Western Europe · United Kingdom vs Germany
St Nazaire raid
28 March 1942
Operation Chariot rammed the obsolete destroyer Campbeltown, packed with delayed-action explosives, into the gates of the Normandie dry dock, the only Atlantic dock able to take Tirpitz. Commandos destroyed dock machinery. Of 611 men, 169 were killed and 215 captured; five Victoria Crosses were awarded.
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— Chariot
The old destroyer Campbeltown, cut down to look like a German torpedo boat and carrying four and a quarter tons of explosive in her bow, runs up the Loire on a spring tide with sixteen motor launches, a gunboat and a torpedo boat. She is challenged and fired on at close range for the last four minutes, and at 01:34 rams the caisson of the Normandie dock at twenty knots. The commandos wreck the pumping and winding gear; almost all the launches are shot to pieces on the way out, and 169 of the 611 men are killed. At noon the charges go off with the German inspection party aboard, and the only dry dock on the Atlantic coast that could take Tirpitz is out of use for the rest of the war.
