The Greatest Raid of All

In WWII there were many small scale and several larger raids on the coast of France. Universally acclaimed as "The Greatest Raid of All" was the one on St Nazaire (France) on March 28, 1942. The port had a vital dry dock as it was the only dock big enough to take Hitler's pocket battleships like the Bismarck.
The Brits had a unit headed by the Queen's uncle Mountbatten called Combined Operations. This unit executed operations that involved two or more services. On this day, Commando groups stormed the port and wrecked as much equipment as they could while an old destroyer, the Campbeltown was sailed with as much speed as it could muster and slammed into the gates of the dry dock.

There were 622 British personnel engaged on the day. Only about half of the British soldiers got away, 169 were killed and 215 more were taken prisoner. After the raid was over The Campbeltown was stuck into the gates of the drydock and the Nazi command were bemused at the outcome. All of these dead men, all this time, effort and expense, just to present the Germans with another ship and a couple of days repairing the dock. The British must be mad. Around thirty high ranking Germans climbed into the ship using the ladders the commandos had left. Some brought their girlfriends to admire the folly of the British. Rumour went around that there was chocolate and cigarettes aboard so lots of Germans climbed aboard to search and joke around. Submarine commanders, gunnery officers, everyone wanted to see and laugh at the stupid British.

The commanding officer of the British, Lieutenant Commander Beattie was being interrogated by Nazi intelligence and was told that they must have grossly underestimated the strength of the gates. At that moment, inside a welded shut compartment taking up the entire bow of the ship a timer ticked to zero. .

The bang was huge. The ground shook like an earthquake. Hundreds of Germans and German sympathisers were killed. Gruesome bits of Nazis decorated the rooftops for miles around. It took them days to clean them up.

"That I hope, is proof, that we did not underestimate the strength of the gate." said Beattie. The interrogation was cut short. The damage was so great that dock was not back in service for ten years after the war.