Thread by @ajcdeane

This is instalment 11 of #deanehistory. It’s one of my favourite stories from the 2nd World War, & one of the most unlikely.

Portugal’s neutrality was important to us. They permitted Allied activity from the Azores, vital in combating U-boats.

They also traded on favourable terms with Britain, with whom (then, as now) they shared the oldest continuous alliance in the world.

But there was a problem.

Portugal’s overseas possessions included Goa in India.

In 1942, SOE realised that coded messages were being sent to U-boats in the Indian Ocean with precision, allowing the sinking of huge amounts of Allied ships.

A Gestapo spy was detected in Goa.

SOE men went to Goa undercover to kidnap him. When they arrived at his home, his wife was unexpectedly there. They kidnapped her too.

This was an infringement of Portuguese neutrality, to be sure. But it was manageable & concealable.

However, the challenge from intelligence that emerged was rather larger.

Goa, on the west coast of India, was home to an important harbour, Mormugao.

When war was declared, merchant ships from the Axis powers had taken refuge there. For some time, this was hardly important.

Now, SOE knew that these ships were transmitting the codes.

This wasn’t a pair of Gestapo spies to be snatched. They were well crewed ships in a neutral harbour. What to do?

The solution was a heady mix of Boys’ Own adventure & old boys’ network that would no doubt attract the disapproval of the modern day “sensitivity reader”*.

*not made up

The SOE lead on the case happened to know of some old buffers some 1,400 miles away in Calcutta.

The Calcutta Light Horse had been on reserve since the Boer War. It was a genteel club for rotund chaps in middle age & older who’d nowadays be called “gammons.”

Yes, they’d seen service, but long ago. Now, the club’s focus was polo, and drinking. Still, they could be trusted, they were keen to do their bit in the war, & they were plausibly deniable. They weren’t military now, and… Who would believe they were some sort of assault team?

Asked to help, the problem was turning away volunteers, not persuading them. Because every single one of them volunteered.

The plan was in three parts. First, it called for some them to cross the entirety of India, northeast to southwest, by rail on various business pretexts.

Secondly, an old barge meant for river work would be sailed from the northeast coast all the way around to Cochin where it would meet the men, then head up to Goa mid way up the east coast.

Thirdly, one of their number would go ahead to Goa & put on a party to truly set the town alight. Every sailor would know that a generous soul had laid on free booze & free prostitutes for the night. This would get most of the sailors off the boats, we thought.

Then what? Why, it’s obvious. The old buffers would sail their barge up to the biggest ship, which we figured held the transmitter, kill the Germans, seize the transmitter, sink the ship. If caught, the chaps would say they were drunken businessmen up to high jinks, of course.

Each aspect of this plan is plainly preposterous.

It all worked. The boat sunk (the crew scuttled in the face of attack). The other German boats, fearing Allied invasion, scuttled themselves too. An Italian ship joined in for good measure.

British casualties – none.

U-boats sinkings promptly dropped off a cliff.

This action, mucky in terms of neutrality but addressing the covert violation of neutrality by the other side in the first place, saved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.

Oh, just one more thing chaps: having come back to service after decades, pulling off something few thought could be done- say nothing. Tell no-one. Portuguese wouldn’t like it, you see.

And they didn’t. For thirty years. They just weren’t the sort of men who bragged.

There’s a serviceable film made post declassification in the 70s, called “The Sea Wolves.” It hacks up some of the story for no reason I can see, but gets the basics across in an exciting way. The revelatory book – “The Boarding Party” – is superb.

Later still, a bonus emerged in the National Archive records.

Three of the Germans declared "missing" that night seized the moment to volunteer for SOE - they came away with the CLH & served with us for the rest of the war.

Others amongst the crews of the scuttled ships, understandably given what post-war Germany was like, stayed in India for the rest of their lives & raised families who are there to this day.

The Calcutta Light Horse was, of course, disbanded PDQ after the war and Indian Independence. No thanks given, no recognition delivered. I’m sure they resented disbandment a great deal. I doubt very much they cared about the publicity at all.

west coast. aaargh when you see the typo.