AFTER A FINAL BRIEFING AT SEABORN HOUSE AT 0400 HOURS, attended by all personnel participating in Operation Ruthless, the MGB 345 set sail. Just before sunrise the Walruses passed overhead in single file en route to taking up their stations. Almost immediately, one of the pilots spotted an E-boat leaving harbor on the French side of the Channel
A coordinate was passed to MGB 345. Commander Richard Seaborn huddled under the lantern over the radar set, studied the screen, and announced, “Target acquired.”
Lieutenant Randy “Hornblower” Seaborn ordered a course change to the azimuth indicated by the radar contact. The sleek motor gunboat heeled over and powered on the compass bearing “Full Speed Ahead.”
Squadron Leader Paddy Wilcox roared into the predawn sky and aimed the Heinkel 111 in the direction of the German E-boat. His passengers on board, the four German-speaking Commandos, were now covered in buckets of fresh chicken blood and wearing Lady Seaborn’s bright scarlet scarves prominently around their necks.
“Ten minutes to target,” Lieutenant Seaborn announced.
“Stand by Raiding Party,” Major John Randal ordered.
The Walruses began converging to establish an aerial screen designed to isolate the E-boat.
The MGB 345 was pounding like a greyhound toward the German radar contact located out of sight over the horizon.
The Heinkel 111 screamed low overhead, rocking its wings. Then Squadron Leader Wilcox activated the smoke bomb attached to the tail of the fuselage, and dark black smoke started billowing out in a thick stream behind the German bomber.
“Enemy in sight,” Lieutenant Seaborn read out, cool as ice.
“Lock and load,” Major Randal commanded.
The Walrus that had made the initial contact with the E-boat turned in toward it and lined up to make a gun run on the enemy craft.
“Prepare for impact!” Squadron Leader Wilcox announced over the intercom to the Commandos.
The Heinkel was streaking straight as an arrow at the German E-boat. The W/T operator urgently started calling “Mayday, Mayday” in German.
“Bloody fantastic,” Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming shouted exuberantly observing the action through a powerful pair of binoculars. “The Heinkel managed to clip the radio antenna clean off the E-boat with its wing. That pilot of yours is a maniac!”
“Three minutes,” Lieutenant Seaborn called.
After clobbering the antenna, the Heinkel careened past the E-boat. The Kriegsmarine crew could be seen standing on the deck looking up in awe as it sailed over. Then Squadron Leader Wilcox made a tight turn, streaming black smoke, came back around, and headed toward the German craft. He flashed his landing lights and brought the bomber in for a belly landing within one hundred yards of the air-sea rescue boat.
The pilot of the Walrus lined up on the E-boat began his attack run. The two Vickers machine guns began hammering. A stream of bullets splintered the deck of the German boat.
Squadron Leader Wilcox and the Commandos wasted no time abandoning ship. The Heinkel was going down like a rock. The five men made it out of the bomber but had trouble getting into the small rubber raft in the swell. The German sailors were lowering a net for them to use to climb aboard the E-boat, but the crew scattered when the craft suddenly came under aerial attack from the Walrus.
“Commence firing,” Lieutenant Seaborn ordered his gunners as the 345 pounded toward the E-boat, closing rapidly. The volume of fire was staggering. MGBs packed almost the firepower of a small destroyer. Every weapon converged on the E-boat, and it appeared to blur in a hail of tracers, shot as full of holes as a cheese shredder.
The Walrus pilot bore in on his attack run, hammer down on the firing button. This was his first attack mission. His normal duties were to serve as the aid to a flag officer. Today in the cockpit, with an enemy in his sights, he reverted to the warrior he had trained to be. His fangs came out, his eyes narrowed, his pulse slowed, and against all orders he toggled his pair of 250-pound bombs. Fortunately both bombs missed; the last thing anyone wanted was to actually sink the patrol craft before it could be boarded. But they hit close enough to lift the stern of the E-boat completely out of the water, and when it slammed violently back down, the impact broke the crankshaft. Unfortunately the concussion also swamped the rubber raft that the Commandos and Squadron Leader Wilcox had just managed to board.
The German E-boat was dead in the water, but the little ship was not toothless. The starboard antiaircraft gunner, though a badly shaken sailor, promptly shot the attacking Walrus out of the sky.
The MGB 345 roared to within fifty yards of the E-boat, with all organic weapons blazing. The first Walrus had crashed a short distance away, and another Walrus was lining up to make a gun run, while yet another swooped in to rescue the crew of the downed floatplane.
Major Randal ordered, “Let ’er rip.” On his command, every one of the ten men in the assault party, plus the four men of the reserve team and the two licensed-to-kill bodyguards, raised his Thompson submachine gun as planned and emptied a magazine into the E-boat point-blank. Then the Raiders quickly changed magazines and stood by ready to board.
Lieutenant Seaborn drove toward the E-boat at full power. His father, Commodore Seaborn, turned to look at him in alarm; they were in imminent peril of ramming. At the last possible second, the young skipper made a hard turn to port and sang out, “All astern, full.”
The MGB 345 laid up against the E-boat amidships in a controlled crash.
“Boarding party away—follow me,” Major Randal shouted, leaping onto the flush deck of the enemy ship and firing his Thompson from the hip.
The Raiders crossed over and boarded the E-boat in a single bound then exploded out in all directions. The men blasted their way to their assigned objectives screaming Comanche yells, Highland war cries, and other improvised screams at the top of their lungs. Surprise was complete. The Germans were overwhelmed. Too many things were happening to them at once.
Major Randal and Corporal Jack Merritt headed for the bridge. Firing on the move, with their Thompsons locked against their shoulders, the two gunned down the E-boat’s captain and his executive officer and chopped the bridge into matchsticks in a hail of .45-caliber slugs as big around as cigars.
All over the E-boat the Raiders raced to carry out their individual assignments. The dead and dying German crew littered the deck. There was very little resistance.
Squadron Leader Wilcox and the Commandos finally arrived on board the E-boat. Straightaway the pseudo-Nazis ripped off their German blouses. They were not taking any chances, red scarf or not. Raiding Forces were on a rampage.
“Had to show off,” Major Randal said to a thoroughly soaked Squadron Leader Wilcox when he reported to the bridge, “didn’t you?”
“We did not want the Hun to be sending out radio signals,” the rotund pilot replied with water dripping from his black eye patch. “Now did we, Major?”
“Well, you made sure of that.”
Minutes after the attack began, the two civilians in Royal Navy uniform were escorted aboard the E-boat by Sergeant Mike “March or Die” Mikkalis and Royal Marine Butch Hoolihan. They proceeded directly to the radio compartment. Once there the two began disconnecting the Enigma machine.
Lieutenant “Pyro” Percy Stirling, the legendary exploder of lighthouses, came aboard with Private Ned Pompatus, each man lugging oversized Bergen packs stuffed with guncotton. Lieutenant Stirling had orders to blow the E-boat into the Kingdom Come. The only problem was he didn’t know how he was going to do it, exactly. E-boats ran on nonexplosive diesel, not gasoline or the acetylene that went up so dramatically at the lighthouse during Operation Tomcat.
Lieutenant Stirling disappeared belowdecks while Private Pompatus repaired to the torpedo tubes mounted on the bow. Lieutenant Stirling had decided to blow the diesel tanks in hopes that diesel would spark off within a confined space. He likewise hoped that the explosion would detonate the torpedoes and obliterate the ship. An aerial bombing of a ship at sea was too uncertain for this critical mission. Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone came up on deck and announced, “Loot secured.”
“Move it to the 345,” Major John Randal ordered. “Nice job, Terry.”
Sergeant Mikkalis and Royal Marine Hoolihan trooped by on their way back to the MGB, their wards in tow. Major Randal called out, “Get me a headcount, Sergeant Mikkalis.”
When everyone was off the E-boat and Sergeant Mike “March or Die” Mikkalis reported a “good count,” Major John Randal shouted down into the engine room. “Light it off, Percy!”
Lieutenant “Pyro” Percy Stirling set the five-minute time fuses and burst on deck shouting, “Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole!” He jumped onto the MGB, followed closely by Major Randal, the last Raider off the E-boat.
The 345 thundered toward Seaborn House, kicking up a big rooster’s tail in her wake as she executed that age-old military maneuver known popularly in Raiding Forces as “getting the hell out of Dodge.” Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone and Major Randal sat cross-legged on the stern cradling their Thompson submachine guns. Captain Stone produced a couple of Players from his sterling silver cigarette case that they lit with Major Randal’s battered 26th Cavalry Regiment Zippo.
“You know what the loot was we went to all this trouble to obtain, old stick?”
“No.”
“A typewriter.”
“Really?”
Behind them the charges on the E-boat cooked off with a loud crack, then a massive explosion, followed by a shockwave that rocked the motor gunboat, causing the Raiders and sailors to shout in surprise. A fat gray column of smoke with a mushroom-shaped top magically appeared where the German craft had been an instant before. The men on the 345 cheered. Apparently diesel fuel in a confined space did have explosive powers.
Once again Lieutenant Stirling had delivered a masterpiece. The Raiders began chanting “Pyro, Pyro, Pyro . . .”
“A typewriter,” Major Randal said. “You’re sure about that?”
“Too true,” Captain Stone drawled. “Electric model.”
The Raiders did not enjoy the heroes’ welcome they had experienced after Operation Tomcat. No crowd of dignitaries, beautiful women, or Marine band greeted the 345 when she pulled into her berth at Seaborn House. A staff car was waiting to whisk the loot to Bletchley Park, a pair of stone-faced, Tommy-gun–toting Royal Marines standing on the running boards. Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming piled into the car, clutching the canvas bag with the loot inside, and roared off to Bletchley Park.
Rear Admiral John Godfrey personally conducted the debriefing of the mission in Seaborn House immediately after the Raiders disembarked from the MGB 345. It was short and to the point.
“Now here this, gentlemen. What took place today never happened,” Rear Admiral Godfrey bellowed at the group of pilots, sailors, Commandos, and Raiders assembled. “Forget this raid. Erase it from your minds. Discussion of Operation Ruthless is a violation of the Official Secrets Act and any breach, however minor, will be prosecuted vigorously.”
The officers and men in the room sat completely silent, most of them looking down at their boots. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off. Post-mission wind-down was starting to set in. Nevertheless, they were a happy bunch.
“Having said that,” the admiral continued, “your country owes you a great debt, one it can never adequately repay. You men have performed an invaluable service for King and Empire, greater than you will ever know. Much of intelligence value was gained by your efforts. More’s the pity, since you shall never be given official credit for it, not in this lifetime.
“Unfortunately,” he lied, “the specific item we were looking for was not, I say again NOT, on board the E-boat.”
“You reckon,” Captain Terry “Zorro” Stone leaned over and whispered to Major John Randal, “Godfrey simply felt the need of a new electric typewriter for his personal secretary? Fleming says he has an eye for the skirt; even gave the order at NID recently to only hire the pretty Wrens on the grounds they keep secrets better.”
“If a typewriter’s what the man was after,” Major Randal said, “we sure as hell kidnapped it for him.”