Le VerdonsurMer, France, Dec 2 (AFP\/APP): France marks next week the 80th anniversary of a daring World War II raid by British Royal Marines, who slipped past German patrols up the Gironde estuary to mine crucial supply ships.<\/p>\n
Dubbed “The Cockleshell Heroes” in a 1950s book and film after their tiny canvas-and-plywood boats, the 10-man infiltration team set off on “Operation Frankton” on December 7, 1942.<\/p>\n
Faces blackened against detection, they slipped from a submarine near the entrance to the estuary for a 100-kilometre (60-mile) moonlight paddle trek that would take several nights to complete, resting on the banks by day.<\/p>\n
Their mission was to sink ships moored in the port of Bordeaux that had been running arms and raw materials between German and its ally Japan.<\/p>\n
That objective complete, the commandos would then have to make their own way another 160 kilometres overland to a meeting with resistance fighters, who would smuggle them into Vichy France.<\/p>\n
Historian Robert Lyman dubbed the attack “Operation Suicide” in a 2012 book.<\/p>\n
Although young — the men under the command of Major Herbert Hasler were mostly in their early 20s — the unit scored a resounding success, blasting five ships in the early hours of December 12.<\/p>\n
But only Hasler himself and his boat mate William Sparks made it home alive four months later, after fleeing on foot, by bicycle and on trains to Gibraltar.<\/p>\n
– ‘The Germans were everywhere’ –<\/p>\n
Six members of the team died before even they even reached the target.
\nTwo men, George Sheard and David Moffat, drowned off the French coast, with Sheard’s body never found.<\/p>\n
Swells capsized the boat of Samuel Wallace and Robert Ewart, who were captured and shot by the Germans — as were John MacKinnon and James Conway, taken after their boat was holed near Bordeaux.<\/p>\n
After the attack, French informants gave up Alfred Laver and William Mills to the occupiers as they were trying to make their way home. Their names are on a war memorial in the village of Montlieu-La-Garde.<\/p>\n
Around 20 plaques around the region recall the commando raid, says Erik Poisneau, president of the Frankton Souvenir (Frankton Memory) association.<\/p>\n
The attack was “a physical and nautical feat” pitting the marines against the natural forces of Europe’s largest estuary, Poisneau says.<\/p>\n
Although “the Germans were everywhere”, it had been “unthinkable” for them that the Allies would even attempt such a raid, he adds.<\/p>\n
For historian Sebastien Albertelli, the mission had a “psychological, propaganda dimension” for the British. It showed that London could “strike at the heart of the enemy forces” at a time when the tide of the war had yet to clearly turn.<\/p>\n
– ‘The chicken is tasty’ –<\/p>\n
After placing their mines and scuttling their kayaks downstream, the exfiltration became “just as extraordinary as the mission itself,” says Christophe Soulard, author of “Frankton: the Unbelievable Odyssey”.<\/p>\n
Navigating with map and compass with a few francs in their pockets, Hasler and Sparks crossed the river Charente. But while some locals welcomed them, others were hostile.<\/p>\n
One farmer who put them up, Clodomir Pasqueraud, asked them to have the words “the chicken is tasty” broadcast on the BBC when they return — code to let those who had helped them know they had made it back safely.<\/p>\n
In one village, three people including a 16-year-old boy were sent to the concentration camps for helping the British commandos.<\/p>\n
“They never came back,” says Monique Babin, an expert on the operation who has become an associate member of Britain’s Special Boat Service Association.<\/p>\n
A restaurateur who put them up asked for another poultry-based BBC message — “the two chickens have arrived” — and both were transmitted in April 1943 after Hasler and Sparks were helped to Gibraltar by the “Marie-Claire” resistance network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Le VerdonsurMer, France, Dec 2 (AFP\/APP): France marks next week the 80th anniversary of a daring World War II raid by British Royal Marines, who slipped past German patrols up the Gironde estuary to mine crucial supply ships. Dubbed “The Cockleshell Heroes” in a 1950s […]<\/p>\n
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