For educational purposes
Winston Churchill created the Commandos in summer 1940 as a means of striking at the coasts of Nazi Occupied Europe.
Beginning as a mere raiding force, they became the spearhead of the Allied amphibious landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy.
Out of the Commandos evolved Britain's airborne forces, whose feats ranged from the daring Bruneval raid of 1942 to the epic of Arnhem.
Winston Churchill created the Commandos in summer 1940 as a means of striking at the coasts of Nazi Occupied Europe.
Beginning as a mere raiding force, they became the spearhead of the Allied amphibious landings in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy.
Out of the Commandos evolved Britain's airborne forces, whose feats ranged from the daring Bruneval raid of 1942 to the epic of Arnhem.
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LearningTranscript
00:30For
00:58more than four years, the Nazis dominated Europe, but their garrisons could never rest
01:03easy.
01:13For there was always the threat of assault by elite Allied troops, the paras and commanders,
01:18specially formed to take the fight back to Nazi-occupied countries.
01:26Their raids so infuriated Hitler that he ordered that any commandos taken prisoner must be
01:32executed immediately.
01:36But this did not deter them.
01:43The attacks went on.
01:53The actions of these special forces brought hope to people enslaved by the Nazis and played
01:58a vital role in their liberation.
02:10On the 3rd of June, 1940, during the final stages of the evacuation of the British army
02:15from Dunkirk, Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote a memorandum to the chiefs of staff.
02:22He complained of the wholly defensive attitude that had marked the campaign in France and
02:27demanded the formation of raiding forces to attack the coasts of German-occupied Europe.
02:38Within a few days, a call for volunteers to create a force of 5,000 men was circulated
02:43throughout the army.
02:49They were given the name commandos after the highly mobile Boer columns, which had fought
02:54the British for three years in South Africa at the beginning of the century.
03:03At first, the only troops not allowed to volunteer to become commandos were Britain's traditional
03:08sea soldiers, the Royal Marines.
03:13The admiralty needed them on board ship to help man the guns and to protect captured
03:18enemy ports.
03:23Ten units, also to be known as commandos, each of 500 men, were formed.
03:29They came from every regiment and corps in the British army.
03:32Many had fought in France and believed that joining the commandos would give them a quicker
03:36chance to strike back at the Germans.
03:41While the commandos were still forming, the first of Churchill's raids took place.
03:46Two amounted in late June 1940 against the French coast and the Channel Islands, which
03:51had recently been occupied by the Germans.
03:58Neither achieved anything, and Churchill was bitter at their failure to, as he succinctly
04:03put it, kill more Germans.
04:07To overcome the lack of overall direction shown by these early raids, Churchill brought
04:12in Admiral Sir Roger Keyes as director of combined operations.
04:19Keyes had made his name as commander of the Zeebrugge raid on St. George's Day in 1918.
04:25Under heavy German fire, three block ships had sealed the entrance to the canal running
04:29inland to the U-boat base at Bruges.
04:34Churchill instructed Keyes to plan for major raids to be carried out once the threat of
04:38German invasion had receded.
04:47Keyes' staff learned swiftly from previous mistakes.
04:50Much greater target intelligence would be needed.
04:53Inter-service planning and cooperation must be improved.
04:59And above all, the new force must be given better landing capability so that it could
05:04strike anywhere along the coastline of continental Europe.
05:09In addition to demanding more landing craft, three cross-channel ferries were converted
05:13to carry and launch them.
05:18But seaborne raids were not the only method foreseen for deploying the new force.
05:30The British had been very impressed by the German use of paratroops during their invasions
05:35of Norway and Holland.
05:39So No. 2 Commando was turned into an airborne unit and retitled 11th Special Air Service
05:46Battalion.
05:49A course of parachute training with drops from tethered balloons and then converted
05:53Whitley bombers was introduced.
06:04For all the new volunteers, the emphasis was not only on physical fitness and extreme endurance,
06:09but self-reliance and initiative.
06:13As one early volunteer, Sergeant Major George Haynes, later said,
06:18It was an honour, I think, to be a Sergeant Major among such men as these, who were so
06:23highly trained, so disciplined, so self-reliant, and in fact, every man in my troop was fit
06:32to be an NCO.
06:35They not only had to be experts in unarmed combat, but able to use a wide variety of
06:40weapons, including enemy types.
06:47British forces were now heavily engaged in the Mediterranean and North Africa against
06:51the Italians.
06:55So in January 1941, Keyes deployed three commandos for diversionary raids against the island
07:00of Pantelleria and then the Dodecanese.
07:04Meanwhile, the remaining commandos in Britain prepared to mount their first proper raid
07:11against occupied Europe.
07:17The first target selected for the UK-based commandos was the Lofoten Islands off northern
07:22Norway.
07:24Some 600 troops sailed on two of the converted ferries on 4 March 1941.
07:31Their immediate objective was to destroy factories which converted fish oil into glycerine for
07:39munitions.
07:42The force arrived without being spotted by the Germans, and the commandos achieved total
07:46surprise.
07:54As their landing craft went in, they were greeted jubilantly by the local fishing fleet.
08:02They were then held to shore by the islanders.
08:13There was virtually no opposition from the German garrison, and the main ports were quickly
08:18seized.
08:22The fish oil factories and storage tanks were then destroyed.
08:32With the local inhabitants joining in enthusiastically, the commandos then rounded up 60 Norwegian
08:48Nazi sympathizers.
08:51And these were taken off the islands, together with 225 German sailors and troops.
09:02And 315 Norwegian volunteers, who had decided to join their armed forces in Britain.
09:11Among the German prisoners of war were the crew of a trawler, which had a top-secret
09:15Enigma cipher machine on board.
09:18Although the Germans managed to throw the machine overboard, the commandos were able
09:22to seize a spare set of rotors.
09:24This was of invaluable help to the cryptologists at the decoding center at Bletchley Park.
09:32One commando officer could not resist using the local telegraph station to send off a
09:36telegram addressed to A. Hitler, Berlin.
09:39It read,
09:40Reference your last speech. I thought you said that whenever British troops land on
09:44a continent of Europe, German soldiers will face them.
09:48Well, where are they?
09:55Hitler's answer was to garrison a quarter of a million troops in Norway, who could better
10:00have been used elsewhere.
10:10The troops sent to the Middle East did not enjoy such a clear-cut success.
10:15The newly recruited Middle East commandos were used during the capture of the Italian
10:19colony of Eritrea, while the others, known as Leyforce, after their commander, Colonel
10:24Bob Laycock, became involved in attempts to disrupt the Axis supply lines during Rommel's
10:29first offensive, which drove the British out of Libya in the spring of 1941.
10:36Then half of Leyforce was sent to Crete, to cover the British withdrawal after the German
10:40airborne invasion.
10:44The unit was virtually destroyed, and Leyforce subsequently disbanded.
10:55Despite this, fresh commandos and paras continued to be trained in Britain. But a further delay
11:00in their deployment occurred when, in October 1941, Admiral Keyes resigned in protest at
11:06a decision that all future commando operations must be agreed with the Army High Command.
11:12Churchill replaced him as Chief of Combined Operations with Lord Louis Mountbatten, a
11:16cousin of King George VI, and a distinguished destroyer captain.
11:21Mountbatten was determined to keep up the pressure with further large-scale raids. To
11:25tie down the German garrison, it was decided to revisit Norway with an attack on the port
11:30of Vauxhall, accompanied by a diversionary visit to the Lofotens.
11:38The aim was to seize the island of Marløy, opposite the port of Vauxhall, eliminate the
11:42German artillery battery there, and then occupy the port and destroy military and industrial
11:48targets.
11:53A force, including two landing ships carrying some 600 commandos, set sail from the Shetland
11:59Islands on 26 December 1941. They reached their objective the next morning, undetected,
12:06and the commandos began to man the landing craft.
12:21As these set off, the escorting cruiser HMS Kenya fired a salvo of starshells to illuminate
12:27Marløy for a naval bombardment, and to act as a marker for RAF bombers which dropped
12:32smoke bombs to mask the landings.
12:38The Marløy force was led by one of the great characters of the early commandos, Major Mad
12:43Jack Churchill, who went into the assault armed with a broadsword and playing the bagpipes.
12:52Churchill later recorded some of the tunes he played during the assault. His men overran
13:00the island in less than ten minutes.
13:17And, suitably overawed, the German garrison surrendered.
13:25The guns were then turned towards Waxhautau.
13:38For across the water the Germans were resisting fiercely, and bitter house-to-house fighting
13:43raged for most of the morning.
13:48Mortars and high explosives were used to destroy several of the German strongholds.
13:53While the fighting continued in the town, two Royal Navy destroyers took troops to blow
14:15up a fish processing plant on the mainland, and then sank several German ships sheltering
14:20in the channel.
14:32By 1300 hours German resistance had been eliminated, and as the remaining targets were blown up,
14:38the commandos began to retire. They had suffered 17 dead, with 53 wounded, while 120 Germans
14:45were killed, and 98 taken prisoner. Around 100 Norwegian civilians took the opportunity
14:52to leave with the commandos.
14:59Operation Archery, as the Waxhautau raid was codenamed, was a total success, both tactically
15:04and strategically. For the rest of the war, Hitler remained convinced that Norway would
15:09be invaded, and never allowed the garrison to be reduced.
15:19While the commandos had been gaining their first battle honours, Britain's airborne arm
15:24had been retitled the Parachute Regiment, and expanded into a Parachute Brigade and
15:29a Glider Brigade.
15:31The Paris' first important operation took place on the 27th of February, 1942. Led by
15:37Major John Frost, a team of 80 men of the 1st Parachute Battalion dropped at Bruneval
15:43on the French Channel coast.
15:49Their mission was to seize parts of a top-secret German radar installation, so that measures
15:54to jam it could be developed.
15:59It had originally been intended to land commandos on the beach below the radar site, but an
16:04airborne landing seemed to offer a better chance of surprise, and the Paris seized their
16:09opportunity.
16:17The men were deployed in 12 converted Whitley bombers.
16:35The flight to the target went perfectly.
16:43And the men dropped undetected, a little way inland from their objective.
16:53Almost total surprise was achieved, and the radar captured for long enough for vital parts
16:58to be removed for assessment back in Britain.
17:09The raiders were then taken off by motor launch, having lost three killed and seven wounded.
17:22Among their most valuable booty was one of the German radar operators.
17:27The information obtained by the raid played a vital part in enabling RAF Bomber Command
17:32to penetrate the German aerial defences.
17:39Two other significant developments occurred in February, 1942.
17:44The first Royal Marine Commando was formed, and a commando training centre was set up
17:52at Achnacarrie, a country estate in the Scottish Highlands.
18:00For the remainder of the war, all commandos received their basic training there.
18:14The next significant commando raid took place a month later, against the French Atlantic
18:18port of Saint-Nazaire.
18:25The aim was to destroy its dry dock, the only one on the Atlantic seaboard of occupied Europe
18:30large enough to repair major German surface warships.
18:35HMS Campbelltown, a World War I US destroyer which had been transferred to the Royal Navy,
18:41was converted to look like a German vessel.
18:44Packed with explosives, and carrying some 100 commandos, she was to be rammed into the
18:49dock gates.
18:51Once her commandos, together with another 140 carried by motor launches, had gone ashore
18:57to destroy the pumping and winding mechanisms, and been withdrawn by the MLs, the Campbelltown
19:03would be exploded by delayed action fuses.
19:06Amazingly, Campbelltown, accompanied by 16 smaller craft, managed to get within about
19:12two miles of the target before the destroyer was lit up by a searchlight.
19:20She was flying the ensign of the Kriegsmarine, and the Germans hesitated for a few vital
19:25minutes before opening a withering fire.
19:33As commando captain Bob Montgomery later described,
19:38Coming up the Loire in Campbelltown, the fire really was getting very heavy indeed.
19:42It seemed to be coming from all directions at once, and it wasn't very long before the
19:47coxswain on the wheel was killed, and another sailor took his place. He was killed almost
19:51immediately. I, thinking I was the only one there, stepped forward, took the wheel, not
19:57really knowing what I was going to do with it. Luckily, Tibbets, from behind, tapped
20:01me on the shoulder, took the wheel away from me before I could do any damage.
20:06Then the Kriegsmarine ensign was hauled down and replaced by the battle ensign of the Royal
20:10Navy. The Campbelltown went in at 20 knots. She struck the dock at 01.34 hours, just four
20:24minutes behind schedule. Her bow crumpled 36 feet in, lodging the hidden explosives
20:32firmly against the gate. Among the first commandos ashore was the second-in-command, Major Bill
20:41Copeland. Looking at her, it looked as though every gun in the world was firing shot of
20:46one sort or another into her poor battered sides, in the glare of what seemed to be about
20:53six searchlights.
20:59The commandos fanned out across the dock, heading for their objectives.
21:09And now the Germans are going to get a taste of what they've been giving us.
21:16Although wounded before leaving Campbelltown, Lieutenant Stuart Chant led his demolition
21:21team to their target.
21:23This was my objective, the pump house. On the way here, I'd thought about what would
21:28happen if we found a watchman inside, and I decided we'd have to shoot him. We didn't
21:31have the time to mess about. I then went to open the door, and strangely enough, it was
21:36locked. In all our planning, we'd never considered that the door would be locked.
21:41A borrowed sledgehammer quickly solved this, and Chant and his team raced in.
21:49I had a lot of confidence in my chaps. They followed me without a word, each clinging
21:56to each other's rucksack, and we walked away pretty smartly down these stairs. Don't forget,
22:02it was practically completely dark, and got darker as we went on. Nobody said anything.
22:10Each of us went to a pump. I took this pump here, number three, and out of our rucksacks
22:21we took these specially prepared charges. There were eight of them, five pounds in weight,
22:26specially prepared, waterproof, duplicate leads, and they were laid, as planned, into
22:31the most sensitive parts of each pump. Eight charges per pump.
22:38Chant then ordered his men back to the surface. So I pulled the percussion igniter, giving
22:44us 90 seconds to get up those stairs, 40 feet up onto the ground floor, and out of the way
22:48before the whole thing blew up.
22:54As the party emerged, Captain Bob Montgomery spotted them.
22:59Stuart Chant and his team came out through the door, crouched down under the wall, and
23:03I knew they were a bit close, so I moved them back, and it was just as well I did, because
23:07there was a rucksack left here, which was private.
23:12The pump house was totally destroyed, as were the winding machines which opened the lock
23:16gates.
23:30It was now time for the commandos to withdraw to the motor launches, but it soon became
23:34obvious that this would not be possible.
23:46Bob Montgomery had been totally focused on ensuring that the demolition was completed
23:50successfully.
23:53And it was only then, when Stand A drew my attention to the river, where the M.L.s were
23:58burning fiercely, that I realized that the old M.L. was still in German hands, and we
24:04were unlikely to get home.
24:09Faced with this, Colonel Charles Newman, the landing force commander, instructed his men
24:13to fight their way out.
24:17So began what the commandos later called the St. Nazaire Steeplechase.
24:24And then we moved on up side streets, over walls, through hen coops, into glass houses,
24:31through kitchen doors, into roads, saw German armor, and finally, having got ourselves thoroughly
24:40exhausted, having no ammunition left, because we'd had to fight our way through this little
24:45lot, having too much wounded, we finally went to ground.
24:50By daylight the next morning, most of the survivors had been rounded up.
24:56They were taken off to be held in a local restaurant.
25:03The Germans now swarmed over H.M.S. Campbell Tower.
25:07They failed to spot the explosives, and began hunting for souvenirs.
25:13Among the survivors was her captain, Lieutenant Commander Sam Beattie.
25:17Soon after that, I was interrogated by a German who spoke very good English.
25:25He discovered that I'd been in Campbell Town, and he was remarking that it was no good ramming
25:35a stout cassoon like that with a flimsy ship.
25:40At that moment, there was a bang, a very large bang.
25:45In fact, it broke one of the windows in his office.
25:49I was asked no more questions, because he obviously wanted to find out what the bang
25:53was, and I was hoping that I knew what the bang was.
25:57And a ring of cheers went through this restaurant when we heard this terrific explosion, which
26:02could be none other than six tons of ammotol in Campbell Town, going up.
26:10More than 380 Germans were killed, and the dock gate was demolished.
26:14The dock remained out of action for the rest of the war.
26:22For the commandos, Operation Chariot, the raid on St. Nazaire, became known as the greatest
26:28raid of all.
26:30Five Victoria Crosses and 131 other gallantry medals and awards were made following the
26:36raid, and the survivors paraded through the town after the war for the opening of a special
26:41memorial.
26:45In August 1942, Mountbatten mounted another major raid, this time to test the German defences
26:53at the French channel port of Diem.
26:57The main landings were carried out by the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division.
27:07They were a disaster, with few men actually getting off the beaches and into the town
27:11itself.
27:20Numbers 3 and 4 commandos were given an important part in the raid.
27:24They were to silence the coastal batteries situated on each side of the port, and dominating
27:28the approaches.
27:30Peter Young, who was to end the war as commander of a commando brigade at the age of 27, led
27:35the only group from Number 3 Commando to achieve its objective.
27:39Looking out on the outside, I can see there's a big cornfield, and you know how in the army
27:45you're told that two bricks will stop a bullet and things.
27:48I then announced that nine feet of corn would stop a bullet, and my soldiers unfortunately
27:54believed this, or appeared to.
27:56And we then ran out in the cornfield, and we opened a fairly heavy fire, not very rapid
28:02because I was trying to keep down the rate of fire because I hadn't got very much ammunition.
28:06And after a very short time, the Germans turned round the left-hand gun, Number 4, and fired
28:14it straight at us, and there was a bloody great bang, and orange and black smoke came
28:19out of this thing, and it wandered over our heads and burst in a valley somewhere in France
28:26behind us.
28:27I then actually thought, well, what a very good thing, because if they're firing their
28:31guns at us, and missing, they're certainly not firing at the British fleet, and looking
28:36round towards Dieppe, I decided that it would be wise to withdraw because clearly they could
28:45produce tanks or something, and in my cornfield this would be very uncharitable.
28:51On the other flank, Lord Lovatt's Number 4 Commando was more successful.
28:55James Dunning commanded a mortar team.
28:59As soon as the signal came to fire, we opened up with the mortar.
29:04The first one fell a bit to the left, so we adjusted the angle of the mortar, and the
29:09second one went smack into the middle of the battery, and we kept it at that angle.
29:16The next one, the third shot, actually hit the ammunition dump in the battery, and there
29:20was smoke and flames, and we knew we'd stored a bullseye.
29:25Captain Pat Porteous led the charge on the battery itself, and won the Victoria Cross.
29:31What was left of F Troop, I suppose about 50 men, formed up behind a low bank about
29:37100 yards from the actual gun pits.
29:40I gave the order to fix bayonets and charge, and we dashed across this open ground, bullets
29:48coming from all directions, there was no sort of fixed direction where the enemy were, and
29:55we finally got to the guns to find a scene of terrible desolation.
30:01The first gun that I reached was the one in which Lewis Roberts' mortar bomb had landed,
30:08and there were bodies all over the place, and an awful shambles.
30:13The success of the commandos was the only bright spot in an otherwise black day.
30:20Their attack included the first action of the newly formed U.S. Rangers, 50 of whom
30:25fought with the commandos.
30:35Alongside the major raids, the commandos continued with pinprick attacks on the coasts of occupied
30:41Western Europe.
30:44During one of these on the Channel Islands in early October 1942, German troops were
30:49tied up to prevent them from escaping.
30:53This enraged Hitler, who issued his notorious Commando Order.
30:58Any commandos captured, whether in uniform or not, were to be summarily executed.
31:05The first victims of this were glider-borne engineers sent to attack the Norsk Hydro heavy
31:10water plant at Vermork, Norway, on the 19th of November 1942.
31:17The heavy water was vital to Germany's development of an atomic bomb, but the two gliders and
31:22their bomber tugs both crashed.
31:26Fourteen men, six of them badly injured, survived one of the crashes.
31:31After the briefest of interrogations, they were shot by a German firing squad.
31:40In spite of this new danger, both the commandos and the paras were expanding as they developed
31:45a new role.
31:48This was the support of amphibious landings.
31:52Number Five Commando was involved in the assault in May 1942 to occupy the Vichy French-held
31:58island of Madagascar, and in November, both paras and commandos took part in the torch
32:04landings in northwest Africa.
32:11It was during the subsequent Tunisian campaign that the aggressive patrolling of the paras
32:18led the Germans to call them the Red Devils, after the colour of their berets.
32:24Both paras and commandos were used to spearhead the landings in Sicily and Italy, and a new
32:29theatre opened for them in August 1943, when Mountbatten was appointed Supreme Allied Commander,
32:36Southeast Asia.
32:38He soon requested commandos to be sent out, and 3rd Special Service Brigade arrived in
32:43India in early 1944.
32:46This was to take part in a series of landings designed to outflank the Japanese during the
32:50Allied advance in Burma.
32:56Back in Britain, Bob Laycock, who had taken the commandos to the Middle East in early
33:001941, had succeeded Mountbatten as Commander of Combined Operations.
33:07The emphasis was now on preparing for D-Day, and as part of the build-up, a number of cross-channel
33:13reconnaissance raids were carried out, many by the French troops of the Inter-Allied Commando
33:18which had been recruited from troops from German-occupied countries.
33:31The plan for D-Day itself was for the 6th's Airborne Division to be dropped on the left
33:35flank of the landing area, while the American 82nd and 101st Airborne secured the right
33:41flank. The two commando brigades would land on the British beaches, with the majority
33:47concentrating on Sword, so as to link up with the paras. Not until they were in their sealed
33:52camps were the paras and commandos briefed on their detailed objectives. And on the evening
33:57of the 5th of June, the paras climbed into their transports and gliders. BBC reporter
34:03Richard Nimbleby was with them.
34:05Taking off from here, loaded with parachutists, and taking with it perhaps the hopes and the
34:09fears and the prayers of millions of people in this country, who sleep tonight not knowing
34:14that this mighty operation is taking place. There she goes now, the first aircraft leading
34:19the attack on Europe.
34:23The vast air armada crossed the French coast.
34:28Soon the green lights came on and the first paras began to drop.
34:34D-Day had begun.
34:41Major John Howard and his glider-borne company had the most challenging task.
34:47They had to seize and hold two vital bridges spanning the River Orne and the Caen Canal
34:53on the extreme left flank of the invasion beaches.
34:58The gliders swooped in towards John Howard's particular target, the bridge over the Caen
35:03Canal, which was to be immortalised as Pegasus Bridge.
35:08Say you're sitting facing one another, you link arms, you do a butcher's grip like that,
35:15you lift your legs, you just pray to God. And before we almost had time to do that,
35:23there was the first thump of a landing.
35:28I stepped out of that glider, I looked up and 50 yards away from me was the tower of
35:35that bridge. And not only that, but the nose of the glider was right through the wire defences
35:41round the enemy post, where I'd asked the glider pilots, not thinking for one moment
35:49they'd be able to do it, number one glider must go through that wire.
35:54The German defenders were totally surprised and quickly overwhelmed.
36:02But now came the task of holding Pegasus Bridge and that over the River Orne until
36:08the commandos could relieve them. The paras dug in.
36:17With the dawn came the seaborne landings, the commandos among the first waves.
36:24Lord Lovett's men swiftly reached John Howard on Pegasus Bridge. Among them was Ken Fillett.
36:30Lord Lovett remarked, sorry we're late chaps. I looked at my watch and that, according
36:36to my watch, we were two minutes late. And when one thinks that that particular thing
36:43was planned in England many, many weeks ago, not knowing what opposition we would encounter
36:49and the fact that we had covered something like ten miles and we were only two minutes
36:54late in linking up with the paras, I think was rather fantastic.
37:01For the next two months the commandos and paras remained in the line, holding the left
37:06flank of the Allied beachhead against numerous German attacks.
37:12Only when the Allies broke out of Normandy in mid-August and began their lightning advance
37:16across northern France were the commandos and paras finally brought back to Britain
37:21to refit. But they would both soon face fresh challenges.
37:28For overstretched supply lines brought the Allies to a halt in September 1944, and Field
37:33Marshal Montgomery proposed a daring airborne operation to break the stalemate.
37:39He wanted to outflank Germany's main natural obstacle in the west, the River Rhine, by
37:44capturing a series of bridges over waterways in Holland.
37:51The US 101st Airborne Division would drop north of Eindhoven and the 82nd in the Nijmegen
37:57area. Finally, the British 1st Airborne Division, reinforced by the Polish Independent Parachute
38:04Brigade, would seize the final bridge, that over the lower Rhine at Arnhem.
38:09A ground force, British XXX Corps, would simultaneously advance and relieve the paras
38:16in turn.
38:21The paras were only given six days in which to plan and prepare for the operation.
38:27Nevertheless, every man was convinced that they were about to strike a war-winning blow,
38:32unaware of some of the concerns of their commandos.
38:35The RAF insisted that to avoid anti-aircraft fire, the landings must take place eight miles
38:40from the target bridges.
38:44It was hoped that the jeeps, which would be landed by glider, would enable the paras to
38:48get there quickly.
38:53The paras could only take light weapons with them. Should they run into heavy German opposition,
38:58they would have problems unless the ground forces reached them quickly.
39:02As the plans were being finalized, intelligence reports were received that German armoured
39:06units had arrived in the Arnhem area to refit. The reports were discounted, and it was decided
39:12that the landings must go ahead.
39:14Also, there was not sufficient airlift for the whole division, and it would have to be
39:18landed in three waves.
39:22Nevertheless, morale was high, as the divisional commander, Major General Roy Urquhart, wished
39:27his men well on the morning of Sunday, the 17th of September.
39:32Operation Market Garden was underway.
39:46The advance troops of the British 6th Airborne Division landed some eight miles north of
39:51Arnhem during the early afternoon.
39:53There was no sign of the enemy.
39:55Landing zones for follow-up troops were established, and the paras began to push forward towards
40:00Arnhem.
40:08But they were delayed by enthusiastic Dutch civilians,
40:13and by the destruction of many of the gliders containing their jeeps.
40:16The intelligence reports proved correct.
40:18Two SS panzer divisions were refitting in the area, and they reacted quickly.
40:23The paras were soon forced onto the defensive.
40:30Then, in confused fighting near the town, General Urquhart, the divisional commander,
40:35was pinned down, and cut off from his troops by the enemy.
40:39Then, in confused fighting near the town, General Urquhart, the divisional commander,
40:44was pinned down, and cut off from his troops by the enemy.
40:50By evening, Colonel John Frost of the 2nd Parachute Battalion, with about a hundred
40:54of his men, had managed to seize the northern end of one of the target bridges.
41:02But then Frost realized that they could get no further.
41:05A company tried to get across with one platoon, but when they were well up onto the bridge,
41:16I'm not exactly sure, but past that sort of pillboxing there, accurate fire was brought
41:22to bear from a vehicle, an armoured car on the far side.
41:26Well, you're terribly vulnerable, as you know, on a bridge like that, and the bullets
41:30rattling down the road, and they have very heavy casualties almost straight away.
41:34Further attempts to seize the bridge were fruitless, and Frost and his men dug in.
41:45Tragically, amid the wreckage of a crashed glider, the Germans had found details of the
41:50plan to land follow-up forces the next day.
41:55They were waiting, and the men of 4th Parachute Brigade suffered terribly.
42:00They were also pinned down before reaching their comrades.
42:04The men at Arnhem now depended on the ground advance, which had already relieved the US
42:10paratroops at Eindhoven.
42:14But thereafter, German resistance increased, and the advance slowed.
42:23Because of fog, it was not until day four of Operation Market Garden that the Polish
42:28Parachute Brigade was able to drop at Arnhem to reinforce the British paratroops.
42:34Unfortunately, they were landed on the wrong side of the lower Rhine, and only a few were
42:39able to get across to Arnhem itself.
42:44The British paras were suffering increasing casualties as the German pressure grew.
42:51Many of the supplies needed to sustain them fell into German hands.
42:57Supply aircraft were shot down in increasing numbers, but still the British and Polish
43:02paras fought on.
43:07The ground advance eventually reached the lower Rhine, but by then the paras at Arnhem
43:11were on their last legs.
43:15They were ordered to break out, but only some 2,000 of the 10,000 men who dropped at
43:20Arnhem were able to do so.
43:23The remainder were dead or had been forced to surrender.
43:27Montgomery's gamble had failed, but the courage and tenacity of the Red Devils
43:31had been of the highest order.
43:38The Allies now realized that their supply situation could only be eased if they opened
43:42up the Belgian port of Antwerp.
43:45This meant clearing the River Scheldt, especially the island of Valkeren at its mouth.
43:51The plan was for three Royal Marine Commandos to land on the west coast of the island to
43:55subdue the formidable German coastal batteries, while No. 4 Commando, supported by
44:00an infantry brigade, crossed from Breskins to secure Flushing.
44:07The landings took place on the 1st of November, 1944.
44:14During the run-in, a number of landing craft were hit by shellfire.
44:21Nevertheless, the Commandos got ashore and began the task of subduing the coastal guns.
44:30Meanwhile, No. 4 Commando was fighting its way through Flushing.
44:39The German resistance was intense, and every street had to be cleared in savage,
44:43hand-to-hand fighting.
44:48It was ten days before the German Commander finally surrendered.
45:00Both paras and commandos were in action when the Allies finally crossed the River Rhine
45:06in March, 1945.
45:086th Airborne Division, together with American paratroops, dropping on the east bank.
45:15They landed in the German gun lines, and although they suffered casualties,
45:19the paras totally disrupted the German defense.
45:30In contrast to Arnhem, the ground forces led by the Commandos
45:34quickly linked up with the paras.
45:40Thereafter, they took part in the final advance through Germany.
45:52The paras' last job of the war was the liberation of Norway,
45:56and the disarming of the large German garrison stationed there.
46:00The Red Berets
46:08Both the Red Berets of the Parachute Regiment and the Green Berets
46:12of the Commandos fulfilled Churchill's wish in summer 1940
46:16for lightly equipped mobile forces to act like packs of hounds.
46:22They displayed courage and resilience in every theater of World War II.
46:30The Red Berets
46:36The same unquenchable spirit has continued to be shown in the years since 1945
46:41by their descendants, today's Royal Marine Commandos and the Parachute Regiment.
46:47Both units fought epic battles during the Falklands War
46:51and were the first troops into Port Stanley, the capital.
46:54Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:00Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:30Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:35Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:41Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:46Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:51Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.
47:55Like their forebears in World War II, they were true gladiators.