England, 1942 German U-Boats are winning the pivotal Battle of the North Atlantic, threatening to cut Allied supply lines to “Fortress England”. If German battleships Bismarck, Scharnhorst, and Tirpitz join the wolf-packs, Hitler wins the war. To do that, the battleships need an Atlantic seaport to refuel, rearm, and repair.
That seaport is St-Nazaire, France, home to massive U-Boat fortifications and the battleship-size dry-dock that built luxury liner SS Normandie. On March 28th, 611 British commandos and sailors execute one of the most daring raids of Word War II, OPERATION CHARIOT.
They pack an old destroyer with tons of explosives, light the slow-fuses, weld shut the hatches, and set sail. The disguised HMS Campbeltown steams past miles of German guns and air cover, then rams herself onto the dry-dock gates.
As implausible as it sounds, the plan succeeds. Commandos leap from the crumpled bow of the crashed destroyer and the accompanying gunboats, plant explosives in the dry-dock pump houses and gear mechanisms, and fight until the Campbeltown explodes, destroying the dry-dock gate.
Nearly all Commandos are killed or taken prisoner. More Victoria Crosses are awarded for OPERATION CHARIOT than any action in British military history.
The Commandos
Micky Burn, Captain, Queen's Westminsters No. 2 Commando
The archive forms the basis for an in-depth documentary film, Turned Towards the Sun, about one of the Commandos’ most colorful characters—Micky Burn.
Born a scion of Imperial England, raised at 6 Buckingham Gate, Burn was one of England’s “Bright Young Things” during the turbulent 1930’s. He was a classics scholar at Oxford, a poet and unapologetic bi-sexual whose friends included Bertrand Russell, Audrey Hepburn, Unity Mitford, and Soviet spy Guy Burgess. As a Times of London reporter he interviewed Franklin Roosevelt and met Adolph Hitler. As a POW, he ran the secret radio room at the infamous prisoner of war camp at Colditz Castle, where he was known as “Red Micky” for his lectures on Marxism. A prolific author, poet, raconteur, and unrepentant wag, he lived in Northern Wales until his fatal stroke on September 3, 2010.