The following excerpt from the Prologue of Into the Jaws of Death: Operation Chariot and the Raid that Saved Britain drops you into the moment when the raiding force is committed six hundred men in an aging destroyer and wooden motor launches, heading into the guns of one of the most heavily defended ports in Europe.

© 2025 David C. Forward. All rights reserved.
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PROLOGUE

Midnight on the Loire

"With spring in the air and everything looking so beautiful we only now appreciate how lovely everything is, almost like condemned criminals."

Lance-Sergeant Bill Gibson, 24 March 1942

28 March 1942
0000 hours
Approaching the Loire

Midnight arrived.

Wheeler watched the water turn to black glass as searchlights swept overhead.

Corporal George Wheeler stood on the deck of Motor Launch 192 and watched the French coastline materialize from darkness. Low hills. A church steeple silhouetted against stars. No lights the entire coast was under blackout. But somewhere ahead, in that darkness, six thousand German soldiers waited.

Wheeler was twenty-three years old. He'd joined the Royal Sussex Regiment and had volunteered for 2 Commando the moment he heard about the unit’s mission. Now, after weeks of grueling training in the Scottish Highlands, he was sailing up the Loire River toward the most heavily defended port on the Atlantic coast, carrying ninety pounds of explosives and wondering if he'd see tomorrow's dawn.

Around him, thirty other Commandos made final preparations. Weapons were checked one last time. Magazines locked into place. Mills bombs—hand grenades—positioned within easy reach. The heavy explosive packs were stacked near the exits, ready to be grabbed the instant the motor launch reached shore.

If it reached shore.

Ahead of them, barely visible in the darkness, HMS Campbeltown cut through the water at eighteen knots. The old destroyer's silhouette was all wrong—two funnels instead of four, raked at steep angles to mimic a German design. From a distance, in darkness, she might pass for a Kriegsmarine Möwe-class destroyer.

Hopefully.

Up close, in daylight, the deception would collapse instantly.

But they weren't planning to be close in daylight. They'd be ashore by then, placing charges, destroying machinery, turning the gates to the greatest dock in the world into rubble.

Or they'd be dead.

Wheeler had made his peace with that possibility weeks ago, during training. Every man aboard these seventeen boats had volunteered knowing the odds. Colonel Newman had been brutally honest: sixty to seventy percent casualties expected.

“Most of you may not come home,” he’d said. “I have this from Lord Mountbatten personally: If any of you have families at home and would rather drop out, you have his and my assurance that there will be no negative consequences for you.”

Not a single man withdrew.

Surrounding HMS Campbeltown, the seventeen motor launches followed in neat columns. Thin wooden hulls, 112 feet long, powered by twin petrol engines that could push them to twenty knots in calm water—fast and maneuverable, but hopelessly vulnerable. A single shell hitting the exposed deck fuel tanks would turn any of these boats into a floating inferno.

German shore batteries covered every approach with overlapping fields of fire. Searchlights that could turn night to noon. Machine gun nests, anti-aircraft positions, harbor patrol boats. Six thousand elite troops.

Against this, the British were bringing 611 men in an ancient stripped-down destroyer and seventeen little wooden boats.

It was madness but absolutely necessary madness.

Lieutenant Stuart Chant, standing on Campbeltown’s deck with his demolition team, checked his watch: 0050 hours. Ten minutes until they entered the Loire proper. Twenty-five minutes until they reached the harbor entrance. Forty-five minutes until Campbeltown rammed the dock gates.

If everything went perfectly.

Chant was a realist. Nothing ever went perfectly in combat. The plan would survive perhaps five minutes after German guns opened fire. After that, it would be improvisation, chaos, and men trying to complete their missions while the world burned around them.

His mission was clear: destroy the pumping station. The massive building housed impeller pumps capable of moving forty-eight million gallons of water. Wreck those pumps, and even if the Germans somehow repaired the dock gates, they couldn't operate the facility.

He'd practiced the demolition a hundred times. Done it blindfolded in Southampton's King George V Dock. Could place the charges in complete darkness, wire the fuses, arm them, and be out in twelve minutes.

But that was in Southampton, with no one shooting at him.

Tonight would be different.

Around Chant, eighty Commandos lay flat on their backs in neat rows, feet toward the bow, explosives packs pillowed under their heads. They'd been ordered to lie down, to present lower profiles to enemy fire, to brace for the impact when Campbeltown struck the dock.

Some were praying. Others were simply staring at the stars. A few were asleep the exhausted sleep of men who'd been awake for thirty hours and knew they might never sleep again.

Above them, on Campbeltown’s bridge, Lieutenant-Commander Stephen Beattie studied the Loire estuary through binoculars. The main channel was visible now—a slightly lighter darkness winding between mudflats and sandbars. Navigation would be treacherous. One wrong turn, one miscalculation, and they'd ground on a shoal.

Beattie had memorized every twist, every depth change, every landmark. He'd studied French charts until he could close his eyes and see the river. The navigator beside him, Sub-Lieutenant Green, was equally prepared.

But charts were one thing. Reality, in darkness, with German shells falling, would be quite another.

"Steady as she goes," Beattie murmured to the helmsman.

The destroyer surged forward, her bow wave spreading white in the darkness.

Aboard Motor Launch (ML) 270, Dr. David Paton checked his medical supplies one final time.

Morphine: sufficient for perhaps thirty casualties, if used sparingly.

Bandages: enough for basic first aid, not enough for prolonged treatment.

Sulphanilamide powder: the new antibiotic that might prevent wound infections if applied quickly enough.

Tourniquets: two dozen, knowing he'd probably need far more.

Surgical instruments: scalpels, forceps, probes, sutures. Everything a field surgeon might need, if field surgery became necessary.

Which it would. Paton had no illusions about casualties. In training, they'd practiced with dummy charges and blank ammunition. Tonight, the Germans would be using live rounds. High explosive. Shrapnel. Tracer fire that could set the wooden motor launches ablaze.

Men would be wounded. Many men. His job was to keep as many alive as possible until they could be evacuated.

If evacuation was possible.

Paton was a physician. Before the war, he'd been treating influenza and broken bones in Scotland. Now he was about to conduct battlefield medicine while German machine guns swept the docks.

He prayed his training would be sufficient.

Around him, Commandos were quiet. Some checked weapons mechanically, the way soldiers do when they need something to occupy their hands. Others simply stared at the water, lost in their own thoughts.

One young private—couldn't have been more than nineteen was trembling slightly. Not fear, exactly. Adrenaline. Anticipation. The body's preparation for combat.

"First time?" Paton asked quietly.

The private nodded.

"You'll be fine," Paton said, though he had no way of knowing if that was true. "Do your job. Follow your training. Help your mates. That's all anyone can ask."

The private nodded again, seeming steadied.

Paton hoped he'd been right. Hoped the boy would live through the next few hours. Hoped they all would.

But hope and reality were often distant cousins in war.

Commander Robert Ryder stood on the bridge of the motor gun boat MGB-314 and watched the flotilla steam toward the French coast. He smiled as he thought of how he had commanded a ship that had been sunk by U-boats early in the war and then had found “displeasure” from the Admiralty when his second command sank in the Clyde after being accidentally rammed by another ship in thick fog. Now he had been reinstated from his desk job and given command of a ship that he was ordered to destroy.

As overall naval commander, Ryder was responsible for getting these boats to Saint-Nazaire, coordinating their attacks, and extracting as many men as possible afterward. The first two parts of that mission were challenging but achievable.

The third part extraction was nearly impossible.

The plan called for motor launches to evacuate Commandos from the Old Môle ninety minutes after Campbeltown struck. By then, demolitions would be complete. German defenses would be shattered. The boats would race back down the Loire before the Germans could react.

It was a beautiful plan.

It assumed the Germans wouldn't sink most of the motor launches during the approach. It assumed the boats could reach their landing points through concentrated fire. It assumed German shore batteries wouldn't simply blow them out of the water during evacuation.

Ryder knew these assumptions were optimistic. But he also knew about the power of optimism and luck. The first ship he commanded, HMS Edgehill was torpedoed by a U-boat in 1940 and Ryder endured four harrowing days clinging to driftwood in the icy, unforgiving North Atlantic before a miraculous rescue.

This mission didn't depend on everyone getting home. It depended on destroying the Normandie Dock. If they accomplished that, the raid would be a strategic success. And Ryder knew miracles do happen.

Churchill had been clear: the dock must be destroyed. The Tirpitz must not have access to the Atlantic. Britain's survival depended on keeping the convoy routes open.

More than six hundred soldiers and sailors were an acceptable price for that objective.

Ryder hated that calculus. But he understood it.

He picked up the bridge telephone: "Signal to all ships: Fifteen minutes to Loire entrance. Maintain formation. Radio silence from this point forward. God be with us all."

The acknowledgments came back silently signal lamps blinking in the darkness.

Then the flotilla went dark. Navigation lights off. Signal lamps stowed. Just eighteen boats creeping through darkness toward German guns.

Colonel Charles Newman stood on the deck of MGB-314 and felt the weight of command settle heavier with each passing minute.

Three hundred Commandos were scattered across these boats. Men he'd trained, men he'd come to know, men whose letters home he'd approved. Men with dreams, futures. Men who loved those families as much as he loved his wife Audrey and their son and five daughters.

Newman had volunteered for this command knowing the cost. He'd studied the intelligence, understood the odds, accepted that success would be measured in destroyed machinery, not in men returned safely home. [Photo 1 here: Lt. Col. Augustus Charles Newman]

But understanding that intellectually and feeling it emotionally were different things.

He thought about the letters. Some men had written final messages to parents, wives, children. Just in case. The letters were sealed and left behind in Falmouth, to be delivered if the writers didn't return.

How many of those letters would be delivered tomorrow?

Newman pushed the thought away. Dwelling on casualties before the battle was pointless. Right now, his job was to get these men to their objectives, ensure they completed their missions, and extract as many as possible afterward.

One step, one objective, one explosion at a time.

Nearby, Commandos made final checks. Captain Michael Burn was going over his team's assignments for the southern winding house. Captain Donald Roy was reviewing his protection team's positions. Lieutenant Bill Etches was double-checking his demolition charges.

These men were professionals. The finest soldiers Britain could produce. They'd trained for weeks specifically for this operation. They knew their jobs.

Now they just had to execute under fire.

"Five minutes," someone called.

Newman nodded. Five minutes until they entered the Loire. Five minutes until the point of no return.

He thought briefly about his family. His wife. His children. Would he see them again?

Possibly not.

But if he died tonight, at least it would be accomplishing something that mattered. Destroying a dock that could change the course of the war. Eliminating a threat that could starve Britain into submission.

That was worth dying for.

"All teams," Newman called. "Final check. Weapons ready. Charges ready. Remember your training. Do your jobs. Take care of your mates. We're about to change history, gentlemen. Make it count."

Silent nods in the darkness.

The motor launch surged forward, following Campbeltown into the Loire.

28 March 1942
0030 hours

Loire Estuary

The spring tide peaked water levels at their highest point of the month. The Loire, normally treacherous with shoals and mudflats, was briefly navigable for shallow-draft vessels.

Campbeltown, stripped down to ten-and-a-half-foot draft, could just barely clear the sandbars.

The motor launches followed in her wake.

The men of Operation Chariot crossed from preparation into execution. From planning into reality. From possibility into inevitable consequence.

Ahead, the lights of Saint-Nazaire glowed faintly against the sky. The submarine pens. The harbor installations. The Normandie  Dock.

Their target.

Their objective.

Their destiny.

In thirty-five minutes, HMS Campbeltown would ram those dock gates at nineteen knots, embedding four tons of high explosive into the heart of Germany's Atlantic naval power.

In four hours, those explosives would detonate, destroying the dock and killing hundreds of Germans.

But first, they had to reach it. Six miles of defended river. Six miles through hell.

Corporal Wheeler checked his Thompson machine gun one last time. Loaded. Safety off. Ready.

Other men did the same. Metal clicked. Equipment rustled. Controlled breathing. The sounds of soldiers preparing for combat.

No one spoke. There was nothing left to say.

The French coast grew closer. Details emerged from darkness a pier, a warehouse, the bulk of heavy artillery outlined against the darkened sky.

Wheeler could see German soldiers moving on the shore. Could see searchlights swiveling, searching.

Any moment now, they'd be spotted.

He gripped his Thompson tighter and waited for the storm.