Commando General by Richard B Mead

Author:Richard B Mead
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2016-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Brigade

Bob flew via Khartoum to Lagos, where he boarded a ship back to the UK. He arrived in Liverpool on 28 February 1942, to be met by Angie bearing a letter from Mountbatten. In it Mountbatten wrote that he had sent a telegram on 15 November, just as Bob was landing at Khashm al-Kalb in Operation FLIPPER, to ask for him to be sent home to take over command of the Special Service Brigade from Charles Haydon, whom he had appointed as his Military Adviser at Combined Operations HQ. It is likely that this was the result of representations from Angie, following Bob’s letters to her expressing his disappointment at developments in the Middle East. One may well speculate on what would have happened if the signal had arrived a week earlier. It seems entirely possible that Bob would not have become personally involved with a failed operation or endured so many weeks on the run.

Mountbatten and Bob had first met on the polo field in the early 1930s and had come across each other socially on a number of subsequent occasions.1 It is clear that there was a high degree of mutual admiration and that Mountbatten was, for the time being at least, to become Bob’s key supporter, and a powerful one at that. Following his appointment in October 1941 in succession to Keyes as Adviser and then Commodore, Combined Operations, he consolidated his position energetically, expanding the establishment of COHQ from a very modest twenty-three to over four hundred in six months. Churchill was impressed and, a week after Bob’s return to the UK, told Mountbatten that he was now to become Chief of Combined Operations and to sit on the Chief of Staffs’ Committee, with the acting ranks not only of vice admiral, but also of lieutenant general and air marshal.

On 1 March Bob was appointed Commander of the Special Service Brigade and promoted to acting brigadier. It was only on 12 March, however, after two weeks’ leave, that he arrived at his new headquarters at Castle Douglas in southwest Scotland and began to take stock of his new command.

The Special Service Brigade had experienced mixed fortunes since the departure of Layforce in early 1941. It had certainly had its share of disappointments, but these had at least been interspersed with some successes. The first of the latter was Operation CLAYMORE, which was mounted in March 1941 by 3 Commando under John Durnford-Slater and 4 Commando under Dudley Lister, with Haydon in overall command. The target was the Lofoten Islands off northern Norway. The landings were unopposed and achieved their objective of destroying the local fish factories; moreover, 228 German prisoners were taken, mostly merchant seamen; but the most significant result was the seizure of rotors for an ENIGMA machine, together with its code books.

Over the following months a number of small raids were carried out on the French coast, none of which achieved much, and the same sense of frustration developed as had been experienced by Layforce.

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