The Raid on Rommel - incluing a first person account

FROM No.11 COMMANDO ARCHIVES

No.11 Commando would be landed by submarine, on the largely unguarded shore, and make their way inland 250 miles behind enemy lines to the village of Beda Littoria where the Germans had a headquarters and where it was reported that Rommel occupied a villa. Of the original 11th Scottish Commando there remained Captains Glennie and Macpherson and Lieutenant Sutherland, 110 other ranks. A number of other officers and men from the Middle East Commando were added as were two Senussi guides from the Libyan Arab Force. Among the officers was Captain Robert Campbell of No 8 Commando, who spoke German, and Lieutenant Roy Cooke of the Royal West Kent Regiment. Bob Laycock also insisted on being part of the team.

On October 19th Captain Macpherson and Cpl. Evans embarked on the submarine Talisman for a reconnaissance mission. They were landed near Apollonia on October 26th but failed to make the pre-arranged rendezvous with the submarine and attempted to walk to Tobruk. They were captured on November 3rd. Despite this set-back reliable intelligence on the target was available, provided by Cpt. Haselden who was attached to G.H.Q. of Middle East Command. He had travelled through the area and been brought out by the L.R.D.G.

The mission called for just one troop of the Commando. The second troop was left behind. On November 10, Lt. Col. Keyes, Lt. Cooke and Cpt. Campbell together with 25 other ranks crammed into H.M.S. Torbay while Col. Laycock and Cpt. Glennie and Lt. Sutherland, with a further 25 other ranks, were in H.M.S. Talisman. Each group would be landed in 7 rubber boats and would be accompanied by two S.B.S. folbots. They would be guided into the beach by Cpt. Haselden who had returned to Cyrenica with the help of the L.R.D.G. The plan was revealed to the men while they were underway. The group would split into four. The first detachment, under Keyes, would attack the villa used by Rommel, communications on the road the German H.Q. at Beda Litoria. The second detachment, under Lt. Sutherland, would attack the Italian H.Q. at Cyrene and disrupt communications. The third detachment, under Lt. Chevalier would attack the Italian Intelligence Centre at Apollonia and the air field there. The fourth detachment, under Cpt. Haselden would disrupt communications between Faidia and Lamluda.

The submarines arrived off the landing beach on November 13 and the following day preparations were made for the landing. The weather was deteriorating but as soon as it was dark, the captain of Torbay approached the beach.

Lieutenant Tommy Langton, who was in a Folboat remembers:

"There was one moment none of us will ever forget. It was as we were closing the beach in Torbay. We were on the forward casing of the submarine, blowing up the dinghies and generally preparing. We could just see the dark coast line ahead. We had been told that Haselden would be there to meet us, but I think no one really believed that he would. He had left Cairo quite three weeks before, and during the interval there had been several changes of plan.... When the darkness was suddenly stabbed by his torch, making the looked for signal, there was a gasp of amazement and relief from everyone - in other circumstances it would undoubtedly have been a spontaneous cheer."

The landing was very difficult. Men and equipment were swept into the sea and dinghies were blown away from the submarine but were retrieved time and again by the folbots. After six hours, all the men from Torbay were on the beach with Haselden. With only three hours until dawn and the weather deteriorating further, Talisman had a more difficult task. On the way to the beach, Talisman grounded and the men and boats were tossed into the water. Most were recovered but Talisman was damaged and had to withdraw. Only four boats from the second submarine, including one with Col. Laycock, made it to the beach.

Col. Laycock, along with two S.B.S. officers, whose folbots had been damaged in the landing, were to remain by the shore to cover the escape route. They hid the rubber boats in a cave near the beach, lit a fire, and tried to dry their clothes and equipment.

Captain Campbell, who attacked the HQ with Keyes relates:

"Just before first light, Keyes gave the order to assemble the stores and personal kit and to follow him inland to a wadi, which he had previously selected from the map as a good place to lie up in during the following day. The men were dispersed in various old ruined houses and caves all round the bed of the little dry stream, where they huddled together and slept-as cold as charity.

Keyes spent the morning with Laycock modifying his plan. There were to be just two groups rather than the four anticipated with the full attack: No. 1 Detachment under Keyes to attack the villa used by Rommel and the German H. Q. at Beda Littoria. No. 2 Detachment under Lt. Cooke to attack the Italian H.Q. at Cyrene. In the afternoon Keyes summoned his men, and after explaining the new plan in outline, supervised the opening, repacking and distribution of the ammunition, explosives and rations. Although his original plan had been very thoroughly upset and his force lacked guides, two, or it may have been three, officers and some twenty men, Keyes gave no sign of being disturbed by this, and none of the men seemed to realise how seriously hampered the operation was from the outset.

During the afternoon the sky had become overcast and some rain fell; it was extremely chilly and cheerless. None of us had seen cloudy skies or rain for many months. We had hoped for the usual dry North African weather, since we would have to spend about six days in the open. Whatever he may have felt like inside himself, Keyes certainly appeared confident and cheerful as we set off at about 8 p.m. He took the lead with the guide and Drori the interpreter, leaving Laycock with a beach party of Pryor, Brittlebank, and two men with Bren guns to guard the stores in the Wadi and keep in touch with the Torbay. The Talisman was to lie off an alternative beach."
[This arrangement, however, had been cancelled, and she returned to Alexandria, with seventeen Commandos on board.]

”The raiding party reached the top of the first escarpment [which is half a mile inland] about 09:15 after a fairly stiff climb, and all that night we marched inland over extremely difficult going, mostly rock-strewn sheep tracks. Our guide left us about midnight, fearing to go any further in our company. Keyes then had the difficult task of finding the way by the aid of an indifferent Italian map, his compass and an occasional sight of the stars. In spite of this responsibility he kept the heavily laden party going with my help and that of Lieutenant Roy Cooke (an officer of the Royal West Kent Regiment, attached like myself for the operation). Here was another disappointment for Keyes - none of his own officers had been able to land. At the end of the night Keyes was carrying more than his own equipment.

Later, next morning, November 16th, our second day ashore, I awoke in drizzling rain to the sound of excited shouting. Keeping out of sight I crawled over to where Keyes was sitting wrapped in his Arab blanket, to await developments. Presently Drori, the Palestinian interpreter, came running up to Keyes and reported that they were surrounded by armed Arabs. Raising our heads cautiously above the scrub we saw a few rascally-looking Arabs, one or two brandishing short Italian rifles. However, Keyes decided that they did not appear either particularly formidable or implacably hostile, so he gave the order for the chief of the band to be brought to him for a talk. Shortly afterwards a villainous-looking Arab, with a red head cloth wound round his head, was brought up by the Palestinian interpreter and a sentry. Keyes exchanged a few civilities with this seedy brigand, and then began a conversation through the interpreter, asking his help against the Italians. He showed him the letter from Seyed Idris, exiled chief of all the Senussi, instructing his subjects, the people of Cyrenaica to render every aid to our friends. Unfortunately, the brigand couldn't read, but Keyes must have managed him very skilfully, for he was soon grinning happily and offering to do anything he could to help.

The Arab made several rather unpractical offers of help and at last Keyes asked him whether he could perhaps manage to get some cigarettes (knowing that the men had brought very few ashore and that most of these had been ruined by sea water). The Arab thought he could if he had some Italian money, which Keyes gave him, asking where they were going to come from. The answer was, from an Italian canteen. The idea appealed to Keyes and all of us as you may imagine. Sure enough, after a couple of hours, an Arab boy returned with packets of Italian cigarettes. After prolonged haggling, he and Awad Mohammed Gibril of the Masamir tribe, a taller, younger, but equally unprepossessing ruffian, agreed to take the raiders to Rommel's Head Quarters, which they knew well, for the sum of a thousand Italian lire. They promised that when night fell they would guide the party to a cave within a few hours march of their objective, and in the meantime, for another thousand lire, offered to prepare a kid for them to eat. This offer was accepted thankfully, as the men had nothing hot to eat or drink since they had landed.

When it grew dark we fell in and marched off in file, with Keyes and the guides and interpreter at the head. We had only one alarm when we heard some shouting, and what sounded like a number of men away on our flank. Keyes sent off a couple of scouts and the rest of us lay on the ground in silence. The scouts reported that they could find nothing alarming; so we resumed our march, and after about two and a half hours came to the cave called Karem Gadeh at Carmel Hassan, described by the Arabs as being about five miles from Sidi Rafa (The Arab name for Beda Littoria). The entrance to the cave went down under a pile of stones and rocks; inside it was fairly roomy and quite dry. Apart from an appalling smell of goats, it was an ideal place to spend the rest of the night and the following day. The roof was blackened by the smoke from generations of goatherds' fires, and the smell of generations of goats clung to the floor and walls. Keyes decided it would be safe to light a fire inside, so that we passed the rest of the night in a dry and warm though smoky cave.
The guides left us there, promising to return before dawn. When they came back they warned us that it would be imprudent to stay in the cave after dawn, as goatherds were in the habit of bringing their flocks there from time to time in bad weather. Keyes enlisted the help of the Arab's boy to spy out the troop disposition in Sidi Raffa. The boy set off, after being given careful instructions from Keyes, who promised him a big reward if he brought back the desired information. This proved a brilliant move on Keyes' part, for when the boy came back a good many hours later, his report enabled Keyes to draw an excellent sketch map, which proved to be extremely accurate and included such details as the outbuildings, and the park for staff cars. He was thus able to give the men a good visual notion of their objective. The boy told him there was a guard-tent in the grounds of the headquarters, but that if it rained the guards would probably all be inside the house.

Meanwhile, however, during the Arab boy's absence the thunderstorm continued and the men returned to the cave for shelter. Every now and then the clouds seemed to open and a deluge of rain fell. The country we had to march over turned to mud before our eyes. Little torrents of muddy water sprang up all over the countryside we could see from the mouth of the cave, and a rivulet ran into the cave which sloped downwards from the opening. Also the roof began to drip. Spirits were sinking - I know mine were - at the prospect of a long, cold, wet and muddy march before we even arrived at the starting point of a hazardous operation.

During the afternoon Keyes held a briefing. The password challenge would be 'Island' to be answered by 'Arran.' About 6 p.m. we changed from our boots into out plimsolls and set off. The going became so bad that we were compelled to go in single file to avoid knocking one another over as we slipped and stumbled through the mud, and it became so dark it was only just possible to see the man in front. We had to hold on to one another's bayonet scabbards in order to keep in touch. Every now and again a man would fall, and the whole column would have to halt while he picked himself up. From time to time the middle of the column would lose touch with the man in front of him, and we would have to stop and sort ourselves out again. We reached the bottom of the escarpment at about 10.30 p.m. without serious mishap. After a short rest we began our climb of about 500 feet of muddy turf with outcropping rocks. About half way up the noise of a man slipping and striking his tommy-gun against a rock roused a watch-dog, and a stream of light issued from the door of a hut as it was flung open about a hundred yards away on our flank. As we crouched motionless, hardly breathing, we heard a man shouting at the dog. Finally the door closed, and we resumed our way upward.

At the summit (which is known as Zaidan hill) we found a cart track which the guides said led straight to the back of the German Headquarters. We halted for a rest and Keyes re-formed the men, some twenty-four all told. After this halt we set off down the cart-track, Keyes in the lead with Sergeant Terry, Drori, and the Arabs, while I followed with the main body of the men at an interval of fifty yards. We reached the edge of the village and Lieutenant Cooke's party separated from the main group. Keyes and Sergeant Terry went off to make a preliminary reconnaissance of target. While he was away one of my party tripped over a tin can and roused a dog, which began to bark. An Arab in one of the houses also began to scream. After a minute or two an Italian in uniform and an Arab officer of the Italian Libyan Arab Force emerged from one of the huts and approached us, asking who we were and what we were doing there. Drori replied in German saying, 'We are German troops on patrol. Go away and keep your dog quiet.' Drori repeated this in Arabic, asking them to quiet the man in the hut, and the Arab officer, believing they were Germans, then spoke to the man who was screaming, addressing him by name and told him to be quiet. Bidding us 'Gute Nacht' they disappeared back into their hut apparently satisfied, which the men thought was a great joke.

Just as they did so, Geoffrey and Sergeant Terry came back Keyes then led us through a hedge into the garden, and we found ourselves at the back of the house. He posted Corporal Kearney and Private Hughes at the back door, which he had already tried and found locked. All the ground floor windows were high up and barred with heavy wooden shutters, so it was impossible to get in that way. There was no alternative but to use the front door. We followed him round the building on to a gravel sweep in front of the house. The front door was set back inside a porch, at the top of a flight of stone steps. Keyes ran up the steps. He was carrying a Colt .45, and I knocked on the door for him, demanding loudly in German to be let in. The door opened on a second pair of glass doors, and we were confronted by a German (officer I think) in a steel helmet and overcoat. Keyes at once closed with him, covering him with his Colt. The man seized the muzzle of Keyes' revolver and tried to wrest it from him. Before I or Terry could get round behind him he retreated, still holding on to Keyes, to a position with his back to the wall, and his either side protected by the first and second pairs of doors at the entrance. He started to shout. Keyes could not draw a knife and neither I nor Terry could get round Keyes, as the doors were in the way, so I shot the man with my .38 revolver, which I thought would make less noise than Keyes' Colt. Keyes then gave the order to use tommy-guns and grenades, since we had to presume that my revolver shots had been heard. Keyes said that his arm had gone numb; perhaps the shots had chipped his elbow, or it may have been the wrestling match with the German had damaged it?

We found ourselves, when we had time to look round, in a large hall with a stone floor, it had a stone stairway leading to the upper stories on the right. We heard a man in heavy boots clattering down the stairs though we could not see him nor he us, as he was hidden by a right hand turn in the stairway. He was shouting- "What goes on there?" As he came to the turn and his feet came in sight, Sergeant Terry fired a burst with his tommy-gun. The man turned and fled away upstairs. Keyes had been flinging open the doors on either side of the hall. We looked inside and found the rooms were empty. He pointed to a light shining through the crack under the next door and inside were about ten Germans with steel helmets, some sitting and some standing. He fired two or three rounds with his Colt .45 automatic. I said "Wait, I'll throw a grenade in." He slammed the door shut and held it while I got the pin out of the grenade. (Sergeant Terry, who had closed up behind them, afterwards said he could hear the sound of heavy breathing inside the room.) I said "Right" and Keyes opened the door. I threw in the grenade, which I saw roll to the middle of the room, and Sergeant Terry gave a burst with his Tommy-gun. Before Keyes (who said "Well done" as he saw the grenade go in) could shut the door the Germans fired. A bullet struck him just over the heart and he fell unconscious at the feet of myself and Terry.

After the grenade went off, this was followed by complete silence, and we could see that the light in the room had gone out. I decided Keyes had to be moved, in case there was further fighting in the building (and because we intended to blow it up), so between us Sergeant Terry and I carried him outside and laid him on the grass verge to the left of the front door. [Terry went back inside to keep guard.] He must have died as we were carrying him outside, for when I felt his heart it had ceased to beat."

Captain Campbell returned to the house and found Sgt. Terry and informed him that Keyes was dead. They were drawn outside by gunfire and while investigating the rear of the house, was shot in the leg by one of his own men. His leg was broken badly and he could not be moved. He turned over command to Sgt. Terry and, after a shot of morphine was left propped up against a tree.
In the meantime, Sgt. Bruce, Cpl. Kearney and Lt.-Cpl. Coulthread were busy with demolition charges and managed to put the power plant out of action. Sgt. Terry blew the whistle which was the signal to retreat and after regrouping, the raiders began retracing their path to the beach. The quickly became disoriented in the darkness and dreadful weather and had to wait until first light before proceeding. They pressed on all day and reached the beach about 5 p.m. where they met Col. Laycock. The men had a cold meal as they waited for dusk and the rendezvous with the submarine.

Account compiled by Graham Lappin

Further to my anecdotes on the above, it has been said to me by the Commandos that Keyes was actually hit by shrapnel from the grenade rather than a German bullet?

No.9