ABOVE: Cadets re-enacting the raid

The Cockleshell Heroes

The beautiful Gironde estuary in south-west France is the place where the rivers Garonne and Dordogne join together to flow into the Atlantic Ocean. It is not difficult to see why both sides of l’estuaire charm visitors; on the Gironde side, never-ending stretches of vineyards slope to form the world-famous Médoc region. Along the east bank in Charente-Maritime, carrelet fishing huts, troglodyte homes and a cliff-hanging Romanesque church are sights not to be missed. These idyllic picture-postcard sights are all a far cry from the harsh conditions encountered here by ten Royal Marines during the cold month of December 1942.

The men involved in this operation, who became known as the Cockleshell Heroes, will be remembered in a commemorative walk on 10 June this year starting at nearby Campugnan, when a plaque detailing their exploits will be unveiled at Château de Ségonzac facing the location where two of the heroes disembarked. It is a tribute to these men, and their remarkable story, that their actions are remembered so long after the event.

Operation Frankton
It was in 1941 that British military headquarters, increasingly concerned about Bordeaux harbour activities, decided to launch Operation Frankton. Despite a minefield placed by the RAF at the entrance to the Gironde estuary, German blockaderunners were still successful in sailing to the Far East, bringing back tons of rubber, metals and opium essential to their wartime industry. England found it impossible to attack the port – it was too well defended by coastal artillery and anti-aircraft batteries, and it would have been too dangerous for French civilians.

Lt. Col ‘Blondie’ Hasler came up with the idea to infiltrate heavily defended enemy positions by stealth, using canoes. They would paddle up the Gironde and the Garonne by night and attach limpet mines below the waterline of the ships moored at the Bordeaux docks: Operation Frankton, one of the most daring raids of World War II, was on.

Six-feet tall with sparse golden hair and a flowing moustache of the same colour, Hasler was considered one of the father figures of single-handed sailing, having invented the first self-steering gear for yachts. He devised and led the whole Frankton Operation, choosing his 11 recruits among volunteers ‘eager to engage the enemy and indifferent to personal safety’.

Hasler and Fred Goatley of Saro Laminated Woodwork Ltd designed the Cockle Mark II, a strong craft that had a flat, rigid bottom and could be hauled over shingle and lifted up, fully loaded, without breaking one’s back. The six canoes were painted in ‘battleship grey’ and given fish codenames: Catfish manned by Hasler and Marine Sparks; Cachalot manned by Mne Ellery and Mne Fisher; Coalfish manned by Sgt Wallace and Mne Ewart; Conger manned by Cpl Sheard and Mne Moffatt; Crayfish manned by Cpl Laver and Mne Mills and Cuttlefish manned by Lt Mckinnon and Mne Conway.

Having sailed from Scotland on 30 November, the submarine HMS Tuna carrying the 12 Royal Marines and their assault canoes arrived at Cordouan. Navigation in these waters was diabolical. Moored mines placed by the enemy, RAF magnetic mines laid offshore, the radar at Soulac and continuous maritime and aerial patrols made Tuna vulnerable.

Located seven kilometres from the mouth of the estuary, le Phare de Cordouan, the oldest lighthouse in France, provided an accurate position for the submarine. Using this landmark, on 7 December at 7.35pm, it proceeded to disembark the 12 men at the exact position fixed by Major Hasler.

Catfish was the first canoe to be lowered to the sea. Then came the terrible news: the raid could now only count on five canoes as Cachalot had been damaged during the launch. The submarine left and in the cold, clear night the Royal Marines started on their adventure.

Down the estuary
After an hour or so, the sound of the tidal race, the point where several currents meet, roared ahead. Four-feet-high waves engulfed the canoes from all directions.

Once past the tidal barrier the waters magically calmed down. But Coalfish was missing. Catfish braced itself to go back, its search proving fruitless. They pressed on through the next tidal race. Their instructions were clear: “Anyone who gets into trouble will be on their own”. This time Conger failed to appear. Catfish turned back to find that it had capsized. Moffat grabbed their stern and Sheard held on to Cuttlefish. After 20 minutes, now round the pointe de Grave, the two lads were told to let go of the canoes and swim towards the coast.

Now in the estuary the remaining six men were shocked to discover not one, but three, patrol boats, which meant they had no choice but to pass under a guarded jetty. Single paddle, bodies crouching low, Catfish opened the way and manoeuvred out of the danger zone. After agonising minutes Crayfish appeared safely alongside – but no Cuttlefish. A German shout came, followed by a rifle shot. Then silence. On their first night they had lost two-thirds of the force.

The marines had paddled the equivalent of 26 land miles and were exhausted. Dawn was breaking and the two canoes found a small sandy promontory where they hid in low scrub with their camouflage nets overhead. They started their second night’s passage at 11.30pm when the flood stream began to run. Navigation was easy but the spray that broke over the cockles was lashing at them like a whip, freezing on the cockpit covers. They travelled 25 miles in six hours and then found a dry ditch to conceal themselves in. Pauillac was within sight.

They made good progress on the third night despite clusters of islands restricting them to canoe alarmingly close to villages. They also experienced the filthy business of negotiating a six-foot cliff of mud to relaunch themselves opposite the famous vineyards of Saint-Julien.

Finally, on December 11 they entered the Garonne, close to Bordeaux harbour. The deed would soon be done.

The attack
Tall reeds provided them with the perfect last hiding place. Each man took a pair of limpets between his knees. At 9pm they turned the thumbscrew of each fuse that broke the ampoule and released the acetone inside: the mines would explode eight hours later. Faces blackened, the two crews stole out into the brightly illuminated port of Bordeaux with their 16 live limpet mines to accomplish their mission. In the morning of 12 December, a series of explosions ravaged the Bordeaux docks: the Dresden sank and the Tannenfels, Alabama and Portland were badly damaged.

The escape route
When the attack came to fruition the four heroes were well underway on the second part of their mission: land at Blaye, scuttle the canoes and escape on foot.

Laver and Mills took the east route and made good progress for two days. However, they didn’t manage to find civilian clothes, were spotted and handed over to the German Security Police. They were shot in Paris on 23 March 1943 with their comrades McKinnon and Conway (from the cockle Cuttlefish), who were also captured.

Hasler and Sparks were lucky in finding bérets and labourers’ clothes straightaway. They slept in woods or barns and walked north for six days through vineyards, hamlets and fields, covering 100 miles in total. Near Nâpres, woodman Clodomir Pasquereau provided Hasler and Sparks with food and even gave them his own bed to sleep in. Looking like tramps, they reached Ruffec in north Charente where contact with the Résistance was made, thanks to Jean Mariaud, the local taxman. The Dubreuille family – his cousins – hid Hasler and Sparks for 41 days at their farm before ‘Marie-Claire’ alias English-born Comtesse de Milleville was able to organise their escape back to England. It took the heroes nearly three months to get home, via Lyon, Marseille, the Pyrénées, Spain and Gibraltar.

The others
Ellery and Fisher couldn’t take part in the operation because their cockle knocked against the submarine’s hatch clamp, tearing a long gash in its canvas. None of the other Royal Marines survived; Wallace and Ewart capsized near the pointe de Grave lighthouse on 8 December, swam ashore but were taken prisoners by a flak battery of the Luftwaffe. They were interrogated and shot at Blanquefort, Gironde, on 11 December. Moffat’s body was found drowned at l’Île de Ré. Sadly Sheard was never accounted for. After separation from their companions at Le Verdon, the Cuttlefish crew of Mckinnon and Conway carried on alone. They spent 10 December on l’Île de Cazeau, only a few miles from where the others were hidden. On the third day their canoe struck a submerged obstruction and was wrecked. They started walking north and were helped by a M. Jaubert who gave them shelter in his railway cottage. Unfortunately they were denounced to the gendarmes when they reached La Réole, sent to Paris and shot with their two comrades Laver and Mills.

Living heroines
Any help given to the Cockleshell Heroes by the local French population was at great risk to themselves and their family. At Beaunac, three men from the village were deported because a farmer had let Hasler and Sparks rest in his barn. Madame Jeanne Baudray, mayor of Saint-Vivien de Médoc, recalls giving them a baguette and chocolate. She recalls: “Fishermen came to fetch my father because he was the maire. They had seen English soldiers near the port of Saint-Vivien and did not know what action to take. But my father was ill so he sent me in his place, even though I was only 18. I made the fishermen promise not to talk about this to anyone and took the food to the marines. I saw them very close and I was moved. Moved to see for real that someone was helping France.”

Near Ruffec, Madame Amélie Dubreuille, wife of Résistance activist ‘Monsieur Armand’ remembers the arrival of Hasler and Sparks. “We were asked to keep them for 48 hours and we said yes. Our toddler could not talk properly yet, which meant the secret was safe. We had to be very careful, the Germans were only 700 metres away from the farm. After the agreed two days, we still had no telegram telling us who and when the two would be fetched. We began to worry. Days passed and still nothing. We established a code for the marines to venture in the garden: if the lid of my wash boiler was inverted it meant that they had to stay indoors. Eventually we did receive the telegram; instead of a couple of days Hasler and Sparks had stayed with us 41 days!”