The Lost Band of Brothers (32 page)

Sark had long been on Appleyard’s raid wish list. After the successful Casquets raid – Operation
Dryad
– he had written home to his father: ‘By the way, Sark light was on! Showing a red flash every fifteen seconds. I should like to land on Sark again sometime.’
1
Now his wish was to be granted. Sark, nestling between Jersey and Guernsey and lying 20 miles west of the Cherbourg peninsula, had been visited by the Appleyard family several times during peacetime and he knew his way around the island. When the raid was over – and ever mindful of security – he wrote to his younger brother Ian:

Last Saturday night really was fun. We spent over four hours there and had a really good browse round before we rang the bell and announced ourselves. It was so strange to see old familiar places again. Such as the tree under which you found half-a-crown. Remember? I recognised it immediately.

Fun? For Appleyard, just possibly. It would not be so for all.

Leaving Portland just after 1900 on the night of 3 October, this Operation
Basalt
represented their second attempt to reach the island. The first – on 19 September – had been thwarted by weather, time and the conflicting sea conditions and currents they encountered close to the island. The mission had been abandoned. Now, a fortnight later, conditions appeared ideal: the sea was smooth with a slight swell and the wind was light and variable from the south-east. The aim of
Basalt
– the first raid after Gus’ death – was to take prisoners. To accomplish this Appleyard – he would lead the raid, ankle injury notwithstanding – took with him six officers and men from SSRF reinforced by Capt. Philip Pinckney and four men from No 12 Commando, making a raiding party of twelve in all.

Pinckney was a remarkable officer and, according to one of those who served with him for three years, ‘one of the finest officers in the war’.
2

On 23 June 1942, whilst still attached to No 12 Commando, Pinckney proposed to his commanding officer that he and Jeffrey Quill, the famous civilian test pilot, a personal friend and only the second man to fly the Spitfire, should be carried to the French coast by MTB. Paddling ashore by canoe, they would then make their way to the German aerodrome at Cherbourg-Maupertus and stake out one of the new Focke-Wulf 190s the British boffins were itching to get their hands on. Lying up overnight and observing the enemy aerodrome, they would then penetrate the airfield, wait until the aircraft had been warmed up and then shoot the pilot and whatever ground crew were standing around. Pitching the dead pilot out onto the runway, Quill would then fly the enemy aircraft to England leaving Pinckney alone in enemy territory to find his own way home. Operation
Airthief
was rendered unnecessary when a lost German airman, Oberleutnant Armin Faber, mistook Bristol Channel for the English Channel and landed an intact and wholly airworthy Focke-Wulf 190 at RAF Pembury in Wales by mistake. Quill recorded: ‘I am afraid I have to confess to a certain easing of tension within my guts!’
3
After offering to snatch a Messerschmitt 109F instead, Pinckney was bitterly disappointed when the raid was abandoned. In September 1943, he was captured by the Germans on Operation
Speedwell
and shot.

One of those Pinckney brought with him for Operation
Basalt
was 21-year-old Horace ‘H’ or ‘Stokey’ Stokes,
4
a tough young Midlander from the Small Heath working-class area of Birmingham. He too had endured and survived the commando course at Achnacarry:

In Scotland we were out for weeks on end, mostly at night, and it was here that I really learned to handle boats, how to fire a wide variety of weapons, how to use a ‘fighting knife’ and kill quickly and silently, and my stock-in-trade – explosives. Darkness was our daylight and we became completely proficient in operating at night completely in the dark.
5

Meanwhile, in October 1942, there was a raid to be planned on Sark. Defences and garrison strength on Sark were largely unknown. In fact, they were to prove considerably more substantial than was anticipated. On Sark in October 1942 were a heavy machine-gun section, a light mortar group and anti-tank Platoon all from 6
Kompanie
,
Infanterieregiment
583 of 319th Division. A five-man engineer detachment was also on the island carrying out work on the harbour installations at Creux.
6

MTB 344 approached Casquets on dead reckoning, passed these abeam without incident at 2053 and then altered course to the east and reduced speed. Sark was identified and closed on silent engine at 5 knots. A ridged spine of rock known as the Hog’s Back curves down steeply to the sea just above the pinched mid-point of Sark dividing the land into two wide bays – Dixcart Bay and Derrible Bay – both of which offered obvious landing possibilities. Fearing these beaches might be mined, Appleyard opted instead to land on rocks directly beneath Pointe Chateau, the southern tip of the Hog’s Back. It was a shrewd move. Both beaches had, indeed, been recently mined.

Nimble-footed Second Lt Anders Lassen was sent ahead to recce the steep climb up the rocks to the clifftop where it was reported a machine-gun post might have been recently installed. He slid ashore and disappeared into the moonless dark. The rest of the party followed more slowly. Appleyard reported:

The ascent was very steep and difficult for the first 150 feet and made dangerous by shale and loose rock and the darkness, but the gradient then eased and the route ended up steep gullies of seathrift and rock to the top of the Hog’s Back. The whole party was collected on top at 2400 hrs.
7

One on the climb was Bombardier Redborn. He remembered: ‘The navigation was excellent. We landed exactly at the right spot. We rowed in and the landing boat was made fast and left with a guard [Second Lt Young] while the rest of us clambered up the steep path which led to the top of the cliff.’
8
Presently, Lassen returned. There were no defence posts on the Hog’s Back ridge, just barbed wire entanglements. However, as Appleyard’s father told it:

As Geoff reached the top of the cliff after a stiff climb, and cautiously peered over the edge, he was horrified to see the vague silhouettes of a number of German soldiers about fifty yards away. He waited for some minutes in the hope that they would move on and then decided that here was an ideal opportunity to eliminate a complete German patrol and probably get a few prisoners as well. He therefore crawled stealthily towards the enemy and when he had so shortened the range that it was impossible for his men to miss, he prepared to give the order to fire. Then a doubt crossed his mind … He decided to investigate and crawled nearer and nearer. Then to their amazement his men heard him chuckle, stand up and call them forward. They found him examining a row of perfectly dressed dummies used by the island garrison for target practice!
9

They moved on, ‘the stillness of the night was only broken by the cry of a seagull or when the wire was snapped with cutters. We fumbled around the whole time in the dark …’
10
Presently they heard a German foot patrol approaching and melted off the path into the undergrowth. The patrol passed by, oblivious.

Looking for trouble, weapons cocked, crouching low and leaning forward with ears straining for the slightest sound of danger above the cry of the seagulls and the distant murmur of the sea on rocks far below, the raiders moved off inland along the spine of the Hog’s Back. En route they ‘attacked’ what they thought was a Nissen hut and wireless mast but which turned out to be the flagpole, butts and targets of a firing range. Luckily, no shots were fired. They pressed on, drifting westwards, pushing their way downhill through thick gorse and bracken towards a group of small cottages known as Petit Dixcart. These cottages – identified as the raiders’ primary target – were reached at 0015. All were deserted.

Now they moved on to the secondary target, the isolated house of La Jaspellerie twenty minutes’ march away to the west overlooking Dixcart Bay. To reach this they had to cross a shallow stream and then climb up through close, broad-leaf woodland and across an open field. The house was reported to contain a number of Germans. While the rest of the party stayed back three men – Appleyard, Corporal Flint and one other – carried out a swift recce. The square-faced, four-chimneyed house and outbuildings were in darkness. La Jaspellerie appeared locked and deserted. Calling up the rest of the party, Appleyard forced entry via a set of French windows on the south-east side of the house. ‘We tried every door and window but all were locked, so we smashed a window in the French doors, undid the latch and tumbled into the room,’ Redborn recalled:

Downstairs was all empty but Major Appleyard and Corporal Flint who went upstairs were luckier. There they found an elderly lady. I did not see her myself because I and some of the others had to stay on watch downstairs. We had made a lot of noise breaking the window and, as there was always the possibility of an enemy patrol, we had to be prepared to shoot if surprised.
11

The ‘elderly lady’ was 41-year-old Mrs Frances Pittard, daughter of an RNVR Captain and widow of the island’s retired medical officer who had died four months earlier. Described by Appleyard as ‘well-educated and intelligent’ she proved a mine of valuable information:

The bulk of the party was then sent out of the house to form a cordon whilst two remained behind [Appleyard and Corporal Flint] and during the next hour interrogated the woman in detail. With the help of a large scale map of the island she produced, they obtained a great deal of information regarding the defences of the island, the billets and numbers of troops, living conditions, morale, etc.
12

Mrs Pittard was offered the chance to return to England with the raiding party. Spurning the possibility of reprisals, she declined: ‘This is my home,’ she said. ‘I’ve lived here for fifteen years and I don’t want to leave it. Besides, if I go the Germans will punish the Sarkees. I think it’s best to stay and brave it out.’
13

Critically, she told them the whereabouts of the nearest Germans: there were twenty soldiers garrisoned nearby, not in the Hotel Dixcart, as they had thought, but in the adjoining annexe. With time pressing, they moved on. They had already been ashore an hour longer than planned. Now Appleyard gave Corporal James Edgar new instructions:

I was ordered by Appleyard to hurry back to the cliff-top and to flash ‘wait’ as we had over-run our specified time and the boat might depart without us. In the moonlight I got lost in the whins [sic] and had to force my way, losing my belt with .45 colt in the process.
14

Ten men set off towards the Germans in the annexe of the hotel where the Appleyard family had spent carefree holidays ten years earlier. Now they were searching for more than half crowns. Redborn remembered that:

when we neared what we believed to be the German quarters, Anders and I were chosen to deal with the sentry … We went ahead to see the lie of the land. A little later we came back to tell what we had found out … We returned to the spot where the sentry was on patrol. As there was only one man, Anders said he could manage on his own.
15

It was the moment of contact, of silent, close-quarter killing, that Lassen had longed for. After the war David Smee, a fellow commando officer, recalled sharing a room with Lassen before a raid. It was an experience difficult to forget:

He kept me awake most of the night, cleaning his pistol and sharpening his fighting knife while talking to himself about ‘Killing the fuckers!’ Nobody else could have put such venom into knife and pistol cleaning. It was in keeping with his enormously forceful nature. I was glad not to be his enemy.
16

Now, at last, that enemy was near. He was 36-year-old
Obergefreiter
Peter Oswald:

We lay down and watched him and calculated how long it took him to go back and forth. We could hear his footsteps when he came near, otherwise everything was still. By now the others had crept up so that all caught a glimpse of the German before Anders crept forward alone.

The silence was broken by a muffled scream. We looked at each other and guessed what had happened. Then Anders came back and we could see that everything was all right. The Major believed that the way was clear for us to approach the annexe.
17

Appleyard makes no recorded mention of Anders’ killing of the sentry in either his letter to his father or in his formal after-action report to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations.
18

The annexe was connected to the main Dixcart hotel by a covered passageway. Appleyard’s men entered this and then, poised for battle and with fingers on triggers, pushed open the door at the far end and rushed inside. There was no one there. They found themselves in a long corridor with doors running down either side:

The Major gave orders that each man should take a room and all go in at the same time. I rushed into the room allotted to me and heard snoring. I switched on the light and saw a bed with a German asleep. The first thing I did was draw the curtains and tear the bedclothes off him. Half-asleep, he pulled them back again. I got the blankets off a second time and when he saw my blackened face he got a shock … I hit him under the chin with a knuckleduster and tied him up. Then I looked round the room for papers or cameras.

I got him to his feet still half-senseless and out into the corridor where Captain Pinckney, Andy and the others already stood; there were five prisoners all told. I covered them while the others searched the rooms once more and when this was done we took the prisoners outside.

When we were all outside, it happened. Until then, everything had gone fine but as soon as we were out in the moonlight they began to scream and shout, probably because they saw how few we were. All five of them had their hands tied behind their backs but they were not gagged. As soon as they started hollering we set about them with cuts and blows. Major Appleyard shouted: ‘Shut the prisoners up!’ and this began a regular fight.