3rd 4th Oct 1942

[antarmike]

On the night of 3 October–4 October 1942 ten men of the Special Operations Executive's Small Scale Raiding Force, and No.12 Commando, landed on Sark with the object of offensive reconnaissance and capturing prisoners. (Operation Basalt)

 

Nine of the raiders broke into the house of a local while the tenth went to a covert rendezvous with an SOE agent. The occupant of the house, Frances Pittard, proved very informative and advised there were about 20 Germans in the nearby Dixcart Hotel.

 

In front of the hotel was a long hut-type building, apparently unguarded. This annexe comprised a corridor and five rooms wherein were five sleeping Germans, none found to be officers. The men were roused and taken outside whereafter the Commandos decided to go on to the hotel and capture more of the enemy.

 

While this was being undertaken, one prisoner started shouting to alert those in the hotel and was instantly shot dead with a .38 revolver. The enemy now alerted, incoming fire from the hotel became considerable and the raiders elected to return to the beach with the remaining four prisoners. En route, three prisoners made a break. Two were believed shot and one stabbed. The fourth was conveyed safely back to England and provided a mine of information.

[antarmike]

The next "small scale raid" on Sark was an attempt in 1990 to take it over!!!

In 1990 an unemployed French nuclear physicist named André Gardes attempted a singlehanded invasion of Sark, armed with a semi-automatic weapon. The night Gardes arrived he put up some signs declaring his intention to take over the island the following day at noon. He was arrested by the Island's part time police officer while sitting on a bench, changing the gun's magazine, whilst he waited for noon to arrive.

[antarmike]

18th October 1942 , the "Commando order" issued by Adolf Hitler. It seems to be a direct response to the Sark raid.

 

The Commando Order was a secret order that stated that all commandos found in Europe and Africa should be killed immediately, even if in uniform or if they attempted to surrender. Any commando or small group of commandos or a similar unit, agents, and saboteurs not in uniform, who fell into the hands of the German military forces by some means other than direct combat (through the police in occupied territories, for instance) were to be handed over immediately to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD or Nazi security service). The order made it clear that failure to carry out these orders by any commander or officer would be considered to be an act of negligence punishable under German military law.

 

Shortly after World War II, at the Nuremberg Trials, the Commando Order was found to be a direct breach of the laws of war, and German officers who carried out illegal executions under the Commando Order were found guilty of a war crime.

[Tony B]

The other result of this pointless excersise, on a target with absolutley no military or stratigic value, to assuage Churchill's frenzy to do something.

 

The operation was lead by a Major J.G. Appelyard, consirting of 12 officers and men, also a Dane named Anders Larsen. After landing and talking to a local widow being informed that troops were billited in the Dixcart hotel, they went to the hotel, where according to there report (Inaccurate!) the raiders encountered five germans, killed four , captured one and returend to the boats at 3:45 am with their prisoner, meeting no opposition.

 

The German inquest into the raid revealed that 1) The harbour gaurd had reported hearing a motor boat. 2) The duty Officer di nothing about this, nor did he report the matter to the Inselkommandant. 3) By leaving the men at the hotel he had neglected a recent order that the men should ahve ben billited in strongpoints. Feild Marshall Von Rundstedt was incandesent with anger pointing out that the raid had only succeded because the orders had been disobeyed.

 

Footprints showed the raiders had landed approximatley sixteen men, at Pont chateau where there was no defence post, because of the steep cliffs. There were mines, but the raiders had found a way through. It was deduced that the men must have local knowledge of tides and terrain. An oficer and four men of a Pionner unit were overpowered, as they slept, and bound then led away. They tried to esacpe and were shot and stabbed, two privates were wounded, one later dying of wounds, one got away, the fourth was presumed taken to England. The escapee, Obergefreiter Klotz was presented with a watch in February 1944 in recognition of his bravery in escaping.

 

The raid was considered important enough to report the matter to the OKW. General Warlimont, summarized the findings, and suggested that the raiders had ben in contact with agents on Sark, though there were none.

Hitler read the summary and spotted that the the prisoner's hands had beeen tied.

He linked this to tied hands during the Dieppe Raid, and on the 8th October ordered fourteen hundred Allied prisoners to be shackled.

 

The British then published a report on the raid, at first denying that prisoner's hands had been bound. and that the raid had discovered deportations from the Islands to forced labour camps.

 

On the 10th October the Canadian goverment ordered the same number of German prisoners shackled. Then in a complete reversal the British goverment admitted the the issue of an unathorised order to tie hands at Dieppe to prevent them from destroying papers, the order had been countermanded.

 

In Sark the prisoners had ben bound mearly so that thier arms could be linked to the captors. When they escaped they were shot to prevent them raising the alarm.

 

The whole fiasco was partly responsible for the 'Commando Order'- 'In future, all terror and sabotage troops of the British and thier accomplices, who do not act like soldiers but rather like bandits, will be treated as such by the German troops and will be ruthlessley eliminated in battle, wherever they appear'.

 

There was also a second wave of civillian deportations from the Island's, including the two ladies who owned the Dixcart hotel, they died in concentration camps.

Churchill is not looked upon as a hero by many in the islands.

Edited October 18, 2008 by Tony B