The current HMS Campbeltown is the second of that name in the Royal Navy. Today’s ship (pictured) is a Royal Navy frigate – F86 -a Type 22 built by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead. She was one of the third batch of Type 22s, significantly bigger than their predecessors and incorporating the more advanced weaponry seen as necessary from the sharp lessons learned in the Falklands War.

Between 2007 and 2008, HMS Campbeltown was in the Persian Gulf, operating in support of Operation Telic – a standing name for all British operations from the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and afterwards, including the ongoing conflict in that theatre of war. In September 2008 she went in for a refit.

Her ship’s bell is the key to two matters of historical interest. One is a heroic World War II naval raid. The other is one of Scotland’s many rich cultural links from the diaspora and celebrated during our Homecoming Argyll series.

The first HMS Campbeltown was a destroyer given to the Royal Navy by the US Navy as part of the 1940 ‘lend lease’ Destroyers for Bases Agreement (and it’s worth following this link and reading the details of the agreement). Prior to her handing over the the Royal navy under this agreement, Campbeltown had been the  USS Buchanan (pictured in Panama in 1936). 

This earlier HMS Campbeltown is famous for her role in the St. Nazaire Raid and, since at the time of that raid in 1942, she was described as ‘obsolete’, it would suggest that the British bases were a pretty good exchange for the elderly destroyers the Americans handed over when the UK was on her knees. The Destroyers for Bases arrangement was agreed in September 2, 1940, as the Battle of Britain raged in the skies over England.

The successful British seaborne raid on the heavily defended dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France in World War II – also known as Operation Chariot – has been called ‘the greatest raid of all’.

This operation was carried out by commandos from Royal Navy and Army units  working under Louis Mountbatten‘s Combined Operations. This itself is an additional link to Argyll – host to the first British military experiments in getting the UK’s various armed services – and sometimes involving units and battalions from allied forces -  to work together under the banner of Combined Operations. Some of this is outlined in an earlier For Argyll article and we will be returning to this interesting historical subject.

St. Nazaire was a target because its dry dock allowed any large German warship to come in for repairs safely on the Atlantic coast rather than have to make for home waters. The British were concerned about the destructive capacity as a surface raider of the Tirpitz, sister ship to the Bismarck. The need to restrict Tirpitz’s potential operations was the key driver of the St Nazaire raid.

As things fell out, Tirpitz never opened fire on a British or allied ship but her presence as a potential threat tied up a significant amount of resources and time in keeping an eye on her in her various hiding places.  Latterly she took refuge in the Norwegian fjords and suffered a series of attempts to sink her. (Tirpitz is pictured here, camouflaged, in Fættenfjord.)

While some damage was done to her in these attempts, none managed to sink her until she was bombed by RAF Lancaster bombers and capsized on 12 November 1944. She sank to the west of Tromsø, in the bay of Håkøybotn, within minutes of this attack. 1,000 of her crew of 1,700 died.

The raid on the dock at St Nazaire, triggered by British fear of the Tirpitz, was designed to take the advantage of surprise. It included sixteen shallow-draft motor launches, a Motor Gun Boat to direct the elderly flotilla leader, HMS Campbeltown, to her target and a Motor Torpedo Boat to embark surviving commandos for the return journey. Campbeltown was packed with explosives and cosmetically altered to look, only at a cursory glance, like a German Mowe class destroyer. She was under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Stephen Halden (Sam) Beattie with a reduced crew 0f 75.

The flotilla timed its arrival at St Nazaire to run under cover of darkness and took a route to the targeted Normandie Dock by crossing shallows, risking grounding but avoiding the heaviest gun emplacements. Legitimately, under the terms of such engagements, Campbeltown flew the flag of the Kriegsmarine and used a German morse call sign.

These moves delayed serious discovery for a critical 12 minutes, confusing the German defences who fired sporadically before opening fire in earnest. At that point Campbeltown lowered the Kriegsmarine fag and hoisted the White Ensign.

She rammed the southern caisson at the dock at 01.34 on 28th March 1942 and at a speed of 20 knots. She thrust deep into the caisson and crumpled forty feet of her hull under the impact.

Her explosives were timed to go off at 09.00 but the pencil detonators used were affected by temperature so she did not in fact explode until 10.35, after a German search party had failed to detect the devices. When Campbeltown went up, the explosion destroyed the caisson and killed around 250 German soldiers and civilians in the vicinity.

Her sacrifice successfully put a stop to the use of the dock which did not return to service until 1947.

Commandos landed on the dock sides, destroying other structures before trying to fight their way out. Many of the shallow motor launches were sunk with a casualty rate often as high as 80%, survivors being caught in the burning fuel that spread across the water. This was a bloody and confused engagement.

The attrition rate was very high, costing the lives of 168 sailors and commandos from the original complement of 622 and leading to the award of no fewer than 5 Victoria Crosses.

The St Nazaire Association was formed by those who survived. They erected a memorial to their lost comrades on Fish Strand Quay at Falmouth which was moved to the Prince of Wales Quay and unveiled in its new position by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall on 11th July 2008.

There is also a memorial at St Nazaire itself, with the names of those who lost their lives in the raid and beside a 12 pounder gun taken from HMS Campbeltown. These are situated at the Place du Commando at the eastern end of Boulevard President Wilson.

The raid on St Nazaire has been the subect of films, documentaries and even, in 2005, of a computer game. In 2007  Jeremy Clarkson (now busy with apologies for insulting Gordon Brown) wrote and presented a one-hour TV-documentary on Operation Chariot called Jeremy Clarkson: The Greatest Raid of All Time.

Today’s HMS Campbeltown carries the Ship’s Bell from her predecessor whose heroism was at the centre of this raid. It has been loaned from Campbelltown, Pennsylvania to the current ship for the duration of her Royal Navy service. The bell was given to the town of Campbelltown, Pennsylvania, as a gesture of appreciation for America’s lend-lease programme. The town lent it to the current HMS Campbeltown upon her commissioning in 1989.

Clicking on this link to Campbelltown Pennsylvania and the different link above will reveal the sort of cultural links For Argyll is interested in recovering and celebrating during Homecoming Scotland 2009. As part opf For Argyll’s Hoemcoming Argyll initiative, we have now opened an Argyll Worldwide category in our Links directory and started it with Campbelltown Pennsylvania.

The photographs accompanying ing this article are all reproduced under the Creative Commons licence.

• At the top is the Type 22 destroyer, HMS Campbeltown, berthed in Campbeltown Lochnd photographed by Malcolm MacFadyen.
• Next is USS Buchanan pictures at Panama in 1936 bdeore she was handed to Britain as part of the 1940 Destroyers for Bases Agreement
• Then there is the German battleship Tirpitz camouflaged in the Fættenfjord, part of the Åsenfjord, Norway, during World War II.
• Finally there is the image of the Victoria Cross, here with ribbon and bar. Five were awarded to personnel engaged on this operation, some posthumously.