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Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II / the Violent Century: Battle #14
Raid on St. Nazaire
The operation was a brilliant success. The dock remained out of action for the rest of the war, and the Tirpitz was denied the waters of the Atlantic.
160 pages, paperback
First published July 1, 1970
29 people want to read
About the author
David Mason
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This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 19, 2020
It’s interesting to imagine how this raid would happen today. I doubt that this enterprise would even get underway. Basically, the Brits wanted to damage the docks at St. Nazaire so extensively that it would deny their use to the German ship Tirpitz. They came up with a plan so crazy it had to be Brit, but, as they say, if it’s crazy and it works, it ain’t crazy.
Nowadays, the allies would just fly a couple of cruise missiles in there and have done with it. No one on our side gets so much as a scratch. The Brits decided to cram a destroyer full of explosives and sail it right into the dock, having endured fire from both sides of the channel. Accompanying the destroyer was a flotilla of motor launches carrying Brit Commandos. Naturally, the plan didn’t survive first contact with the enemy.
I’m not going to go into details of the fighting, Mr Mason has done that admirably. The intensity of the fighting can best be judged by the fact that, of the 611 combatants that sailed, 169 were slain. There were no less than 88 medals handed out to the participants, including 5 VCs. Interesting to note that of the 5 VCs, 3 went to officers who basically got it for telling some other chap to ground the ship ashore. The two enlisted recipients actually had to die engaging the enemy in order to qualify for this gong.
The Germans put up a spirited defence of their patch of stolen ground, and it is to their credit that they treated captured Brits very well, to the extent of saluting their dead at a funeral service.
As a history of a single part of a huge war, this book performs admirably. There are excellent maps and diagrams and somewhat grainy photos to guide you through the story. This tale has everything: sea battles, aerial combat, and boots on the ground. What more could you ask?
Nowadays, the allies would just fly a couple of cruise missiles in there and have done with it. No one on our side gets so much as a scratch. The Brits decided to cram a destroyer full of explosives and sail it right into the dock, having endured fire from both sides of the channel. Accompanying the destroyer was a flotilla of motor launches carrying Brit Commandos. Naturally, the plan didn’t survive first contact with the enemy.
I’m not going to go into details of the fighting, Mr Mason has done that admirably. The intensity of the fighting can best be judged by the fact that, of the 611 combatants that sailed, 169 were slain. There were no less than 88 medals handed out to the participants, including 5 VCs. Interesting to note that of the 5 VCs, 3 went to officers who basically got it for telling some other chap to ground the ship ashore. The two enlisted recipients actually had to die engaging the enemy in order to qualify for this gong.
The Germans put up a spirited defence of their patch of stolen ground, and it is to their credit that they treated captured Brits very well, to the extent of saluting their dead at a funeral service.
As a history of a single part of a huge war, this book performs admirably. There are excellent maps and diagrams and somewhat grainy photos to guide you through the story. This tale has everything: sea battles, aerial combat, and boots on the ground. What more could you ask?
August 16, 2015
Uzbudljivo štivo za ljubitelje literature o drugom svjetskom ratu, čita se kao roman.
December 10, 2025
I picked this out of my favourite North Coast Second hand bookshop (In Bushmills) - always good for some war recollections.
This account of the 1942 raid on St Nazaire was written in 1970 when many of the survivors of the raid were still alive and available for interview including the officer leading the commandos Lieutenant Colonel Charles Newman.
I knew something of the story, mainly due to iconic images of H.M.S. Cambletown rammed into the dock cassion, and I'm sure I must have made an Airfix kit of the ship in its form before being modified for its explosive suicide mission.
David Mason's excellent account - well illustrated with maps, diagrams, schematics and photographs gives a really detailed understanding of the nature of the target and the complexity of the operation. It achieved its key objective - destroying the Normandie Dock and so depriving the Tirpitz of any potential repair location on the West Coast of France. With that achieved, the Tirpitz would never dare follow its sister ship the Bismark into the Atlantic to destroy the vital shipping lanes. Instead the great ship had to be content with terrorising arctic convoys with its mere shadow from the icy extremity of Trondheim.
However, despite that fundamental success, the raid suffered heavy casualties with many other elements of a complex plan going seriously awry, despite the courage and meticulous planning of the people behind it. It was - I believe - Napoleon who said that no plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy - certainly that is true of the St Nazaire raid.
Mason expertly threads his way through the details of the triumphs, the mishaps and the moments of pure fortune/misfortune.
For example the spotting of the group - pretending to be a mining sweep - by a U-boat which brought the five German destroyers anchored in St Nazaire out on patrol rather than in position to defend the port when the raiding part arrived. Could the Cambeltown ever have weathered that storm?
There was the desultory raid by the RAF - intended to distract and draw German defenders into the city, yet rendered so toothless by Churchill's fear of French civilian casualties that it served only to alert the defenders that something was afoot.
There was the utter unsuitability of the wooden hulled petrol fuelled motor boats used to bring the commandos ashore, so easily set alight, and offering so little protection that the attempted landing to secure the tactically significant mole proved as disastrous as Horatio Nelson's amphibious assault on Santa Cruz in Tenerife a hundred and fifty years earlier. Indeed in Mason's account of haphazard landings in unassigned locations and frantic street fighting by disparate groups all unsure (but hopeful) as to the success of other parties in their objectives. Like Nelson's trapped Captains Troubridge and Hood, dawn brought only the grim reality of surrender.
However, there were key differences Nelson's officers and men were allowed to return to their ships and continue the fight allbeit elsewhere; Newman's bedraggled survivors became prisoners of war for the next three years. And for Newman - even in that moment of surrender, came the moment of triumph as the long fuses on the five tons of explosives in Cambeltown finally burnt through and the stunned (and foolish) captors discovered that ramming the cassion was not the plan.
The other tragedy Mason rightly points out - besides the unsuitability of the motor boats, was the lack of contingency planning for possible alternative withdrawal strategies or handling a failure of communications, which meant the fog of war was thicker and the losses heavier than they needed to be.
However, lessons were learned and while not exactly clinical the raid had certainly proved to be effective. Mason's book offers an enthralling and informative insight into a key moment in miitary history.
This account of the 1942 raid on St Nazaire was written in 1970 when many of the survivors of the raid were still alive and available for interview including the officer leading the commandos Lieutenant Colonel Charles Newman.
I knew something of the story, mainly due to iconic images of H.M.S. Cambletown rammed into the dock cassion, and I'm sure I must have made an Airfix kit of the ship in its form before being modified for its explosive suicide mission.
David Mason's excellent account - well illustrated with maps, diagrams, schematics and photographs gives a really detailed understanding of the nature of the target and the complexity of the operation. It achieved its key objective - destroying the Normandie Dock and so depriving the Tirpitz of any potential repair location on the West Coast of France. With that achieved, the Tirpitz would never dare follow its sister ship the Bismark into the Atlantic to destroy the vital shipping lanes. Instead the great ship had to be content with terrorising arctic convoys with its mere shadow from the icy extremity of Trondheim.
However, despite that fundamental success, the raid suffered heavy casualties with many other elements of a complex plan going seriously awry, despite the courage and meticulous planning of the people behind it. It was - I believe - Napoleon who said that no plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy - certainly that is true of the St Nazaire raid.
Mason expertly threads his way through the details of the triumphs, the mishaps and the moments of pure fortune/misfortune.
For example the spotting of the group - pretending to be a mining sweep - by a U-boat which brought the five German destroyers anchored in St Nazaire out on patrol rather than in position to defend the port when the raiding part arrived. Could the Cambeltown ever have weathered that storm?
There was the desultory raid by the RAF - intended to distract and draw German defenders into the city, yet rendered so toothless by Churchill's fear of French civilian casualties that it served only to alert the defenders that something was afoot.
There was the utter unsuitability of the wooden hulled petrol fuelled motor boats used to bring the commandos ashore, so easily set alight, and offering so little protection that the attempted landing to secure the tactically significant mole proved as disastrous as Horatio Nelson's amphibious assault on Santa Cruz in Tenerife a hundred and fifty years earlier. Indeed in Mason's account of haphazard landings in unassigned locations and frantic street fighting by disparate groups all unsure (but hopeful) as to the success of other parties in their objectives. Like Nelson's trapped Captains Troubridge and Hood, dawn brought only the grim reality of surrender.
However, there were key differences Nelson's officers and men were allowed to return to their ships and continue the fight allbeit elsewhere; Newman's bedraggled survivors became prisoners of war for the next three years. And for Newman - even in that moment of surrender, came the moment of triumph as the long fuses on the five tons of explosives in Cambeltown finally burnt through and the stunned (and foolish) captors discovered that ramming the cassion was not the plan.
The other tragedy Mason rightly points out - besides the unsuitability of the motor boats, was the lack of contingency planning for possible alternative withdrawal strategies or handling a failure of communications, which meant the fog of war was thicker and the losses heavier than they needed to be.
However, lessons were learned and while not exactly clinical the raid had certainly proved to be effective. Mason's book offers an enthralling and informative insight into a key moment in miitary history.
February 8, 2026
Was unsure about this book. Did not know anything about the raid, other than it occurred.
I was wrong.
This is a brilliantly-written about an event so daring, so audacious that everybody should be aware of it. 2 Destroyers, 16 Motor Launches/Motor Gun boats and 640 soldiers & sailors; attacking an extremely well-defended port. So many things could have gone wrong, and so many did, but the single primary task was completely successful.
The raid itself is thoroughly covered, with descriptions covering (it seems) every British assault team. Incredible (but true) tales from of high adventure and derring-do.
Many charts, diagrams and maps are included throughout the text. The book finishes with a listing of several Decorations awarded after the raid - 51 MiD, 15 MM, 24 DSMs, 4 DCMs, 4 CGM, 11 MC, 17 DSC, 4 DSO and five Victoria Crosses! That alone speaks volumes.
I was wrong.
This is a brilliantly-written about an event so daring, so audacious that everybody should be aware of it. 2 Destroyers, 16 Motor Launches/Motor Gun boats and 640 soldiers & sailors; attacking an extremely well-defended port. So many things could have gone wrong, and so many did, but the single primary task was completely successful.
The raid itself is thoroughly covered, with descriptions covering (it seems) every British assault team. Incredible (but true) tales from of high adventure and derring-do.
Many charts, diagrams and maps are included throughout the text. The book finishes with a listing of several Decorations awarded after the raid - 51 MiD, 15 MM, 24 DSMs, 4 DCMs, 4 CGM, 11 MC, 17 DSC, 4 DSO and five Victoria Crosses! That alone speaks volumes.
January 6, 2015
Excellent recount of the raid to knock out the only dry-docks on the Atlantic that could handle the Bismark and Tirpitz. The descriptions on how the HMS Campbell was used to ram the gates and then explode will have you thinking of a Alistair MacLean novel, only this one actually took place.
Great for all World War Two fans.
Great for all World War Two fans.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews