and in a matter of months, the new

enlistee was promoted to sergeant and put out to sea. His initial assignment,

after completing basic training at the Marine depot in Deal, was protecting

North Sea oil rigs aboard the corvette H.M.S. Wallflower. It was dangerous yet

tedious work, and the new marine longed for action at closer quarters.

After the fall of Dunkirk and the withdrawal of the Allied forces from the

continent in 1940, the high command decided that a special force was required

to mount vigorous raiding operations against occupied Europe. Drawing

personnel from the elite divisions of the army and the Royal Marines, the new

units were to be called ‘commandos,’ after the Boer irregulars that had operated

behind British lines in the South African war.

Using his father’s influence with the War Ministry, Reggie obtained leave

to attend the commando training center at Lympstone. His education here

was the most taxing of any he had received to date, as he was trained in the

many lethal facets of war that Marine commandos were expected to master. By

chance, shortly before his stay at Lympstone was completed, a call for volunteers

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went out, seeking strong swimmers with canoeing experience. Within a week,

the future Earl of Weymouth found himself on the Isle of Arran off the south

west coast of Scotland, training with a new elite squadron called the ‘Folbot

Company.’

Named after their lightweight, collapsible, two-man canoes, this

specialized group of individuals was to spearhead clandestine reconnaissance in

several theaters of the war. The training was, once again, extensive and arduous.

The days were spent swimming miles in frigid waters, paddling until ‘one’s

arms seemed to go numb,’ then being subjected to agonizing forced marches

at ‘double-quick’ over the desolate, hilly countryside. It was a grueling, almost

cruel education, but what excited Reginald Russell more than anything was

the intelligence training that he was receiving.

This training entailed analyzing tidal currents, weather patterns,

beachhead rock composition, and much, much more. It was this same

intelligence work that could save the lives of thousands of soldiers. Reggie used

his keen, analytical mind to decipher and assimilate the reams of pertinent data

that was thrown at the recruits in those first few weeks.

The volunteers were summarily moved to Kabrit, on the northern end

of the Suez Canal, without prior notice in January 1941. Here, their training

continued under the combined operations group, which included volunteers

from the army’s Special Air Services, or SAS. Along with reconnaissance,

the commandos were trained in the use of plastic explosives and underwater

limpet mines, which were to be used in concert with their shore raids and anti-

navigation expeditions. The unit’s Folbot canoes had since been replaced by

larger, more durable Cockle-type canoes.

Operating exclusively under the cover of darkness, the raiding parties

would be launched from submarines several miles out to sea from their targets.

The Cockles were then paddled silently ashore, hidden from sight, and the land-

based operation carried out. The boat’s ability to avoid coastal radar detection

was their main benefit, their instability in surging tides and choppy seas their

biggest drawback.

After successful small-scale reconnaissance operations on the occupied

Greek island of Rhodes and the German-held Lybian coastal town of Badia,

Sergeant Russell was chosen for a single-crew demolition raid in Axis Sicily.

The target was a railway spur running from the coast to the capital of Palermo.

Accompanying the sergeant was Lieutenant Brian Downs, originally a rower

with the Cambridge University Heavy Eights. The men were launched from

the submarine H.M.S. Utmost on a moonless June night, some four miles off

the Sicilian coast. As they made their way toward the invisible shoreline, the

commandos were aghast to find Italian fishing boats blocking the approach

route.

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Often these Italians toiled with armed German guards aboard, and should

the intruders be sighted, all hell would break loose. The months of training in

the techniques of silent paddling paid off, however, and the commandos skirted

all the trawlers undetected.

Once ashore, still operating in total darkness, they hurriedly took samples

of the beach stones for analysis, then proceeded inland. A visible line of telegraph

poles that ran parallel to the rail spur helped guide the commandos to their

objective. Having traveled no more than a third of a mile inland and with no

enemy contact, the two operatives were able to plant their plastic explosives with

weight-sensitive fuses under the tracks, cut the telegraph wires, and rendezvous

back with the submarine as easily as if they had been on exercises.

As the two Englishmen were pulling alongside the navy vessel, the sky

lit up with a telltale display of their destructive work. Exact confirmation

of the damage inflicted was confirmed by a reconnaissance plane the next

morning. The two commandos were presented with a black-and-white photo of

a thoroughly demolished locomotive and several derailed box cars. A promotion

to Lieutenant was Reggie’s reward for a job well done.

Over the next two years, the ‘Special Boat Service,’ or SBS, as they had

come to be known, took part in hundreds of operations in the Mediterranean

and against Fortress Europe. The intelligence information and the destructive

nature of the small-scale raids made the group invaluable to the Allied High

Command. The section was overseen by the ‘Special Operations Executive,’ or

SOE, a covert arm of the War Ministry that was, among other things, responsible

for planting and retrieving secret agents from enemy territory. More often than

not, the SBS was the main means of transport used to collect the operatives

planted by the SOE. Reggie enjoyed these particular assignments most, for the

gathering and decoding of intelligence was still his favorite pastime.

Lieutenant Russell was to spend a great deal of his time in 1942 attached

to the Combined Operations Headquarters, where he personally took it upon

himself to improve the equipment that was available to the SBS section. Better

canoes, better waterproofing of equipment, and standardized training of recruits

were only some of the recommendations that Headquarters adopted on the

young lieutenant’s urging. The High Command appreciated the value of small

raiding parties, even if they acted only as diversions to pin down enemy troops

in positions that often lacked any strategic importance.

With the Allies turning their attention to gaining a foothold on the ‘Dark

Continent,’ the SBS curriculum was expanded to include active theaters of war.

Reconnaissance of potential landing beaches on the North African coast were

scouted by ‘the Cockles’ as to the type and density of sand or rock for supporting

landing craft. Subsequently, the SBS canoeists were taught to act as channel

markers with their infrared signaling beams to guide the landing craft ashore.

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The fruit of all this preparation were born on the night of November 8,

1942, when the American task force, guided by SBS canoeists, landed in North

Africa one hundred miles east of Algiers. Naturally, Lieutenant Reginald

Russell was one of the SBS men guiding the way.

The Allies took a roller-coaster ride on the fortunes of war over the

following two years. However, the commandos of the Special Boat Section, due

to experience, better equipment, and diligent training, enjoyed a success rate on

operations that was the envy of the entire military command. Reggie Russell,

Captain Russell as of March 1944, continued to be at center stage both in the

field and in the war council rooms.

Command of his own group of canoeists was an adjunct to the promotion,

and his group ‘R,’ for Reggie canoeists, proved to be the most daringly proficient

band of water rats in the whole section. The intelligence information that its

commander was able to turn over to Headquarters proved invaluable. He had

personally cracked several Axis code books that his commandos had captured

during specific covert operations. By mid-1944, the former Eton student was

back in England, having used both his garnered intelligence and the signals

of his canoeists to assist in the Allied landings in France on a day forevermore

known as ‘D-Day.’

The Special Operations Executive had taken a real shine to Reggie Russell

and his long list of achievements. The problem for Reggie was that he was

becoming a desk commando, keenly sought after in the conference rooms for

his knowledge of German intelligence.

Innumerable trips to Whitehall in London took him away from the

front-line action, and he began to sense that he was more and more a Special

Operations Executive man instead of a fighting commando. The captain had

never feared for his personal safety and loved the rush of adrenaline that always

accompanied close proximity to the enemy. His superiors, while not outright

forbidding Reggie from going out on active operations, let it be known that he

had become far too vital to their intelligence network to be risking his neck

like some “wet-behind-the-ears” recruit.

Reginald Russell’s sense of personal immortality was to change in early

November 1944. A massive raid was to be executed against Walcheren, a

heavily defended Scheldt estuary island protecting the approaches to the

German-held port of Antwerp, Belgium. An amphibious landing was to be

supported by Lancaster bombers. It was up to the Special Boat Squadron to

secure essential preliminary landing information and act as marker guides for

the main assault.

So great an importance did the High Command place on this operation,

that they requested the very best men available be used by the SBS. That meant

the popular Captain Russell would be unshackled from his desk.

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What seemed like just another assignment had a special, ominous meaning

to the young captain, however. It was on this same part of the Belgium coast

that his grandfather had been slain in 1918, and that fact did not escape his

attention. For the first time since joining the military, Reggie Russell was sick

to his stomach before entering the frigid waters of the North Sea.

Under the cover of darkness, the SBS commandos secured their initial

objectives after an uneventful landing and began transmitting information

back to Naval intelligence. But something felt strangely out of sorts to the

commanding officer of the detachment. Captain Russell couldn’t put his finger

on it exactly, but there was a feeling in his gut that he had never experienced

on any previous operation. He tried to put the uneasiness out of his mind and

carry on, but it dogged him throughout the damp, foggy night.