Operation Basalt facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Operation Basalt |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |||||||
 Sark Occupation and Heritage Museum |
|||||||
|
|||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United Kingdom |
 Germany |
||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 12 | 20 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| None | three killed, one captured | ||||||
Operation Basalt was a small but important British military raid during World War II. It happened on the island of Sark in October 1942, while the island was occupied by German forces. The main goals of this secret mission were to gather information and capture German soldiers.
Contents
First Try: The Postponed Mission
The British first planned this raid for the night of September 18-19, 1942. However, bad weather forced them to delay it by a day.
A special boat called MTB 344 left Portland at 10 PM. But strong ocean currents made the journey to Sark much slower than expected. They didn't reach the island until 3 AM. The plan required them to leave by 3:30 AM to avoid being seen by German patrols at dawn. Because they arrived so late, there wasn't enough time to complete the mission. So, the operation was called off, and MTB 344 returned safely.
Second Try: The Successful Raid
On the night of October 3-4, 1942, twelve British soldiers tried again. These soldiers were part of a special group called No. 62 Commando, also known as the "Small Scale Raiding Force," and No. 12 Commando. They were led by the Special Operations Executive, a secret British organization.
They left Portland at 7 PM on MTB 344. Their mission was still to gather information and capture German prisoners.
Landing on Sark
The Commandos landed on Sark by climbing a steep cliff at a place called Hog's Back. This spot was between Dixcart Bay and Derrible Bay. Amazingly, they weren't seen by any German guards.
They quietly entered the house of a local woman, Mrs. Frances Noel Pittard. She was very helpful and told them there were about 20 German soldiers staying in a building next to the nearby Dixcart Hotel. Mrs. Pittard even gave the Commandos local newspapers from another island, Guernsey. She chose not to go back to England with them.
Capturing Prisoners
Near the hotel, there was a long, hut-like building. A Danish Commando named Anders Lassen quietly dealt with the single German guard there. This building had a hallway and six rooms. Inside, five German soldiers were sleeping. None of them were officers.
The Commandos woke the soldiers and took them outside. They decided to try and capture more Germans from the main hotel building. To make sure the captured soldiers couldn't run away easily, the Commandos tied their hands with short ropes called "toggle ropes." These ropes were carried by each Commando. They also made the prisoners hold up their trousers, as their belts or suspenders were removed. This made it very hard for the prisoners to escape, especially since most were still in their sleeping clothes.
Escape and Consequences
While this was happening, one of the prisoners managed to escape and started shouting. A struggle broke out with the other prisoners. Fearing that more German troops would arrive, the Commandos decided to quickly return to the beach with the remaining prisoners.
During the struggle, three prisoners tried to run away. One was shot and died immediately. Another was wounded but managed to escape. Two others were also believed to have been shot or injured. Only one prisoner, a German soldier named Obergefreiter Hermann Weinreich, was successfully taken to England. He provided useful information to the British.
Even though the Germans on the island were now alerted, the Commandos managed to climb back down the cliff. They used their small boat to get back to MTB 344 and escaped without any of their own soldiers being hurt. Three German soldiers had died: the guard and two of the prisoners.
Aftermath of the Raid
A few days after the raid, the Germans released a statement. They claimed that at least one prisoner escaped and two were shot while resisting being tied up. This happened shortly after the Dieppe Raid, another Allied attack, where a document supposedly told Allied soldiers to tie up prisoners' hands.
When Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany, heard about this, he ordered that Canadian prisoners be put in shackles (chains). In response, British and Canadian leaders ordered that German prisoners held in Canada also be shackled.
It is also believed that this raid helped convince Hitler to issue his famous Commando Order on October 18, 1942. This order stated that any captured Commandos or similar special forces soldiers should be executed (killed) immediately, rather than being treated as regular prisoners of war. This order led to many terrible war crimes.
Impact on Sark
The newspapers found on Sark during the raid gave the British their first real proof that German forces were deporting (forcibly moving) civilians from the German-occupied Channel Islands to Germany. The Germans said this was fair because the Allies had moved German civilians from Persia (modern-day Iran) to Australia in 1941. No one was ever punished for these deportations.
The raid also led to stronger security on Sark. The Germans laid many more landmines, increasing the number to 13,000. Also, in February 1943, 201 civilians from the Channel Islands were deported to Germany. This included 48 people from Sark, among them Mrs. Pittard and Robert Hathaway, the husband of the island's leader, Dame Sybil Hathaway. Dame Sybil Hathaway famously said that the raid "seemed a heavy price to pay for the capture of one prisoner and a copy of the Guernsey Evening Press."
Who Participated?
Here are some of the soldiers known to have taken part in the second raid:
- Major Geoffrey Appleyard
- Captain Philip Pinckney
- Lieut. Anders Lassen (who later received the VC, a very high award for bravery)
- Patrick Dudgeon
- Colin Ogden Smith
- Bruce Ogden Smith
- Graham Young
- James Edgar
- Sergeant Horace 'Brummie' Stokes
- Corporal Flint
- Bombardier Eric Forster
- Sergeant Joseph "Tim" Robinson
A soldier named Private Redborn claimed to be on the raid, but there are no official records of anyone with that name participating.
Other Raids on Sark
The famous actor David Niven, who was also a Commando, wrote in his autobiography that Commandos who landed on Sark were taken to a local pub by islanders for a drink. However, Niven also wrongly said there were no German troops on Sark at the time. His story is probably about a different raid called Operation Ambassador in July 1940. In that raid, 140 Commandos landed on Little Sark by mistake, thinking they were on Guernsey. They didn't find any Germans and returned to their boat, but there are no reports of them meeting locals.
More than a year later, in December 1943, another raid on Sark happened. It was called Operation Hardtack 7 and involved British and French Commandos. This mission was a complete failure. Two of the four soldiers were killed by German mines as they tried to cross the Hog's Back, the same path the Commandos used in 1942. The Germans had heavily mined this area after the first raid.
Memorial
In 2022, on the 80th anniversary of Operation Basalt, a memorial was put up on the cliff top in Sark. It honors the raid and those involved.
See also
