| Operation Dryad | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of North West Europe Campaign | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United Kingdom |  Nazi Germany | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Major Gus March-Phillipps | Unknown | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| No. 62 Commando | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 12 | 7 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 2 minor injuries | 7 captured | ||||||
Operation Dryad was a raid on the Casquets lighthouse in the Channel Islands by British Commandos during World War II. The Commandos captured the lighthouse and its occupants and departed leaving no trace that anyone had ever been there.
The Casquets Lighthouse was built in 1724, and is located 6 miles (9.7 km) west of the island of Alderney in the Channel Islands. It is located amongst some of the fastest ocean currents in the English Channel. The Lighthouse consists of an 88 feet (27 m) tower and two shorter towers on a barren rock. After the German occupation of the Channel Islands in 1940, they decided to man the lighthouse and set up an observation post with a naval radio station so that anything seen could be reported and when it was necessary to turn the light on, for a passing German convoy. The crew being rotated every 3 months. [1] : 190
Its isolated location made it a perfect objective for a commando raid, in fact there had been seven previous attempts to undertake this raid, all of which were abandoned, due to weather conditions. The commandos selected to carry out the raid belonged to No. 62 Commando also known as the Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF). The planned date would be the night of 2/3 September 1942 with the objective of capturing prisoners. [1] : 191
The raiding party consisted of 12 men from the SSRF, the commanding officer Major Gus March-Phillipps, his second in command Captain Geoffrey Appleyard, [1] : 191 some of the others involved were Captain Graham Hayes, Sergeant Winter, Private Anders Lassen and Dutch Lieutenant Henk Brinkgreve, and Sergeant Geoffrey Spencer.
Sailing from Portland aboard HM MTB 344, a motor torpedo boat nicknamed The Little Pisser because of its outstanding turn of speed at 21.00 hrs arriving close to Les Casquets at 22.45 hrs. An Alderney man and Special Operations Executive operative, "Bonnie" Newton acted as pilot. [2] After anchoring, the landing party rowed ashore, arriving just after midnight, [1] : 191 Appleyard was the first to leap ashore and tied their boat forward and Hayes was in control of the stern-line, which had been attached to the kedge-anchor that had been dropped on approach to prevent the boat from being smashed against the rocks. All the landing party made it safely ashore without any damage to the boat. Appleyard handed the bowline to another and Hayes remained in control of the stern-line as the raiding party departed.
The commandos made their way through barbed wire up the steep rocky surface to the lighthouse courtyard unchallenged. Once in the courtyard the group dispersed to their prearranged objectives. Appleyard and Sergeant Winter dashed up the spiral staircase to the tower light only to find it unoccupied. The garrison was totally surprised. [1] : 191 Appleyard said, "I have never seen men so amazed and terrified at the same time." Three were sleeping, two were just turning in and two others were on duty, the seven Germans were taken prisoner without a shot being fired. One German, who was in charge of the lighthouse operation, fainted at the sight of the commandos. Another was initially thought to be a woman because he was wearing a hairnet.
Weapons found included an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, rifles and stick grenades, which were all dumped in the sea. The radio was smashed with an axe. The boat they had arrived in was designed to take a maximum of 10, now with 19, it was difficult, but they managed. [1] : 192 Appleyard suffered an accident and fractured his tibia as he re-boarded their boat. [3]
Setting sail at 01.35 hrs, the seven prisoners, some still in their pyjamas, were taken to England, arriving at Portland at 04.00 hrs. [1] : 192 Several codebooks, logs, diaries and letters were found and taken back for analysis. [4] The code books proved to be of little value, given that the code had already been broken, [5] and indeed the Germans, realising that these books had been captured, increased their wireless security. The effect of the raid may have been counter-productive.
It was a few days before the Germans were aware of a problem. When a boat arrived, they found the lighthouse deserted. An order to remove all lighthouse crews did not last long when it was realised the benefits outweighed the risks. The Casquets lighthouse was re-armed with a 2.5cm Pak, five machine guns and had a larger crew of 24 installed. [1] : 192
The next raid for the SSRF was 12/13 September Operation Aquatint. The raiding party led by March-Phillipps would all be killed or captured. Winter and Hayes were captured, Hayes after having succeeded in crossing the French–Spanish border was later executed in Fresnes prison.
In October 1942 Appleyard now in command of the SSRF was in charge of a raid on Sark Operation Basalt where four German prisoners who had been tied up were shot and killed as they tried to escape. Adolf Hitler, incensed with the Commando raids, issued the Commando Order which ordered that all captured commandos in or out of uniform were to be shot. He also protested the binding and killing of German prisoners, and gave orders to shackle British prisoners of war who were captured during the Dieppe raid. Appleyard later joined the Special Air Service (SAS); he was posted missing believed killed when returning from a SAS mission the plane he was travelling on was lost over the Mediterranean. Private Anders Lassen would be commissioned and win a posthumous Victoria Cross while serving with the Special Boat Squadron of the SAS in Italy 1945.
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The Commandos, also known as the British Commandos, were formed during the Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill, for special forces that could carry out raids against German-occupied Europe. Initially drawn from within the British Army from soldiers who volunteered for the Special Service Brigade, the Commandos' ranks would eventually be filled by members of all branches of the British Armed Forces and a number of foreign volunteers from German-occupied countries. By the end of the war 25,000 men had passed through the Commando course at Achnacarry. This total includes not only the British volunteers, but volunteers from Greece, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Canada, Norway and Poland. The United States Army Rangers and US Marine Corps Raiders, Portuguese Fuzileiros Portuguese Marine Corps were modelled on the Commandos.
No. 62 Commando or the Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF) was a British Commando unit of the British Army during the Second World War. The unit was formed around a small group of commandos under the command of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). They carried out a number of raids before being disbanded in 1943.
Operation Basalt was a small British raid conducted during World War II on Sark during the German occupation of the Channel Islands.
Combined Operations Headquarters was a department of the British War Office set up during Second World War to harass the Germans on the European continent by means of raids carried out by use of combined naval and army forces.
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The military occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany lasted for most of the Second World War, from 30 June 1940 until liberation on 9 May 1945. The Bailiwick of Jersey and Bailiwick of Guernsey are British Crown dependencies in the English Channel, near the coast of Normandy. The Channel Islands were the only de jure part of the British Empire in Europe to be occupied by Nazi Germany during the war. Germany's allies Italy and Japan also occupied British territories in Africa and Asia, respectively.
John Geoffrey Appleyard, was a British Army officer, who served in the Commandos and Special Air Service during the Second World War.
Operation Collar was the codeword for the first commando raid conducted by the British forces during the Second World War. The location selected for the raid was the Pas-de-Calais department on the French coast. The British Commandos had not long been formed and were not yet trained and the operation was given to No. 11 Independent Company under the command of Major Ronnie Tod.
Operation Albumen was the name given to British Commando raids in June 1942 on German airfields in the Axis-occupied Greek island of Crete, to prevent them from being used in support of the Axis forces in the Western Desert Campaign in the Second World War. The operations were carried out with similar raids against Axis airfields at Benghazi, Derna and Barce in Libya and were among the first planned sabotage acts in occupied Europe.
No. 2 Commando was a battalion-sized British Commando unit of the British Army during the Second World War. The first No.2 Commando was formed on 22 June 1940 for a parachuting role at Cambrai Barracks, Perham Down, near Tidworth, Hants. The unit at the time consisted of four troops: 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D'. Eventually 11 troops were raised. On 21 November, it was re-designated as the 11th Special Air Service (SAS) Battalion and eventually re-designated 1st Parachute Battalion. After their re-designation as the 11th SAS Battalion, a second No. 2 Commando was formed. This No. 2 Commando was the leading commando unit in the St Nazaire Raid and suffered heavy casualties. Those who made it back from St Nazaire rejoined the few who had not gone on the raid, and the commando was reinforced by the first intake of volunteers from the new Commando Basic Training Centre at Achnacarry. No. 2 Commando then went on to serve in the Mediterranean, Sicily, Yugoslavia, and Albania, before being disbanded in 1946.
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Peter Mant MacIntyre Kemp was an English soldier and writer. He became notable for his participation in the Spanish Civil War and, during World War II, as a member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).
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Graham Hayes, MC was a British commando in the Small Scale Raiding Force in the Second World War.
The Channel Islands, Crown Dependencies of the United Kingdom, were occupied during the Second World War by Nazi Germany, from 30 June 1940 until May 1945. They were liberated by British forces following the general German surrender.