Thread by @ajcdeane

#deanehistory 145.

Back in the covidian days of 2021, we told the story of mini-submarines used against the Tirpitz in Operation Source (deanehistory 74).

Here is the story of a precursor, related action: Operation Chariot, the story of the St. Nazaire Raid in 1942.

HMS Campbeltown was previously USS Buchanan, one of fifty “Town Class” ships transferred to the Royal Navy by the Americans under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement in 1940, a deal that did what it says on the tin.

Having been launched in 1919, and something of a relic by the time she was transferred, Campbeltown’s primary achievement before Operation Chariot was having accidents.

In her brief Royal Navy career, she collided with SS Risoy during training, requiring extensive repairs, then ran down and sank a coaster called Fiddown in the Mersey Estuary, then collided with SS Comus, causing a second round of repair work.

Perhaps exasperated by the cost of this marine klutz’s upkeep, the Royal Navy then loaned Campbeltown to the Dutch. Under the smoke & a pancake banner on her free transfer, she mercifully avoided expensive collisions and the sinking of friendly vessels, but also achieved little.

Thus she was returned to the RN – and, in Operation Chariot, her time had finally come. Campbeltown had a task that seemed truly suited to her – she was to be blown up.

The great German battleship Tirpitz, sister to the Bismarck, was greatly feared by the Allies. The drydock at St Nazaire in Brittany was therefore a big target, as it was the only German-held facility on the European Atlantic coast capable of servicing her.

So the Campbeltown was packed with explosives, like a fireship of old, and sent to put the port out of action.

The men of Operation Chariot sailed the Campbeltown and her accompanying flotilla towards Nazaire and were detected by the Germans defending the port, coming under heavy fire. The Campbeltown crashed through the gates of the dock as launches and gunboats defended her.

(The commander of one such supporting motor launch, ML60, 27 year old Tom Boyd, took his ship almost up to the shore to take out a gun battery at very close range, and again to rescue the survivors of another motorboat that had been sunk.)

Separately, a group of commandos disembarked from the fleet and fought through the town, destroying machinery, killing Germans, causing a distraction from the work of the fleet and generally making nuisances of themselves. Alas they were mostly captured & became prisoners of war.

Almost all of the support vessels were lost in the course of the action. The taskforce’s remnant fleet retreated, having sustained many casualties, and began a challenging voyage home dodging the best efforts of the Luftwaffe to sink them.

The Campbeltown was left wedged up against the dock.

The Germans must have thought that they had defeated the attack and would have time in due course to tidy up the seemingly simply abandoned ship. SURPRISE.

Delayed action fuses saw the Campbeltown blow up the next day, her finest hour seeing her burst from the inside in a truly enormous explosion, taking much of the infrastructure of the surrounding naval facility with it. Success: the Tirpitz could use this dock no more.

Between them the men of Operation Chariot received five Victoria Crosses and four Distinguished Service Orders – Boyd amongst the latter. And the Campbeltown can be said to have thoroughly redeemed herself.

A new HMS Campbeltown, a Type 22 frigate, was launched in 1987, but she was decommissioned in 2011. One day there will once again be an HMS Campbeltown, as the name is to be given to one of the Royal Navy’s new "Inspiration class" of Type 31 frigates.

The second Campbeltown had carried the ship's bell from the first Campbeltown, which was rescued from the ship before she exploded and kept safe after the war by the good people of the town of Campbelltown, Pennsylvania to whom it was presented.

They looked after it all those years between the war and 1987 when a ship was once more ready to bear the name, and they now have the bell once again; perhaps they will be kind enough to lend it to the Royal Navy when the Type 31 is launched.

If you like such stories, check out our podcast and subscribe: hiddenhistoryhappyhour.com

As I mentioned it, here's the story about Operation Source:

https://twitter.com/ajcdeane/status/1385191982419566592?s=20&t=84DyHbaTgaxZlfEqQWopBA