RAIDING FORCES’ HEADQUARTERS AT SEABORN HOUSE WAS A beehive of activity. The Commandos were simultaneously on alert to conduct an immediate highly classified small-scale raid while organizing for imminent deployment by sea on another highly classified operation somewhere off the coast of Africa. A drumbeat of anticipation was pulsating through the command. Men moved with a purpose.
Specialist personnel for Operation Ruthless began arriving. First on the scene were a crew of combat-seasoned Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve motor gunboat men. The sailors had been precipitously yanked off operations on their own boat, assigned to Coastal Forces Command, where they had been going out nightly to do battle with their opposite numbers—the German E-boats. The officers and men reported to Lieutenant Randy “Hornblower” Seaborn. He ordered them to set about storing their gear on board and familiarizing themselves with MGB 345. A team from the firm of Randal and Boot arrived with a 10-centimeter Type 271 radar set to be installed on MGB 345 to help the crew pinpoint the E-boat the Raiders intended to board. Commander Richard Seaborn, who was still in residence at Seaborn House at the time, was pressed into service to act as the 345’s navigator for the mission since he was familiar with the technology of the radar navigational equipment. He reported aboard to supervise the installation. The commander was one of the most experienced navigators in the senior service, having served in that capacity on HMS Hood prior to his assignment as a convoy router.
Swarms of signals personnel under the command of a full colonel from the Royal Corps of Signals descended on Seaborn House and began setting up a bank of long-range radios to handle the communications necessary to coordinate the complex air-sea operation.
A string of Supermarine Walruses, made by the very same firm that built the Spitfires and Seafires, winged in, looking like ruptured dragonflies and plopped down in the bay. The Walrus was an ugly-as-mud bi-wing, pusher-type amphibian armed with two Vickers .303 externally mounted machine guns. Today each had a pair of 250-pound fragmentation bombs mounted on the hard points on their wings. In total, fourteen planes flew in, more than normally found in a full-sized squadron. When word got round that a combat mission was in the offing, every Walrus pilot on flying status and all qualified amphibian pilots assigned to staff duties on the naval station where the little amphibians were based showed up to fly. Finding planes to accommodate the pilots was no problem. The Royal Navy had more of them than they did aviators assigned to fly them.
Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming briefed the Walrus drivers. They were to fly a grid over the Channel looking for a lone German E-boat at sea out of sight of the enemy coast. The pilot that found one would radio the location to Seaborn House and remain on station, keeping it in visual contact. In turn, the Signals Station at Seaborn House would transmit the E-boat’s location to Lieutenant Seaborn on the 345 and to Squadron Leader Paddy Wilcox, who would take off in the Heinkel 111 once the MGB reported she was in position to begin her attack. Squadron Leader Wilcox would make a simulated crash landing near the E-boat in order to trick them into rescuing the Commandos on board.
When the other Walrus pilots heard the transmission to Seaborn House giving the location of the E-boat, they were to immediately turn, fly in that direction, and take up a combat air patrol designed to cordon off and isolate the targeted German boat. Their orders were to attack any Kriegsmarine craft attempting to approach it while the mission was in progress. Once the boarding party had returned on board the 345 and the MGB was away, the Walruses were to form up line astern and bomb the E-boat “into an oil slick.”
Squadron Leader Paddy Wilcox was familiarizing himself with the Heinkel 111 he had ferried in, landed, and parked on a straight stretch of the country lane leading to Seaborn House. The German bomber was hidden under a half acre of camouflage netting.
The highly professional Raiding Forces Field Security Police from the Vulnerable Points Wing closely guarded the site. A ring of Raiders was pulling security in a tight perimeter two hundred meters in circumference encircling the Security Police. Outside the Raiders, one half mile deep around the concealed aircraft, a company of the Somerset Light Infantry was standing guard, and outside that the ever-vigilant Home Guardsmen had been called out and were on patrol in strength.
Inside Seaborn House Lieutenant Commander Fleming put up a large diagram of a German E-boat in the briefing room. Major John Randal briefed a ten-man team of Raiding Forces, backed up by a four-man reserve team, selected as the boarding party on their individual assignments. The Raiders were to capture the boat, with or without the assistance of the crew from the Heinkel 111. Special emphasis was placed on speed, violence of action, and the importance of rapidly securing the radio shack before any of the equipment inside could be destroyed. Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone was entrusted with that specific task.
Once the signals room had been cleared of enemy personnel a two-man technical team was to go in and obtain the loot. The pair had showed up at Seaborn House in the uniform of petty officers in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, but to the trained eye of the sailors and raiders they were clearly civilians who had never worn a military uniform before. Not even Major Randal, who would be leading the boarding party, knew they were from the super secret Bletchley Park. What he did know was that he had been ordered to assign each of the two petty officers a handpicked Raider bodyguard for the duration of the mission. In the presence of the Raiding Forces commander, the two Raiders selected for the escort team, Sergeant Mike “March or Die” Mikkalis and Royal Marine Butch Hoolihan, were briefed privately by Lieutenant Commander Fleming. His orders were succinct.
“In the likelihood of capture, shoot the individual you are escorting in the head, twice. You are licensed to kill.”
Rehearsals for Operation Ruthless began immediately.
Squadron Leader Paddy Wilcox was in the cockpit conducting a detailed inspection of the Heinkel 111’s instrument panel. Four tough-looking men in Luftwaffe uniforms were lounging under the wings, cleaning their Walther P-38 pistols. Each man carried two. Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming was pacing back and forth, on tenterhooks, under the camouflage netting that covered the Heinkel 111. Major John Randal would be arriving at any moment to “meet” the four pseudo-Germans who were going to be on the Heinkel 111 flown by Squadron Leader Wilcox. Any time an outside player was brought into a tight-knit team of highly trained men, it was best to tread lightly or speak from a position of great authority backed up by strength. There was no telling how the Ruthless assault troops would react to a new mission commander. The men might not be on their best behavior.
To be perfectly honest, the four German-speaking soldiers scared Lieutenant Commander Fleming. They were dangerous men, a law unto themselves. He wondered how Major Randal was going to handle it. If it were up to him, he would arrive with an entourage of big tough Raiding Forces personnel armed to the teeth.
In the distance, the sound of a powerful engine thundered. Over the rise on the blacktopped country lane, a lone rider on a Norton motorcycle appeared. The cycle skidded to a stop at the top of the hill, its motor rumbling, as the man on it studied the scene below for a moment before lazily rolling down to the concealed Heinkel 111. Major Randal had come all by himself.
He was wearing his green beret and sand-colored parachute smock. A big scarlet cravat was wrapped around his neck and tucked into the smock. The scarf caught the eyes of the men in the German uniforms. They scowled, having encountered military posers before. They had no use for them.
Lieutenant Commander Fleming had a sick feeling as Major Randal rolled up on the Norton and dismounted; this could all go terribly wrong.
“Men,” Major Randal began as the Commandos reluctantly gathered around, “I’ve wanted to meet studs who think they can climb on board an E-boat and kill half a dozen Germans each, no problem.”
One of the troopers, who looked like a Neanderthal, sneered. “I could snap your neck like a twig right now, Major, and there is not one thing you could do to stop me.”
Since the giant was going on what amounted to a one-way mission within the hour there was not much in the way of punishment anyone could do to him if he did any worse than that and everyone present knew it.
“Well, go ahead,” Major Randal said. “Then you’ll have to follow Commander Fleming’s, Ian Fleming’s, original plan, which guarantees we’ll all have supper in hell.”
This was greeted by a long awkward silence.
“No one bloody explained it to us like bloody that,” another of the Commandos piped up cheerfully. “If they bloody well ’ad, we’d ’ave ’ad the bloody royal red carpet all rolled out waitin’ for you like, sir.”
The Commandos in the Luftwaffe uniforms broke into guffaws. Not a pretty sound, but a good sign. Lieutenant Commander Fleming relaxed. It was the only time he had ever heard these hard-case individuals laugh other than when they were talking about killing something.
“We’re not taking any prisoners,” Major Randal said, removing the thick red cravat from around his neck and separating it into the five individual scarves he had borrowed from Captain the Lady Jane Seaborn’s wardrobe maid. He handed one to each Commando and tossed the last to Squadron Leader Wilcox, who was standing off to the side observing the proceedings with a sardonic grin and holding a cocked Walter P-38 behind his back.
“When my Raiders storm the E-boat, we’ll shoot any man not wearing a red scarf.”
There was a murmur of appreciation from the troops. Someone should have thought of that detail before. No one had given one moment of thought to their welfare on this operation prior to the major having arrived. That fact did not pass unnoticed.
“Now listen up: Suicide missions being frowned on in Raiding Forces, we don’t plan any. Every man that goes in comes out. Is that clear?”
“Clear, sir!”
“I’ll see you men on board the prize.”