Operation absolom carter.., p.27
Operation Absolom (Carter's Commandos Book 1), page 27
“It all sounds a bit gloomy. Is there any likelihood of commandos being sent out there?”
“It’s a possibility, but we haven’t heard anything so far. I dare say the powers that be are too busy fighting the conventional war to bother with ideas about raiding forces yet. The big threat is to India. If the Japs decide to turn north out of Malaya and attack through Siam3 and Burma … well, who knows what might happen. OK, well, you cut along now and reclaim your billet before someone else does. Mrs Bliss has something of a reputation as a cook. We start training for a new op in a couple of weeks, so get all the rest you can, because you’re going to need it.”
“Where’s this one, Sir?”
Vernon tapped the side of his nose. “All will be revealed in due course, Steven.”
1 Redcaps - Royal Military Police, so called because their peaked caps have a red cover. For a similar reason, RAF Police are nicknamed ‘snowdrops’.
2 DSO - Distinguished Service Order. Awarded for “Distinguished services during active operations against the enemy.”
3 Siam - Although Siam officially changed its name to Thailand in 1939, it was often still called by its old name. Changing its name back again between 1946 and 1948 extended the colloquial use of the old name until quite late in the 20th century. On maps in the 1950s/60s it was still being shown incorrectly as Siam.
* * *
The view was as he remembered it, the January sun twinkling off the Firth of Clyde, a halo of cloud sitting above the Isle of Arran. He heard her feet behind him and turned to greet her.
The first thing he noticed was that she was dressed differently. Although she still wore ‘country’ clothes, they were considerably more feminine. Her flat cap had been replaced by a Robin Hood style hat made popular by the pre-war Errol Flynn film. The pony tail was gone and her hair had been curled up and pinned into place. Unlike their previous meeting she was now wearing make-up. Not a lot, but enough to make it clear that she had taken some care over her appearance. A tweed jacket and skirt replaced the farmer’s trousers and weather proof jacket and she wore brown brogues instead of wellington boots. Between her ankles and the hem of her skirt Carter could see that she wore silk stockings. Those were a rarity at a time when silk was in short supply and used only for making parachutes. They must be a pair that had been set aside for special occasions. He felt flattered that she had decided to wear them to meet him. The only things that hadn’t changed were the horn handled walking stick in her hand and the black and white collie that trotted at her heels.
“Hello.” She greeted him with a smile. “I thought I wasn’t going to hear from you. The rest of your unit returned nearly two weeks ago.” Carter wondered how she knew, then remembered that Troon was a small town. The return of three hundred and fifty soldiers wouldn’t go unnoticed and news travelled fast in small towns.
Remembering the distress his mother had felt when he had telephoned her to tell her he was safe, Carter decided to avoid a true account of his adventures. His mother had been overjoyed to hear his voice, of course, having been notified by the War Office that her son was missing in action. But the fact that he was still a serving commando was something with which she struggled to cope. He reminded her that if he wasn’t a commando he would now be fighting the Japanese in Malaya, but it didn’t mollify her. He wanted to avoid similar conversations with Fiona Hamilton if at all possible.
“Sorry, I had some business to attend to after the raid.”
She gave him a look that suggested she didn’t believe a word of it, but didn’t pursue the matter
“You’re all officially heroes now. Are you sure you want to be seen with a stay-at-home country girl like me?”
He blushed. “Quite sure. In fact, I’d like to honour my promise to take you to the cinema., Apparently there’s a Humphrey Bogart film showing.”
“Yes, The Maltese Falcon. They say it’s quite good. As it happens, I’m free this evening.”
“This evening suits me fine. I’m officially on leave for the next two weeks.”
“You’ll be going home then.” She sounded resigned to his absence once again.
“Actually, I was thinking of staying up here. Could you use an extra pair of hands around the farm? I have nothing else planned.”
“It’s hard work. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
He wasn’t sure if she was serious or just teasing him, then she saw the smile she was trying to suppress. “I’m sure I can manage, so long as you don’t ask me to milk a cow. I don’t know how to do that.”
“That is something I can teach you. Why don’t you come for tea and we can discuss it. Mother insists and she promises ham sandwiches.”
“That would be delightful.” He turned to walk down the hill and she stepped in close beside him, linking her arm with this. He liked the intimacy of the gesture.
“So, tell me. What’s Norway like at this time of year?” She asked, as they strode along the field, the collie darting about in front of them.
He wanted to say ‘dangerous’ but that would open up a can of worms, so he stuck to ‘cold’.
This ends the first story in the “Commandos” series.
Historical Notes
The Army commandos were established in June 1940 on the direct orders of Winston Churchill. It was he who recognised that to maintain the war effort until victory could be achieved, he needed to maintain the morale of the British people following the disaster that had been the evacuation from Dunkirk. The skilful use of propaganda had turned that defeat into a sort of victory, but genuine victories, however small, would be needed if he was to convince the British people that the war could be won.
It would be the commandos that would provide those small victories. Often the targets of their raids were insignificant in military terms but, on occasions, they had a far greater impact than could ever have been imagined. For example, following successive raids on Norway, Adolf Hitler became convinced that they were the prelude to an invasion of that country as a stepping stone for invading Denmark and then Germany itself. No such plan existed, but Hitler ordered 300,000 additional troops to be sent to Norway, where they remained for the rest of the war, along with additional Luftwaffe and naval units. The fact that the invasion of Norway never came about was proof to Hitler that his strategy had worked. Had those troops been available at Stalingrad, El Alamein or in Normandy in 1944, who knows how the outcomes of those battles might have been affected.
15 Commando is a fictitious unit. The Army commandos were numbered 1 to 14 (excluding 13). 50, 51 and 52 commandos were formed in North Africa. The Royal Marine Commandos weren’t formed until 1942 and took the numbers 40 to 48. Unlike the Army commandos, only 40 (RM) Cdo was made up of volunteers. The rest were just Royal Marine battalions that were ordered to convert to the commando role. For this reason, the Army commandos tended to look down on them, but once they had proved themselves in combat they became part of the commando family.
No 2 Commando did undertake training to become Britain’s first paratroops, doing their training at Ringway airfield in Manchester, which would eventually become Manchester Airport. In late 1940 they were split off from the commandos and in 1942 they became 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. No 2 Commando was re-established in 1941. Battalions of the Parachute Regiment and the commandos would work together many times during the course of the war, especially in France and Germany. They built up a fierce rivalry which continues today.
No 10 (Inter Allied) Commando was made up of members of the armed forces from occupied countries in Europe who had escaped. There were two French troops, one Norwegian, one Dutch, one Belgian, one Polish, one Yugoslavian and a troop of German speakers, many of whom were Jewish. They often accompanied other commandos on raids to act as guides and interpreters, as well as carrying out raids of their own. On Operation Absolom I have sent Norwegian commandos with them, which was the case for the real raid on which Operation Absolom is based. Major Martin Linge, Commanding Officer of the Norwegian troop, was killed in that raid.
Quislings were the supporters of Vidkun Quisling, the puppet Prime Minister of Norway while it was under German occupation, who co-operated with the German authorities. When the commandos captured any known Quislings, which was on almost every raid against Norway, they were taken back to Britain and put on trial by the Norwegian government in exile.
If you wish to find out more about the Army commandos there are a number of books on the subject, including my own, which details my father’s wartime service; it’s called “A Commando’s Story”. I have provided the titles of some of these books at the end of these notes. These also provided the sources for much of my research for this book.
Achnacarry House is the ancestral home of Clan Cameron and it was taken over by the War Office to become the Commando Training Centre. The original occupants of the house moved into cottages in the grounds. During the course of World War II over 25,000 commandos were trained there, plus their American counterparts, the Rangers, who were modelled on the commandos. Originally each commando was responsible for providing their own training, before the first training centres were set up at Inveraray and Lochailort, in late 1940, before moving to Achnacarry.
Although in use from 1940 onwards, Achnacarry House was a holding centre for volunteers for special service before becoming a formal training school in March 1942. I have allowed myself a little bit of poetic licence to provide commando training for Steven Carter and Archibald Green a little bit earlier than that, in the summer and early autumn of 1941. It isn’t too far from the truth as informal training was carried out at Achnacarry before 1942, as part of the commando selection process. Achnacarry was used to select both commandos and paratroops, as there was no difference in the selection procedures at the time.
The march from Fort William to Achnacarry was the traditional greeting for volunteers for the commandos and was an early test of fitness and determination. If you couldn’t survive the march, it was unlikely that you could manage the rest of the training, which was extremely physically demanding. The singing as the squad marched through Spean Bridge is my own invention, but it is quite likely that the soldiers did sing as they marched as a way of keeping up their spirits. The pipe band escort over the final two miles, however, was real. The band was staffed by commandos of the Demonstration Platoon, whose main job was to demonstrate commando techniques and tactics to the trainees and to provide the ‘enemy’ during training exercises. Also part of the weeding out process was the run up Ben Nevis, which was carried out regardless of the weather or the season. Whether or not the run was completed while wearing boots, I have no idea, so please forgive my poetic licence if it wasn’t.
There was a line of crosses at the entrance to the camp, but they weren’t real graves. They served as a warning to commandos never to forget the lessons they learnt, with inscriptions such as ‘He showed himself against the skyline’ and ‘He failed to take cover during a beach landing’. But the sight of the crosses did shock new arrivals into the realisation that the work they were going to undertake would be dangerous. There were a number of real deaths in training at Achnacarry and many trainees suffered injuries.
The school’s commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Vaughan of the Buffs (East Kent) Regiment, was a real person and he took command of the school in 1942, so Carter couldn’t have met him, but he was a colourful figure and I didn’t want a mere historical fact to get in the way of him appearing in this book. He had risen from the rank of Private, which was almost unheard of in the army at that time. He served with Nos 7 and 4 Commando before taking command at Achnacarry. However, the words I put in his mouth are from my own imagination. Some of the events described did take place, including the blowing up of the tree and the poaching of the buck.
Two other characters drawn from real life are Eric Anthony Sykes and William Ewart Fairbairn. Both had served in the Royal Marines during World War I, after which they joined the police. They then went to Shanghai and served in the Shanghai Municipal Police. Shanghai was a pretty tough city at that time and while in China they literally wrote the book on street fighting and how to counter it. When World War II broke out they returned to the UK to enlist, but found they were too old for service in a combat unit. Instead, their skill sets were found to be very attractive to the commandos, who embraced them and employed them providing unarmed combat training. They also trained agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who were parachuted into occupied Europe to work with resistance groups and to gather intelligence. Sykes and Fairbairn’s other claim to fame is that they designed the Sykes-Fairbairn Fighting Knife, otherwise known as the Commando Dagger, the weapon that became synonymous with the commandos, the image of which was incorporated into their shoulder flash, where it remains today with the Royal Marine Commandos. Again, the words spoken by Sykes and Fairbairn are from my own imagination.
Should you ever travel to that part of Scotland you will find a small museum to the Commandos at the Spean Bridge Hotel. At least, it was there the last time I visited. If you continue to drive north along the A82 for a couple of more miles you will come across the Commando Memorial, unveiled in 1950. You can’t miss it, it’s 17 ft tall. If you have time, please stop for a moment to remember the men who trained in that rugged countryside. Some of them, including my father, have memorial plaques lodged there in the small memorial garden.
The idea for providing rock climbing training for commandos came from an officer of 3 Commando, Lt Algy Forester. He trained an enthusiastic Australian officer by the name of Lt Bill Lloyd and between then they started training the rest of the commando. Later, a climbing school was established at Glen Coe where soldiers from each commando would be trained as instructors before returning to their units to pass on their training to their colleagues.
I have changed the names of most of the Royal Navy vessels that are mentioned in this book, but not those of the first commando landings ships: HMS Prince Leopold, HMS Queen Emma, HMS Prince Charles and HMS Princess Beatrix. These were Belgian and Dutch cross channel steamers converted for war use. Landing craft would be slung from the lifeboat davits and were lowered to deck level to allow the commandos to board. They would then be lowered until they skimmed along just above the surface of the sea as the ship approached its landfall. When the final order was given for the landing craft to be launched, they would be lowered into the sea, their propellers already turning and then the falls would be released, so that the landing craft could be launched without the need to stop the ship and turn it into a sitting target.
I have also retained the names of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, which were sunk off Singapore in a Japanese air attack on 10th December 1941, along with four destroyers. Over 800 sailors died in the attack.
Operation Absolom, which forms the centre piece for this book, is a fictitious operation, but is loosely based on Operation Archery, a raid on Maloy and Vaagso which took place on 27th December 1941. My father took part in that as a trooper in 3 Commando and was wounded when a Hampden bomber of the RAF accidentally dropped a phosphorous smoke bomb on his landing craft, setting it alight. Two soldiers were killed and several more seriously wounded. My father escaped with minor burns but was still hospitalised for six weeks, such was the nature of medical care in the 1940s. I have borrowed that incident for use in this story. The level of casualties suffered by 3 Commando and the RAF are the same as those I have described for Operation Absolom.
Also wounded during the raid was Lt Dennis O’Flaherty, who did have half of his ear shot off, as well as suffering other injuries. He was hospitalised for two years but was awarded a DSO for his actions at Vaagso. He later returned to active service. During the Korean War he was awarded the American Bronze Star while serving with the Royal Artillery. He retired from the Army in 1975 as a Brigadier.
Major “Mad Jack” Churchill was 2IC of 3 Commando and did go ashore on the island of Maloy playing the bag pipes, another incident that I have appropriated for this book. The tune was reported to be The March of the Cameron Men. While he had intended to be the first man to attack the artillery battery there, he was hampered by having to find somewhere safe to deposit his pipes and then draw his traditional Scottish broadsword (no, I’m not making this up).
Churchill was the last man in the British army to kill an enemy using a longbow, which he did during the fighting in France in 1940. After being promoted to command 2 Commando, Churchill was taken prisoner in September 1944 while operating behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. He then escaped from a PoW camp in northern Germany and made it to the Baltic coast at Rostok before being recaptured. Along with about one hundred and forty others he was sent to the Tyrol under SS guard and feared being executed under the infamous “Commando Order”1. After an appeal to Wehrmacht soldiers, the SS were forced to hand over their prisoners, who were then released when the German soldiers withdrew from the area. Churchill walked about ninety miles south to the Italian city of Verona, where he met up with an American Army unit. As if this was not enough, Churchill was then posted to Burma to join the commandos fighting there. Fortunately the war had ended by the time he arrived.
Churchill’s was just one of a remarkable number of true stories that came out of the Army Commandos of World War II which actually makes it difficult to write novels about them. The truth of what they did is often far more remarkable than any fiction that could be written. They attracted the bravest and, sometimes, the most foolhardy soldiers of the British army; I can only attempt to reflect their bravery and inventiveness.
Again appropriated from fact, was the discovery that Vaagso was playing unwilling host to an additional fifty soldiers of an elite German infantry battalion over the Christmas period, 1941, doubling the size of the garrison. However, they were not SS troops, as I have made them.
