Keyes, who had been present throughout the planning stage, selected the most hazardous task for himself: the assault on the supposed headquarters of the Afrika Korps in a house near Beda Littoria.

Following a botched landing by submarine, where over half the raiding party and their equipment failed to get ashore, the men endured an exhausting approach in torrential rain.

Another possible explanation for this was that his fellow Commando Captain Robin Campbell fired several rounds at the sentry, one of which probably hit Keyes and led to his death a few minutes later.

The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the VICTORIA CROSS to the undermentioned officer: — Major (temporary Lieutenant-Colonel) Geoffrey Charles Tasker Keyes, M.C.

Lieutenant-Colonel Keyes commanded a detachment of a force which landed some 250 miles behind the enemy lines to attack Headquarters, Base Installations and Communications.

He then found himself forced to modify his original plans in the light of fresh information elicited from neighbouring Arabs, and was left with only one officer and an N.C.O.

The noise of the shot naturally aroused the inmates of the house and Lieutenant-Colonel Keyes, appreciating that speed was now of the utmost importance, posted the N.C.O.

Lieutenant-Colonel Keyes with great daring then entered the second room on the ground floor but was shot almost immediately on flinging open the door and fell back into the passage mortally wounded.

By his fearless disregard of the great dangers which he ran and of which he was fully aware, and by his magnificent leadership and outstanding gallantry, Lieutenant-Colonel Keyes set an example of supreme self sacrifice and devotion to duty.Author Michael Asher has pointed out that Keyes's VC citation was written by an officer who was not an eye-witness (Robert Laycock), and is at odds with the accounts of the survivors of the raid, and with German accounts; according to Asher, there is scarcely any statement in the citation that is verifiably true.

"The Rommel Raid was born out of one man's ambition to achieve glory", he has written, "and as so many times in British history, it was rescued from ignominy by the valour and determination of ordinary enlisted men, none of whom played a part in its planning, nor were even told the nature of their mission before they embarked.

[7] He is remembered on the King's Mead School War memorial in Seaford, Sussex and also in the parish church in the village of Tingewick in Buckinghamshire, home of the Keyes family.