British victory Selected troops from the Special Service Brigade Luxembourg The Netherlands Belgium France Britain 1941–1943 1944–1945 Germany Strategic campaigns The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France during the Second World War.

The obsolete destroyer HMS Campbeltown, accompanied by 18 smaller craft, crossed the English Channel to the Atlantic coast of France and rammed into the Normandie dry dock south gate.

The ship had been packed with delayed-action explosives, well hidden within a steel and concrete case, that detonated later that day, putting the dock out of service until 1948.

German gunfire sank, set ablaze, or immobilized virtually all the small craft intended to transport the commandos back to England.

This ruled out a bombing attack by the RAF, which at the time did not possess the accuracy needed to destroy the dock without serious loss of civilian life.

An unusually high spring tide was due in March 1942 which would allow a light ship to pass over the sand banks in the estuary and approach the docks, bypassing the heavily defended dredged channel.

[11] The purpose of the raid was to destroy the Normandie dock, the old gates into the Bassin de St Nazaire with the water pumping machinery and other installations and any U-boats or other shipping in the area.

They suggested they could provide an old Free French destroyer, Ouragan, and a flotilla of small motor launches to transport the commandos and evacuate them afterwards.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill further complicated matters when he ordered that bombing should only take place if targets were visually identified.

[14] The revised Combined Operations plan required one destroyer to ram the dock gates and a number of smaller craft to transport the commandos.

[20] Other naval units involved were two Hunt-class destroyers, HMS Tynedale and Atherstone, which would accompany the force to and from the French coast and remain out at sea during the raid.

[10] Under the command of Captain Hodgeson, Group One traveling in ML 447, 457, 307, 443, 306 and 446 had the objectives of securing the Old Mole and eliminating the anti-aircraft gun positions around the southern quays.

Its objectives were to destroy the anti-aircraft positions in the area and the German headquarters, to blow up the locks and bridges at the old entrance into the basin and then to guard against a counterattack from the submarine base.

It was to secure the immediate area around Campbeltown, destroy the dock's water-pumping and gate-opening machinery and the nearby underground fuel tanks.

[38] The convoy reached a position 65 nautical miles (120 km; 75 mi) off St Nazaire at 21:00 and changed course toward the estuary, leaving Atherstone and Tynedale as a sea patrol.

As it turned out, poor weather with full cloud cover over the port meant that only four aircraft bombed targets in St Nazaire.

During all this an estuary lookout boat reported seeing some activity out at sea, so Mecke began suspecting some type of landing and ordered extra attention to be paid to the approaches to the harbour.

[43] At 01:28, with the convoy 1 mile (1.6 km) from the dock gates, Beattie ordered the German flag lowered and the White Ensign raised.

Still under heavy fire, the MGB turned into the estuary as Campbeltown cleared the end of the Old Mole, cut through anti-torpedo netting strung across the entrance and rammed the dock gates, striking home at 01:34, three minutes later than scheduled.

The force of the impact drove the ship 33 feet (10 m) onto the gates, crushing 36 ft (11 m) of the bow forward of the demolition charge cemented belowdecks.

Captain Donald William Roy – 'The Laird' – and his 14-man kilted[46] assault troop were tasked with knocking out two pump-house roof-top gun emplacements high above the quayside and securing a bridge to provide a route for the raiding parties to exit the dock area.

Roy and Sgt Don Randall used scaling ladders and grenades to accomplish the former, and a head-on rush to secure the bridge and form a bridgehead that enabled Captain Bob Montgomery and Lt Corran Purdon and their demolition teams to exit the area.

One of his first actions was to direct mortar fire onto a gun position on top of the submarine pens that was causing heavy casualties among the commandos.

Newman organised a defence that succeeded in keeping the increasing numbers of German reinforcements at bay until the demolition parties had completed their tasks.

Ryder returned to the boat and ordered the MTB to carry out its alternative task and torpedo the lock gates at the old entrance to the basin.

[57] When they reached the open sea the smaller calibre guns were out of range and stopped firing but the heavier artillery continued to engage them.

Amid concerns about the growing German threat and the realisation that the damaged small ships would not be able to keep up, Commander Sayer ordered the crews off the smaller boats and had them sunk.

Having already been attacked once, they moved further out into the Atlantic to try to avoid the Luftwaffe but a Junkers Ju 88 appeared overhead at 07:30 and approached them at low level for a closer look.

Hitler laid out new plans in a meeting with Armaments Minister Albert Speer in August 1942, calling for the construction of 15,000 bunkers by May 1943 to defend the Atlantic coast from Norway to Spain.

[85] She carried the ship's bell from the first Campbeltown, which had been rescued during the raid and been presented to the town of Campbelltown, Pennsylvania, US at the end of the Second World War.