109 Vaagso Commando Raid, After the Battle, After the Battle(1)
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//-->battleafter theTHE RAID ONVAAGSO£3.10Number 109NUMBER 109Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyEditor: Karel MargryPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,Church House, Church Street,London E15 3JA, EnglandTelephone: (020) 8534 8833Fax: (020) 8555 7567E-mail: (afterthebattle@mcmail.com)Web site: (www.afterthebattle.mcmail.com)Printed in Great Britain byTrafford Print Colour Ltd.,Shaw Wood Way, Doncaster DN2 5TB.© Copyright 2000After the Battleis published on the 15thof February, May, August and November.United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Lakeside Publishing Services Ltd, Unit 1D,Tideway Industrial Estate, Kirtling Street,London SW8 5BPUnited States Distribution and Subscriptions:RZM Imports, PO Box 995, Southbury, CT, 06488Telephone: 1-203-264-0774Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136Website: (www.rzm.com)Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions:Vanwell Publishing Ltd., PO Box 2131,1 Northrup Crescent,St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7S2.Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760E-mail: (sales@vanwell.com)Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Technical Book and Magazine Company, Pty, Ltd.,295 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000.Telephone: 03 9 663 3951 Fax: 03 9 663 2094E-mail: (info@techbooks.com.au)New Zealand Distribution:Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486,Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand.Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817E-mail: (milrchiv@mist.co.nz)Italian Distribution:Tuttostoria, Casella Postale 395, 1-43100 Parma.Telephone: 0521 292 733, Telex 532274 EDIALB IDutch Language Edition:Quo Vadis, Postbus 3121, 3760 DC Soest.Telephone: 035 6018641VAAGSOOn December 27, 1941, British commandos carried out a raid on the coast of Norway,landing on two small adjacent islands — Vaagso and Maaloy — located abouthalfway between Trondheim and Bergen. The prime aim of the operation was todemonstrate that Britain was still capable of offensive action, tactical objectivesbeing to destroy a German coastal battery on Maaloy, kill as many Germans as possi-ble, demolish the main fish factories, wharves and a German radio station in Vaagso,seize whatever documents came to hand, arrest a few known collaborators, and thenwithdraw. The operation, code-named ‘Archery’, was carried out by No. 3 Com-mando, reinforced with two troops from No. 2 Commando, detachments from Nos. 4and 6 Commando, and a party of some 20 Free Norwegian soldiers — a total force of576 men.CONTENTSTHE RAID ON VAAGSOIT HAPPENED HEREThe New Zealand Divisionand TriestePACIFICBora Bora — WWII in Paradise2THE CANADIAN UNKNOWN SOLDIER243446Front cover:The empty gun-pits are all that remainof the German four-gun coastal battery on the isletof Maaloy in Norway, one of the targets of theBritish commando raid on Vaagso of December 27,1941. (Karel Margry)Inset:Commandos swarmingaround one of the guns shortly after its capture.Centre Pages:From France . . . to Canada. TheCanadian Unknown Soldier begins his journeyfrom Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery, where he had lainfor 80 years, to his final resting place in front of theNational War Memorial in Ottawa. (Ed Storey)Back cover:From 1942 to 1946, the island of BoraBora in the South Pacific served as a US base onthe line of communication between Australia andthe United States, an airfield being built on theadjacent island of Motu Mute. This is how it looksfrom the air today — compare with the picture onpage 46. (Color Impressions)Acknowledgements:The Vaagso story is based onthe account inCombined Operations. The OfficialStory of the Commandosby Hilary St GeorgeSaunders (The Macmillan Company, 1943).Photo Credits:IWM — Imperial War Museum,London; USNA — US National Archives.The ‘Archery’ force sailed from Scapa Flow at 2115 hours on Christmas Eve 1941.Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the newly-appointed Director of Combined Opera-tions, paid a last-minute visit to the commando force at Scapa Flow just prior to theirdeparture. Here he is seen inspecting men of No. 3 Commando aboard one of the twotransports. Behind him is one of the troop commanders, with Lieutenant-ColonelJohn Durnford-Slater, the CO of No. 3 Commando, on the left. Speaking to theassembled commandos, Mountbatten recalled how, when his own ship, thedestroyerKelly,went down off Crete earlier that year, the Germans had machine-gunned the survivors in the water. ‘There is absolutely no need to treat them gentlyon my account’, he concluded. ‘Good luck to all of you.’ (IWM)2Dawn on Maaloy. The commandos rush ashore and start upthe rocks under cover of smoke flares dropped by Hampdenbombers of No. 50 Squadron. This picture is actually a film still.Accompanying the commando force was a relatively strongPress section of six men: photographer Lieutenant Bill Malin-dine of the fledgling Army Film and Photo Unit, cine camera-men Harry Watt, Harry Rignold and Roy Boulting of the CrownFilm Unit and Jack Ramsden from Movietone, and war corre-spondent Ralph Walling of Reuters. During the six-hour action,Malindine exposed 63 frames and the four cameramen shot offsome 6,000 feet of film. The success of the operation, whichwas fully exploited to raise British morale, produced such ademand for picture material that many cine frames werereleased as stills. This dramatic shot is one of them. (IWM)On October 27, 1941, Admiral of the FleetSir Roger Keyes was succeeded as Directorof Combined Operations by Captain theLord Louis Mountbatten, who was promotedCommodore First Class, and on March 18,1942, Acting Vice-Admiral, when his titlewas changed to Chief of Combined Opera-tions. At the same time, he was grantedhonourary commissions in the army as aLieutenant-General and in the Royal AirForce as an Air Marshal. He at once setabout planning a raid on a part of the occu-pied coast of Europe where, it was hoped,the enemy would least expect to be attacked.The country chosen was Norway, the placeVaagso, some hundreds of miles south of theLofoten Islands so successfully visited in theprevious March.The object of the raid — code-namedOperation ‘Archery’ — was, while harassingthe German defences on the coast ofsouth-west Norway, to attack and destroy anumber of military and economic targets inthe town of South Vaagso and on the nearbyisland of Maaloy, and to capture or sink anyshipping found in Ulvesund. Ulvesund is thename borne by the strip of water on whichthe port of Vaagso lies and which divides theisland of that name from the mainland. Itforms part of the Indreled, that narrowpassage which stretches along so much of thecoast of Norway and is in the nature of aRight:Lowering stores into one of thelanding craft. The men on the gang-plankare passing a demolition block, andalready in the boat is an ammunitionhandcart. (IWM)THE RAID ON VAAGSOmore or less continuous channel bounded bya chain of islands on the one hand and themainland of Norway on the other. Throughthe Indreled passes most of the coastwisetraffic, for, by so doing, ships can use theprotection afforded by the chain of islands.At certain points the Indreled is broken, andone of these is situated at the north end ofBy Hilary St George SandersUlvesund at a point where it joins a wide bay.Ships sailing northward must cross this bayand double the peninsula of Stadlandet, tothe south of which lies the island of Vaagso.3Main targets of the raid were the fishing town of South Vaagso on Vaagso island,and the nearby tiny islet of Maaloy at the entrance to Ulvesund sound.They tend, therefore, to congregate inUlvesund, where they remain awaiting a suit-able moment to pass into the open sea roundthe end of Stadlandet, which is noted for itsstorms, and then northwards once moreunder the cover of the numerous islands.Running roughly at right angles to Ulvesundis Vaagsfjord; where the two stretches ofwater meet, there is a small island namedMaaloy, opposite which is the town of SouthVaagso.The Germans had not forgotten to fortifythe southern end of Ulvesund, and they hadestablished coastal defences on the island ofMaaloy itself, as well as in and near the townof South Vaagso opposite. On Maaloy, abattery of field guns had been mounted, andthere were also anti-aircraft batteries andmachine guns; while four miles to the south-east was a battery of fairly heavy guns,possibly of French origin, situated on theisland of Rugsundo; they were laid so as tofire westward down Vaagsfjord. BothMaaloy Island and South Vaagso weregarrisoned by German troops, and it sohappened that those in the town had beenreinforced a few days before the attack by adetachment sent there to spend Christmas.It was decided to approach the town andisland up Vaagsfjord, the entrance of whichis marked by two lighthouses at Hovdenesetand Bergsholmane. On reaching the smallbay behind Halnoesvik Point, south of thelittle village of Hollevik, a short distancefrom South Vaagso, the landing craft fromthe assault ships were to be lowered andlandings made first under cover of a navalbombardment and then of smoke laid by air-craft. Once ashore, the island of Maaloy andthe town of South Vaagso were to be cap-tured and anything of value to the enemy,such as fish-oil factories, destroyed.4After carrying out a number of rehearsals,the force — consisting of the six-inch cruiserHMSKenya;part of the 17th DestroyerFlotilla, made up of HMSOnslow, Oribi,OffaandChiddingfold;and the two infantryassault ships HMSPrince CharlesandPrinceLeopold— sailed from Scapa Flow onChristmas Eve, arriving at an anchorage inSullomvoe on Christmas Day. Very heavyweather was met with in the neighbourhoodof the Shetland Islands. During the passagethe secretary to the captain of one of theinfantry landing ships invited his command-ing officer to the cabin and showed him atable moving rhythmically up and down thewall, a distance of some six inches. It waseventually discovered that this levitation wasdue to the heavy seas, which were literallysqueezing the sides of the ship. The infantrylanding ships suffered some damage. Thiswas repaired in Sullomvoe but since theweather did not immediately abate, it wasdecided to postpone the operation for 24hours. The men were, therefore, able to eattheir Christmas dinner in comfort.The weather having improved, the forcesailed at 4 p.m. on Boxing Day with thepromise of still further improvement. Norwas the promise belied; the storm died down,and by the time the Norwegian coast wasreached, weather conditions were perfect.The ships moving across the North Sea out ofthe sunset into the darkness of the long win-ter night were a fine sight. On either side ofthe main formation destroyers kept guard,altering speed and course constantly. In thevan was HMSKenya,flying the flag ofRear-Admiral Harold Burrough, and in lineastern behind him came the infantry landingships. While it was still dark, landfall wasmade exactly at the estimated position andtime. ‘We approached from the west into thepromise of dawn’, wrote Major Robert Hen-riques (the well-known author) who wasserving as brigade major of the Special Ser-vice Brigade and was on the bridge of theKenya.‘It was a very eerie sensation enteringthe fjord in absolute silence and very slowly.I wondered what was going to happen for itseemed that the ship had lost her proper ele-ment, that she was no longer a free ship atsea. Occasionally I saw a little hut with a lightburning in it and I wondered whether thatlight would be suddenly switched off, whichwould mean that the enemy had spotted us,or whether it would continue to burn as someNorwegian fisherman got out of bed,stretched himself and went off to his nets.’Another standing beside him had muchthe same experience. ‘We lay down to sleepat the end of a rough evening with the shipmoving uncomfortably and the wind noisy.When we woke up it was very still, and wewent on deck with the usual holiday expecta-tions of finding that overnight the scene hadchanged, that we had come to a new land toenjoy a promised excitement. The wind hadgone; the sea was quiet — everything wascompletely quiet — there was a fine moon ina clear sky and, ahead, the first suggestion ofmorning twilight. The other ships wereneatly in line astern, and the whole forceappeared to be shut in by high, steep,snow-covered mountains. A long way aboveus, a window shone out brilliantly, the lovelysight of a lit window hung in the darkness;this was peace again.‘It was most disturbing that there was solittle left to do because everything had beendone beforehand. We noted the time, exactlyone minute late, that the landing craft werelowered and could just be seen throughglasses, black beetles crawling in the shadowof the mountains up the black waters of thefjord. We heard our aircraft overhead andsaw their welcome of heavy, familiar tracerfire rising quite slowly from the surroundingslopes. Our ship was moving very quietlytowards the headland where we should comeinto sight of the battery, which ought by nowto be expecting our arrival. As we nosedround the point, everyone was waiting forthe order to “open the line of fire”, and getin first with a salvo. It should have been athrilling moment; but all the same, it wasdifficult to look at anything except thatnostalgic window, now high astern of us, stilllit and still shining brightly in the dark morn-ing.’The naval bombardment opened up at 8.48a.m., theKenyafiring a salvo of star shellwhich lit up the island of Maaloy, showingnot only the target to the naval gunners, butalso the place where they were to drop theirsmoke bombs to the crews of the Hampdens.This salvo was followed by further salvos ofsix-inch shells. Two minutes later, thedestroyers joined in the bombardment whichlasted nine and a quarter minutes. Duringthat brief period, between 400 and 500six-inch shells fell upon a space not morethan 250 yards square.The Germans on the island had beencaught unprepared. They were followingtheir usual routine: the gunners were beingroused by a loud-voiced NCO; the officercommanding, Hauptmann Butziger, wasshaving; his batman, whose turn it was thatmorning to man the telephone connectingheadquarters with the look-out post, wascleaning his officer’s boots on the tablebeside the instrument. So busily engaged washe upon this task that he allowed the tele-phone bell to ring, and did not trouble topick up the receiver. The German gunnersthus received no warning. Outside the bar-racks on the island of Maaloy, there was anaval signalling station established on itshighest point. The signaller on duty receiveda message flashed by lamp telling of theadvent of our forces. He ran down to thesmall bay on the north side of the island,The commando force was divided intofive assault groups: Group 1 was to landat Hollevik, Group 2 at South Vaagso,Group 3 on Maaloy, Group 4 was floatingreserve, and group 5 was to go ashore inthe area of Kapelnoes Point near Rod-berg. Geographical locations in theVaagso operation are sometimes confus-ing as they bear a different name in eachnation’s records. What the British callVaagso is Vågsøy to the Norwegians.The fishing town on the island is SouthVaagso to the British, Sør-Vågsøy onNorwegian maps, and Måløy to the Nor-wegians and the Germans. The tinyisland just off the town is Maaloy inBritish accounts, but Måloya (or Moldöyor Lille-Måløen) to the Norwegians,while the Germans called it Kulen. Rode-berg is spelt Raudeberg in Norwegian.leapt into a boat and rowed as fast as hecould to the headquarters of the GermanNaval commandant on the main island ofVaagso. Here he delivered the warning, butwhen asked whether he had warned the armygunners on Maaloy he replied, ‘Oh, no Sir, itis a military battery, and this is a naval sig-nal.’ The Germans are a methodical people.The landing craft carried all of No. 3 Com-mando and two troops (less one section) ofNo. 2 Commando, a detachment of RoyalEngineers from No. 6 Commando, some menof the Royal Army Medical Corps from No.4 Commando, Operational Headquarters ofthe Brigade Signalling Section, a number ofofficers from a War Office intelligencedepartment, and a Press unit of correspon-dents and photographers. With these Britishtroops was a detachment of the Royal Nor-wegian Army. To this body of men, made upof 51 officers and 525 other ranks, five gen-eral tasks had been entrusted. For their fulfil-ment they were divided into five groups.Group 1 was to land near the village ofHollevik, on the southern shore of the islandof Vaagso and a short distance from the townof South Vaagso. They were to clear the areaand then move along the coast road andremain as a reserve to Group 2. Group 2 wasto attack the town of South Vaagso itself anddestroy a number of military and economicobjectives, including the canning factory, thepower station, the Firda fish-oil factory, andthe herring-oil factory. Group 3 was to cap-ture Maaloy Island. Group 4 remained in itslanding craft as a floating reserve to be usedby Brigadier Charles Haydon, the MilitaryForce Commander, when he thought fit.Group 5 was to be carried on board thedestroyerOribiup Ulvesund and landedbetween the towns of South and NorthVaagso to cut communications betweenthem. To assist in the landings, the subma-rine HMSTunawas to act as a navigationalbeacon off Vaagso Island.Group 1 (consisting of No. 2 Troop of No.3 Commando under Lieutenant BobClement) soon accomplished its task. Itcleared the area round Hollevik, capturedthe village of Halnoesvik, and was ordered toact as reserve to Lieutenant-Colonel JohnDurnford-Slater who, with Group 2, wasattacking South Vaagso.Right:Group 1, consisting of No. 2 Troopof No. 3 Commando plus four of the FreeNorwegian soldiers, came ashore at thevillage of Hollevik (Holvika), about twokilometres south-west of Vaagso town,to take out a German field gun whichintelligence suspected on the hill directlybehind the village. When the two boat-loads of troops under Lieutenant BobClement got ashore they found the sup-posed gun position unoccupied, so theyquickly marched down the coastal roadto join the fighting in South Vaagso. Thetown lies just behind the headland onthe right.GROUP 5NLANDS SOUTH OFKAPELNOES POINTNAVAL ACTION AGAINSTENEMY MERCHANTMENGROUP 3GROUP 2GROUP 4GROUP 1FLOATING RESERVERUGSUNDO ISLAND & BATTERY5
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