Remembering the heroes of Bordeaux, December 1942
Operation Frankton and the Cockleshell Heroes
Later this week a group of people, mainly French but with a smattering of Britons, many of whom will be the descendants of those who took part, will gather in Bordeaux to remember the tremendous bravery of the small group of Royal Marines who set off from HMS Tuna to attack German shipping in the Gironde in December 1942. It is amazing that this extraordinary event – one of those crazy, desperate raids launched by an embattled Britain in the darkest days of the war, long before the prospect of victory in Europe could even be remotely conceived – is still remembered today. But it is, and increasingly so by Frenchmen and women who recognise in this remarkable story the beginning of their own rescue from the dark night of Nazi terror that had stamped its hobnailed boots so bloodily over Europe in 1940. Perhaps in a small way the resolute determination of the Cockleshell Heroes in 1942 reminds them, as it should also do us, of the need to remain alert in our own day to the  precious and hard won jewel of democratic liberty and freedom.
On Sunday 11 December it will be M. Pierre Hurmic, the Maire de Bordeaux, M. Dominique Orignac,  Président du sport athlétique mérignacais and M. Jean-Claude Déranlot, Président de l’association Opération Frankton Histoire et Valeurs, who will lead the celebrations to remember the extraordinary valour of ten young Britons – eight of whom made the ultimate sacrifice – eighty years ago, to help free France from Nazi serfdom.
Sadly, I will not be able to join the pilgrimage to Bordeaux this year, though I hope to take a group out in October 2023 with www.tripsmiths: watch this space for further announcements.
Meanwhile, another expedition to retrace the steps of their forebears eight decades ago is getting underway as we speak: do support https://www.facebook.com/Cockleshell22 if you can.
I have given a couple of talks on the subject of Operation Frankton recently, produced with Dan Hill and his wonderful team of battlefield guiding experts, which can be watched here: https://battleguide.co.uk/product/on-demand-tour-cockleshell-heroes-operation-frankton-1942/
What was the raid all about? Its a remarkable story of derring-do, in which a dozen men in homemade plywood canoes set out to enter the Gironde estuary in the middle of winter to attack German ships at harbour in Bordeaux.
But the back story to the raid is bizarre. What desperation had led Britain’s war leaders to authorise such a hazardous enterprise, deep into the heart of enemy territory more than three years into the war? What possible hope was there that a few hardy men in canoes might contribute positively to the outcome of what was now, since the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Japanese declaration of war in December, a global conflagration? In 1942 there was very little that Britain could do to counter the staggering military might of the three Axis powers and indeed the prospect that she would ultimately fail and be swallowed up by the aggressor, remained very real. It was a time of relentlessly bad news and it was desperation which led to the authorisation of a series of hazardous do-or-die commando enterprises against the enemy's coastal flank, in 1942.
The capture of Bordeaux in 1940 was of considerable significance to Germany as it provided an ideal refuge for U Boats as well as fast surface freighters, which could scuttle out to hide themselves in the vast reaches of the neighbouring oceans. The fact that the port of Bordeaux lies some sixty-two miles inland inside the Gironde estuary meant it was considered safe from anything but aerial attack. In an attempt to starve Germany of supplies from abroad that would assist its war economy, the British government formally instituted a blockade of French ports, effectively closing them to neutral shipping in 1940.
London had decided that a bombing raid against the Bordeaux docks to remove the present scourge would risk too many innocent French lives. On 8 December 1940, for instance, an RAF raid on the Italian submarines moored in the harbour caused sixteen civilian deaths and sixty-seven other casualties. Uncomfortable with the prospect of sustaining what would now be described as collateral damage, they determined that it was a job calling for skill and courage of a type different from that which entailed flying for many hours across enemy skies in thin, combustible tin coffins, and gave the task to an organisation called Combined Operations, led by the flamboyant Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten. The attack would be instead a rapier thrust from the sea using canoe-borne raiders.
So it was that in December 1942 twelve Royal Marines set out to launch their flimsy, collapsible plywood and canvas canoes (codenamed ‘Cockles’) from a Royal Navy submarine - HMS Tuna - in the Bay of Biscay. The mission was highly risky. Mountbatten did not expect any of the Marines to return and in this respect there is no doubt that it was a suicide mission. What no one in Britain knew at the time was that Operation Frankton had suddenly become doubly dangerous. On 18 October that year Hitler issued his notorious commando order, instructing that henceforth any and all captured British ‘commandos’ be executed without mercy. The Royal Marines had expected that, if they were captured, their uniforms, badges of rank and obvious military training and organisation would provide sufficient defence against the possibility of being mistaken and shot as spies, the traditional threat faced by soldiers fighting behind enemy lines. They did not know that a brutal new dimension had been brought to the business of warfare by a German leader enraged by the success of British commando raids across the western flanks of the Nazi empire in 1941 and 1942, raids which included St Nazaire in February and Dieppe in August. The chances of a dozen Royal Marines overcoming the physical and military challenges involved in penetrating the defences of Bordeaux, exploding their anti-ship mines and escaping without capture, were extremely slim. With the signing of Hitler's Commando Order their chances of surviving, were they to be captured, had now been reduced to zero.
But in the face of these odds, and despite the deaths of eight men, several to judicial murder at the hands of the Nazi state, the raid succeeded in its aims. It is a story of courage and bravery, certainly. It’s a story of determination to achieve a goal in the face of unrelenting and seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s a story of commitment, perseverance and doggedness. Its one of those stories that continues to inspire because it was undertaken at the darkest of times, when the prospects for victory in a long war looked unlikely. And for French people today, eighty years on, it reminds them of the personal sacrifices men (and women) from across the sea were prepared to undertake to achieve the rescue of a continent from slavery.
Was it worth it? Blondie Hasler and Bill Sparks, the two survivors, who reached home via Spain, always averred that it was.
So, although I will not be there in person on 11 October, my heart will be with the small crowd at the memorial at Le Verdon where, heads bowed and hatless, Â a largely French crowd will give thanks for the foretaste of freedom that Operation Frankton offered occupied Europe so long ago.
If you want to learn more, its not too late to pick up a copy of my book from the internet prior to Christmas https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Suicide-Remarkable-Story-Cockleshell/dp/0857382403/
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A remarkable story of courage, fortitude, and stamina.