The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #248 ｜ Raid on Saint Nazaire

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs. Over the last couple of episodes, I've talked about

00:00:27.440 Special Forces raids and once or twice before and people seem to like that so I'm going to continue

00:00:32.220 that, do a few more of those before I move on to something entirely different. This time I thought

00:00:37.400 I would talk about a very, very, very famous World War II raid. It's not the SAS, it's commandos though,

00:00:44.240 it's British Special Forces commandos but not actually the SAS in Europe and among military

00:00:51.540 history people it's very, very well known and famous but I think among the rest of the world

00:00:58.300 it's not particularly famous. So I hope that I'm actually bringing it to a few of you for the first

00:01:03.960 time ever, that's nice. I'm certainly going to tell the story as though you've never heard it before

00:01:10.120 and it's the story of the raid on a place called San Nazare. Okay so let's give a bit of background

00:01:16.520 before I start doing reading. I plan to do a lot of reading this episode, maybe the majority of it

00:01:21.420 will be reading because I've got a great account of it which just tells the story kind of perfectly

00:01:26.300 in my opinion but I'll still interrupt myself a bit but before I start the reading I'll give you

00:01:30.380 sort of a an overview of what it is. It's World War II, okay, we're deep in World War II, Nazi occupied

00:01:36.820 France, all of France is completely occupied or there's the Vichy, Vichy French but effectively

00:01:42.680 France is occupied. Now there's a battle for the Atlantic, who controls the Atlantic? And the Germans 0.99

00:01:49.500 have got a couple, a few, a very small number of giant battleships. The Tirpitz is the big one.

00:01:57.020 Another is the Scharnhorst, a couple of giant giant battleships where they sort of, they're sort of the

00:02:02.620 biggest most powerful battleships of the day and we, the Allies, both the British and the Americans,

00:02:09.240 more the, more the British really. So kind of terrified of the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst. They, they're worried that

00:02:16.760 in any sort of one-on-one situation we just lose or if the Tirpitz intercepts a convoy of, you know, like

00:02:27.240 smaller destroyers that are, that are supposed to be escorting merchant shipping. The Tirpitz just wipes out 0.97

00:02:33.240 everyone in the, on the horizon, it just wipes out everyone. That's how scary the battleship Tirpitz was.

00:02:40.920 Incidentally, it ended up doing no such thing but that was the fear, that was the worry. Okay, now it was so big

00:02:48.920 that was, there was literally only one place on the whole Atlantic Seaboard, the European Atlantic Seaboard, one

00:02:55.000 place where it could possibly ever come in to any sort of dry dock for, for, you know, maintenance,

00:03:01.160 overhauling, upgrades, anything like that. There was one dry dock big enough for it. That was in a place

00:03:06.120 called San Nazare in Normandy. Now if anyone knows the map of Normandy, you know about D-Day. There's the

00:03:13.320 northern stretch of Normandy in the channel, in the English Channel. But of course Normandy stretches

00:03:19.480 round, turns the corner, and then there's a whole Atlantic coast bit of Normandy. And the, the, the,

00:03:28.760 the Wa River runs out into the Atlantic Ocean there. I'll show a map so everyone can see exactly what I'm

00:03:35.000 talking about. And there is a deep, deep sea, deep water port of, of, of San Nazare, right, on the Atlantic

00:03:42.840 coast of Normandy. The La Wa Estuary. And that's where there was a big, there was loads and loads of

00:03:48.600 things there the Germans had. They had not just this giant dry dock, which was absolutely vital

00:03:55.080 to them, but they also had loads of submarine pens, really, really, really heavily guarded submarine

00:04:00.840 pens with giant, giant concrete ceilings that bombs couldn't burst through. And, you know, the German 0.99

00:04:07.320 U-boats, the German submarines were causing absolute havoc in the Atlantic. We didn't, you know, 0.67

00:04:12.440 they were sort of winning the war in the Atlantic, depending on how you look at it and who you believe.

00:04:17.480 And stuff. But there was certainly a worry. There's no two ways about that. It was a worry.

00:04:21.400 So from the Allies point of view, in Churchill's mind, if he could wipe those U-boat pens and the 0.99

00:04:29.480 dry dock off the map, if he could destroy them, destroy them, that would be brilliant. That would 1.00

00:04:33.880 be a massive, massive advantage to us. It's sort of not just like a nice advantage. It's of key importance

00:04:39.800 to him at that point in the war. Like that's sort of a strategic goal for him. Okay. But it was

00:04:47.320 difficult, very, very difficult to just bomb it, bomb it flat because, well, a couple of reasons.

00:04:53.800 One of the main reasons is that the Germans had massively, massively defended it. Giant amounts of 0.84

00:04:58.680 anti-aircraft guns and artillery, you know, a giant garrison of five, 6,000 men. It would be difficult

00:05:07.240 to, it was sort of not possible for a couple of different reasons, not practicable to destroy it

00:05:14.280 all from the air at this point in the war. It'd also be kind of impossible or very, very difficult,

00:05:19.720 certainly, very, very costly, to launch a large, big invasion force. Tens of thousands or hundreds

00:05:27.400 of thousands of men, you know, in thousands, thousands of landing craft, like D-Day or whatever,

00:05:32.840 you know, something like on that level. That was also probably not a very good idea for a number

00:05:38.120 of reasons that the Germans controlled the, the U-boats, German U-boats controlled the waters.

00:05:42.200 The waters were heavily mined. The whole area was heavily, heavily defended by the Germans.

00:05:46.760 It would have been a bloodbath, a terrible, terrible bloodbath to attempt that. And yet,

00:05:53.160 right, it's one of Churchill's key aims. So what they decided to do is launch a raid,

00:05:58.440 a commando raid. Small number of very, very committed men going in under the cover of darkness,

00:06:05.960 using a little bit of stealth and sleight of hand, as it were, to try and get in there and blow it,

00:06:13.160 blow the, blow the stuff up, commando style. So that's what it is. It's known as one of the greatest

00:06:18.680 raids of World War II, from the Allies' point of view. It involves a ship ramming, a giant bomb,

00:06:26.120 a four-ton plus bomb, and daring doom, bloody adventure by the commandos. And, you know,

00:06:33.240 lots of men lose their lives and are imprisoned, you know, captured. And it's just a big raid. It's

00:06:39.000 much bigger than anything else I've talked about before, right? It's a few hundred commandos,

00:06:43.240 not just a few dozen. So for commando stuff, it's quite a big, well, it is a big raid.

00:06:49.560 OK, so I'll let the account I've got here tell the story. It's by a chap called Adolphe

00:06:54.680 Leportier, a Frenchman. And obviously it takes place in France. He's a French admiral, I believe.

00:07:01.480 And he tells the story very well. So I'll do a whole bunch of reading for this episode,

00:07:05.320 mainly reading. All right, so settle in. Hope you enjoy.

00:07:09.400 The Saint-Nazaire Commandos. The assault by the British army commandos on the port of Saint-Nazaire,

00:07:14.840 on the occupied Atlantic coast of France, is widely considered to be the greatest seaborne raid of

00:07:19.000 World War II. The port, which lies at the mouth of the Loire, had been a major target for the British

00:07:24.920 from the time of the German occupation. Not only did it contain the largest dry dock in the world,

00:07:29.800 thus the only one which could facilitate the gigantic German battleships,

00:07:33.480 Tirpitz and Schadenhorst. It was also an important U-boat base in the Battle of the Atlantic.

00:07:38.360 A major target, but not an easy one. Saint-Nazaire was outside the range of most RAF bombers and was

00:07:43.720 heavily defended by the 28 heavy guns of the German 280th Naval Atlantic Battalion,

00:07:49.160 plus a battery of railway-mounted 240mm guns at Le Bule, seven miles inland. The port also bristled

00:07:55.960 with anti-aircraft artillery and was serviced by 6,000 German personnel. Moreover, the dry dock itself,

00:08:02.120 which had to be destroyed for any raid to be considered successful, had an outer caisson wall

00:08:07.720 of steel, some 35 feet thick. So, insanely thick is what that means. In the commandos raid on Saint-Nazaire,

00:08:17.640 they were accompanied by the Royal Navy escort destroyers, Athelstone and Tyndale. 16 motor launches,

00:08:24.520 very small wooden sort of rickety boats really, motor launches. A motor torpedo boat and a motor gun

00:08:31.320 boat. Not much in other words, not a great deal of firepower to shoot back at the Germans. To break

00:08:38.520 the caisson of the Normandy dock, an old destroyer, HMS Campbelltown, was packed with four and a quarter

00:08:45.800 tons of high explosive and a time delay pencil fuse to be delivered by head-on ramming.

00:08:51.320 This account of Operation Chariot is by the French admiral and military historian Adolphe Lepottier.

00:08:58.920 It begins with the British flotilla approaching the French coast on the night of the 27th of March,

00:09:03.880 1942. Okay, so now these are Lepottier's words.

00:09:08.520 The hours passed and night drew nearer. The occupied coast was no longer far away,

00:09:14.760 and the enemy had not yet given any sign of life. For the men whose nerves were keyed up,

00:09:19.480 this seemed incredible, and their morale rose proportionately. The Tyndale had obviously been

00:09:24.840 quite right about her submarine. It was learned later that this submarine had not sunk and signalled

00:09:30.920 effectively that it had been attacked by two destroyers sailing on a southwesterly course.

00:09:35.800 As a last precaution, the course of the formation was maintained in the direction of La Palice,

00:09:42.680 a place, La Palice, until nightfall, so that should an enemy plane appear, it would still be mistaken

00:09:48.920 about the destination of this unusual task force. Nevertheless, said Ryder, when night fell,

00:09:55.320 we all felt immensely relieved. At twenty hundred hours, eight in the evening, seven miles southeast of

00:10:01.560 Saint-Nazaire, Atherstone slipped the motor gunboat, and Ryder, Newman, and their small staff got into

00:10:07.720 the small boat, which got underway to accompanying cheers from the crew. Don't forget I have been a

00:10:13.160 good father to you, signalled Atherstone. The Campbelltown also slipped the motor torpedo boat,

00:10:19.640 which after a few cavortings took her place in the queue. During this time, the remaining motor 1.00

00:10:24.600 launches took up their position in the assault formation, with the motor gunboat ahead. Behind

00:10:29.640 her came the Campbelltown, and astern and on the flanks, the leading motorboats of the two columns.

00:10:35.640 The Tingdale and Atherstone took up their positions provisionally about a mile apart

00:10:40.840 to increase their chances of finding the submarine HMS Sturgeon, which had taken up a position by day

00:10:46.520 40 miles southwest of Saint-Nazaire to act as marker. It had to show a discrete light directed southwest.

00:10:53.160 Then we get told a little bit about how one of the motor launches got a little bit of damage to one of

00:10:58.520 its engines, and they had to put a load of the men from that particular motor launch, which is a

00:11:03.480 relatively small boat, a motor launch, and transfer them to one of the other ones, which was now really

00:11:09.320 packed, as you can imagine, and basically just leave that motor launch boat, which had a problem

00:11:13.880 with its engine, just leave it to fend for itself and try and get back. Just forget about it. We've got to

00:11:19.720 push on to do the actual raid itself. We can't think about that anymore, so they sort of leave it.

00:11:24.200 Okay, the portier goes on and says, the lights of various fishing boats appeared on both bows.

00:11:29.000 Ryder thought this was proof that the enemy had not got wind of the attack. This encounter also

00:11:33.560 seemed to him a piece of luck, for the enemy radar would find it difficult to distinguish the

00:11:38.040 suspicious echoes among all the normal ones given by the fishing boats of a type and volume

00:11:43.240 similar to those of the motor torpedo boat. Towards midnight, they saw gun flashes in the distance,

00:11:49.080 in the direction of Saint-Nazaire. As they approached nearer, they could make out the classic pattern of

00:11:53.800 flak, searchlight beams, and firework display of shells and luminous traces crossing each other in the

00:11:59.720 sky. This evidence of the presence of friendly aircraft at the promised hour was very comforting.

00:12:06.520 As they approached the Châtelier buoy, boy, you know, one of those things floating in the water,

00:12:12.440 they began to make out the coast to port on their left-hand side. The Campbelltown received the order

00:12:19.080 to set course at 50 degrees and to guide the formation, for in order to use her rudimentary radar, 0.99

00:12:25.320 those transmitting and receiving beams are set to fore and aft. The motor gun boat would be obliged to

00:12:31.960 maneuver constantly while taking the bearings. At the same time, however, she zigzagged to make 0.99

00:12:37.400 soundings in front of the columns. On the fluorescent radar screen, the luminous teeth

00:12:42.360 of the, quote, pipes, quote, appeared and disappeared, according to the evolution of the boat,

00:12:48.040 each time it set its course on some protruding object. A very much larger pipe appeared when it

00:12:53.320 headed to port. Their course allowing them to pinpoint this obstacle, and at 25 minutes past one in the

00:12:59.320 morning, they would distinguish the big Morez Tower, 400 yards away to the north. After 33 hours of

00:13:06.680 navigation, because they'd left from Cornwall, by the way, would come all across, all the way from

00:13:11.800 Cornwall, which is, you know, quite a long, well, 33 hours it took them, it's quite a long way really,

00:13:16.520 isn't it? None of these ships move particularly fast. After 33 hours of navigation, out of sight of land,

00:13:23.240 the British ships had arrived exactly at their fixed point, despite changes of course, and the variable

00:13:29.000 currents met with on the way. Their meeting with Sturgeon was another example of the precision

00:13:35.320 of this navigation. That's the submarine. So they're ready to go. This was the moment when

00:13:41.480 the excitement reached its climax. They were nearing the target. It seemed more and more improbable

00:13:46.840 that the Germans wouldn't realise that 18 enemy ships were entering a roadstead where they had

00:13:53.240 concentrated every conceivable weapon of outlook detection and defence. They wondered if this

00:13:58.680 indifference, because the Germans hadn't fired on them, they're starting to approach, and the 0.57

00:14:03.080 Germans aren't firing on them. It's dark, it's at night, well as we said it's nearly half past one

00:14:07.720 in the morning, and these ships that really shouldn't be there, as far as the Germans are 0.98

00:14:12.440 concerned, shouldn't be there, they can expect to be fired on, and the Germans aren't firing on them yet.

00:14:17.400 They wondered, the Brits, the commandos, they wondered if this indifference were merely a ruse,

00:14:23.240 or whether they intended to let them come close before crushing them at one blow.

00:14:27.960 For the Campbelltown, you know, the boat with the giant bomb on it, there was an additional worry.

00:14:32.920 Was there enough water for her to pass over the Minden sandbank? Suddenly, all the men on

00:14:39.000 the bridge looked at each other anxiously. By a vibration of the hull beneath their feet,

00:14:43.960 which could deceive no sailor, they realised that the destroyer had touched bottom.

00:14:48.840 Would she get across? There's the sandbank, you see. They bent anxiously over the side to gauge the

00:14:55.880 slowing down of the wake. Their speed seemed constant, another jolt, another anxious moment.

00:15:01.480 They had made it. Their mates in the motor launchers did not know that a few inches less water and the

00:15:07.080 Campbelltown would have been stopped for a good few hundred yards from the goal, even before the

00:15:11.960 enemy had intervened. But could the Germans wait much longer? Nerves were keyed up to breaking point,

00:15:17.960 waiting for what would happen from one minute to the next. What form would it take? At that moment,

00:15:24.280 the sky was entirely covered by low cloud, through which the moonlight hardly trickled. You know,

00:15:30.040 perfect for us, as dark as possible. The darker the better. White wisps of mist floated across from

00:15:37.480 time to time. Onboard the motor gunboat, they could already make out the dark lines of the outer harbour.

00:15:43.640 Just as, twenty-four years before, the men on the Vindictive, a ship called the Vindictive, had seen

00:15:49.640 the Zabruger Mole a few seconds before the battle began. Suddenly, the narrow beam of a searchlight

00:15:55.320 from the bank lit up the roadstead. The strip of light fell astern of the flotilla. For a few seconds,

00:16:01.880 while several hundred men held their breath, it moved slowly and drew near to the rear motorboats.

00:16:07.880 A moment before it reached them, it went out. Was it possible that once more the enemy had let

00:16:12.760 slip the opportunity of discovering the attackers? They did not have to wait long for the answer.

00:16:17.480 Less than a minute later, all the searchlights of the two banks went up simultaneously, focused on

00:16:23.240 the roadstead, which was suddenly lit up as bright as day. The roadstead is a bit confusing, but the way

00:16:29.800 ahead. The path that the allied boats are going to take. Despite the dark, dull paint of the holes,

00:16:35.480 all the boats were visible at once by the silver foam and their wakes. In 10 minutes,

00:16:41.000 the Campbelltown would have reached the target unless she suffered some major damage. So still,

00:16:47.240 still 10 minutes out. The idea, by the way, is that the Campbelltown with a giant bomb in it

00:16:51.960 is going to ram this 35 feet thick steel caisson wall of that dry dock. The giant dry dock that

00:16:59.960 the giant Nazi battleships will need. It's going to ram that, the wall of that. And hopefully, 0.93

00:17:06.840 you know, the giant bomb will blow up, destroy that wall, the caisson wall of the dry dock and flood it, 0.99

00:17:13.880 destroy it. You know, it will take ages and ages and ages to repair. Maybe it can't be repaired,

00:17:20.040 sort of a thing. That's the idea. And so the Campbelltown is still 10 minutes out from there,

00:17:25.960 which is a lifetime, you know, if the Germans decide they're going to open up everything 1.00

00:17:30.600 they've got on it at kind of point blank range. And also, there's a few hundred commandos.

00:17:38.840 So the idea was that they would do that. The Campbelltown with the giant bomb will do that

00:17:42.280 for the dry dock. Also, they'll disgorge a few hundred, what is it? Over 300, 350 odd,

00:17:48.760 more, slightly more commandos to just run amok in Saint-Nazaire, try and kill as many Germans as 0.99

00:17:55.480 they can, try and blow up the U-boat pens. Yeah, just try and take out as many gun emplacements as 0.99

00:18:02.680 they can. Just cause, classic commando raid, cause as much chaos and devastation as they can.

00:18:08.760 Okay, but the Campbelltown is still 10 minutes out, so a lifetime. Each of the commanding officers

00:18:14.520 ordered, full speed ahead. You know, like the Germans have turned the searchlights on. You 0.84

00:18:19.800 may as well just sprint now. It's all or nothing. They've seen you. They've definitely seen you.

00:18:25.160 Any idea of being sneaky and covert and not being noticed, that's done with now. So just full steam

00:18:32.120 ahead. Ramming speed. They had to start at once now, trying to delay the enemy from opening fire.

00:18:39.880 Once there was no longer any question of concealing the approach of the ships,

00:18:43.320 they must try and fox the defenses by trying to deceive them out of their nationality.

00:18:48.120 Because they made a sort of a half-assed effort to paint the ships as German ships.

00:18:53.880 But it was sort of a last, kind of a last minute thing. And it's clearly not a German ship by design.

00:19:03.480 The Germans will know what their ships look like. And what a World War One American built ship looks 0.64

00:19:09.240 like. It's clearly not a German ship, right? It's not going to fool them for very long, 0.77

00:19:13.880 if at all. It was with this in view that the Campbelltown had been given the shape of a German 0.90

00:19:19.720 destroyer of the identical class of those signalled that very day at sea of Saint-Nazaire. I mean,

00:19:27.000 again, it's not actually going to fool them for long. Anyone that knows what they're looking at.

00:19:31.960 International law forbids hiding under an enemy flag at the moment of opening fire.

00:19:37.560 Oh, so that's the thing. They put like the German flag on the ship.

00:19:42.440 They painted it in the right colours, put a flag on it. But you can't actually, well,

00:19:47.320 according to international law, you can't actually start firing on the Germans with that flag up.

00:19:52.920 So you can just hold here. The British hoisted white ensigns, tattered and blackered by a smoke

00:19:59.080 and spray, flags which a yeoman of signals would have considered unserviceable, even for stormy

00:20:05.400 weather. The little signal searchlight of a coastal battery spelt out its recognition letters in

00:20:11.240 Morse. The British ignored them. Leading Yeoman Pike of the motor gunboat, replied at first by

00:20:17.160 illegible flashes, and to another searchlight at the entrance of the harbour, which questioned in turn.

00:20:22.520 He transmitted the letters which the battery had given. A few shots were fired sporadically over

00:20:27.880 their bowels. This was the moment to play the last card. Go ahead, Pike. Pike, who knew how to

00:20:34.200 transmit in German, signalled to his unknown interrogator. Wait, this is all done with lights.

00:20:40.520 Because the Germans, obviously, are right on the cusp of realising. In fact, obviously, one or two of them 1.00

00:20:46.680 have. But they're right on the cusp of like, wait, wait, wait, what's going on? Something's happening.

00:20:51.320 Do we fire on them? What do we do? They're right at that moment. Like, these aren't our

00:20:57.080 guys. Oh, my God. It's not German stuff. And so one of our signal guys says, wait.

00:21:05.240 Just a last ditch attempt to stop them for even a few seconds more. Then this Pike gave them the

00:21:13.800 indication, known to the English, of a German destroyer, followed by a long message in German,

00:21:19.640 preceded by the word urgent. And this is what the message was supposed to have said. Two vessels

00:21:24.280 damaged in the course of an engagement with the enemy request entrance to the port immediately.

00:21:29.320 So we're just completely bluffing, completely and utterly bluffing them.

00:21:32.360 He finished by the signal, which meant, I still have something else to transmit.

00:21:37.960 You know, just doing, saying anything to stop them from completely opening fire.

00:21:43.320 He was about to send a message to his other interrogator when the light batteries of the

00:21:48.280 port opened fire more strongly. Yeah, the Germans just didn't really buy it. They've got eyeballs. 0.98

00:21:53.800 They can see that there's something not right. Completely and utterly not right.

00:22:01.080 Okay, so the light batteries of the port opened fire more strongly, although still hesitatingly.

00:22:06.520 Taking his most powerful Aldis lamp, Pike slowly flashed the letters of the international signal code,

00:22:12.120 which meant, I am a friend, you are mistaken. The firing ceased again. In another six minutes,

00:22:18.440 the Campbell town would have reached the locked gate, the ultimate goal. 0.99

00:22:21.960 I want to blow up with that giant bomb. Her chances improved considerably with each second gained. 0.98

00:22:28.840 The British knew that on the keys there were light cannon and machine guns and 40 millimeter guns

00:22:35.000 on Minden Point. The heavy coastal batteries could not fire so near the port. It would therefore need

00:22:40.520 a really unlucky shot to stop the destroyer now. At last, the Germans understood what was up.

00:22:46.440 The storm broke loose. The only thing to do was to reply as best they could,

00:22:51.160 and the leaping curves of the multicolored tracers crossed each other between the banks and the

00:22:56.120 ships with their powerful wakes. At that moment, the motor gunboat passed a German armed trawler

00:23:01.880 anchored just opposite the southern entrance. She gave it a few bursts from her pom-pom and all the 0.98

00:23:07.560 British ships astern followed suit as they passed the unfortunate vessel. As she dominated the motor 0.95

00:23:13.640 launches by her height, the German batteries in turn, taking her for a target, finished by sinking her. 0.99

00:23:19.880 The battle was an unequal one between the British crews in the open, lit up by searchlights on the

00:23:24.840 deck and their wooden motor launches loaded with petrol, and the German artillery comfortably installed

00:23:31.880 behind the concrete walls of their pillboxes, hidden in the shadow of the keys and the buildings.

00:23:36.840 However, the accurate fire from the sea slowed down the fire on land. It must also be mentioned that as

00:23:43.080 they approached the Vielle Entrée, the ships could concentrate their fire on the batteries surrounding

00:23:48.600 it, while the other German coastal defences could no longer intervene.

00:23:51.880 We hope you enjoyed that video, and if you did, please head over to lotusseaters.com for the full unabridged video.

00:24:07.880 That was very much about how the

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - February 01, 2026

PREVIEW： Epochs #248 ｜ Raid on Saint Nazaire

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