Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII (19 page)

They passed a Greek café, its doors thrown open to the street. In hurried whispers Lassen and Pomford conferred with the locals and secured the intelligence that they sought: there were 140 Italian soldiers stationed on Symi, but no Germans. At this time of night the Italians were very likely fast asleep in their billets. Lassen and his men should be able to take them by total surprise.

Word spread along the seafront like wildfire: at last, the long-hoped-for liberators had come! By the time Lassen and
Pomford had reached the harbour, the first of the church bells had already started to ring. One by one the dozen churches dotted around Symi harbour took up the call: at long last the English commandos –
which meant freedom
– were here!

At the quayside Lassen sought reassurances that the water was deep enough to call the caiques alongside. But no one seemed able to give a straight answer. Frustrated, he took matters into his own hands. He jumped off the quayside fully clothed and dived to the bottom. As the ‘British commando’ sank below sight in the dark water, the locals fell silent. There were a few tense moments before Lassen’s blond hair bobbed to the surface, lit a glistening white in the moonlight.

‘Pomford, signal to the ships that it’s deep enough,’ Lassen yelled. ‘Call ’em in!’

By the time the two caiques had come alongside and disgorged the forty raiders, word had reached the Italians that ‘hundreds’ of British commandos had come ashore and taken Symi. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, the Italian force commander decided not to put up any resistance. When Lassen found the Italian, he was ordered to join the British in fighting the Germans, or Lassen would hunt down all his men and shoot them dead for cowardice.

Safely ashore, Lapraik split his men into four patrols. Lassen’s was sent to the highest point of Symi town, an ancient, partly ruined fort called the Kastro. Built by the Knights of St John – also known as the Knights Hospitaller, a renowned religious and military order from the time of the Crusades – the Kastro’s
massive stone towers and walkways offered a panoramic view of the town, plus the bays to either side. To Lassen, this was a prime vantage point from which they could dominate the territory, if only they possessed a weapon with sufficient power and range to do so.

The other landmark of vital strategic import was the Monastery of the Archangel Michael, built on the opposite, southern end of the island, overlooking the anchorage of the Panormiti Bay. Like Greek holy men everywhere, the monastery’s Abbot Chrysanthos was a diehard patriot and an enthusiastic supporter of the raider’s cause. Lassen decided they needed an early-warning system based at the monastery, should the Germans opt to land in the bay below.

Without the Italians realizing, he had a radio set installed in the monastery, and trained the abbot’s nephew how to operate it. Abbot Chrysanthos hated the Germans with a vengeance, but he reserved his greatest vitriol for the Italians, who had for decades ‘occupied’ what were ‘naturally’ Greek islands. The Italian garrison may have been persuaded by a mixture of promises and threats to stand with the British, but the abbot – as with all the island natives – didn’t trust them for one instant. That clandestine radio set was as much to warn of Italian perfidy as it was of German aggression.

Over the coming days the raiders reinforced their positions and sailed out to recce the outlying islands. Lassen took his patrol around three in one day – Piscopi, Calchi and Alimnia. The first two harboured no enemy forces, but the third, Alemnia, possessed a deep harbour used by the Italians as a submarine base. When Lassen’s patrol landed they found the
place only recently abandoned. There Lassen and Pomford discovered exactly what they were looking for: among the abandoned Italian defences was a 20mm gun.

More specifically, it was a Breda Model 35 cannon, an Italian-made dual-use anti-aircraft and ground-attack weapon. It was a powerful piece, being accurate to a range of 5,000 feet and effective against 30mm thick armour. Mounted on a tripod it could cover a 360-degree traverse – so in all directions – and it had a rate of fire of 240 rounds per minute. The one Lassen and Pomford discovered had a footplate missing, but it came complete with a generous supply of ammunition.

The Breda was taken aboard their caique and transported back to Symi, whereupon it was carted across the main thoroughfare, Syllogos Square, up the winding streets and into the Kastro. Lassen had it placed in a tower offering a panoramic view of the terrain below, including the sea to either side. While the thick stone structure of the tower gave good cover, the tripod lifted the Breda’s 10-foot barrel well above the outer wall, giving all-around firepower.

Lastly, he commissioned the town’s blacksmith to manufacture a make-do replacement footplate. With the clandestine radio and the repaired Breda cannon in place, Lassen felt ready for whatever the enemy might throw at them. The Italian troops remained decidedly shaky, but the forty-strong raiding force was itching for a fight.

*

Yet before then Lassen faced his own problems. He’d been sterilizing a latrine using burning petrol, when there was a nasty blowback. Fire scorched both his lower legs badly. He’d also
developed a nasty case of dysentery, a painful and debilitating infection of the intestine: with drinking water and food often not sterilized properly and sanitation far from perfect, it hit most of the raiders at one time or another.

Porter ‘Joe’ Jarrell, the American medic-cum-raider, took a long look at Lassen’s badly blistered legs, which were beginning to turn septic. He declared his injuries to be so serious that the Dane should return to Athlit, or better still Cairo, and possibly even England, for treatment. Weakened by dysentery as Lassen was, it would take longer for the burns to heal.

For over two years now Lassen had been at the epicentre of a relentless raiding campaign, and largely without any kind of a break. Jarrell figured the rest and recuperation was long overdue. But the Dane refused to leave. He got Jarrell to bandage up the burns as best he could, so he could soldier on.

Lassen’s fierce desire to stay wasn’t only due to his determination to remain with his fellow fighters. He was also acutely aware of the needs of the locals. In spite of his weakened state, Lassen had been down to the docks to help unload heavy sacks of flour and beans for the half-starved islanders. The supplies had been placed under Abbot Chrysanthos’s control, so he could distribute them to the most needy.

Lassen also had another responsibility here on Symi. On one of his island visits he’d discovered a small Maltese terrier, which he’d named Pipo. Formerly an Italian officer’s lapdog, Lassen had adopted Pipo to be his dog of war. He’d cured Pipo of his addiction to Italian pasta, and got him eating proper raider food, like bully beef. Many saw Pipo as a scruffy, dirty, noisy nuisance, one who peed on just about everything
in sight. As for Lassen, he coupled his love of hunting with a love for all things wild, and for him and Pipo it had been love at first sight.

But most importantly there were Germans hereabouts to fight: Lassen could sense that they were coming.

By early October Lapraik’s men had been in control of Symi for two weeks. Reinforcements had just arrived unexpectedly, in the form of twenty officers and men from the RAF’s 74 Squadron, Fighter Command. They were en route to Cos – one of the islands seized by Jellicoe’s armada – intending to crew-up a flight of Spitfires that had been sent to the Cos airstrips. The RAF crewmen pulled into Symi harbour, not knowing that they were shortly to become a key component of the island’s defences.

After seizing Cos and Leros, Jellicoe’s men had handed the islands over to squads of elite British paratroopers and a number of follow-up Allied infantry units. Jellicoe’s caiques had sailed onwards through the Dodecanese chain, seizing Kalymnos, Samos, Chios and Patmos. On the latter island they’d overheard the Italian garrison whispering worriedly about their safe, which was stuffed full of Italian Lire, plus the odd bundle of Reichmarks. It included the payroll for the 1,000-odd Italian troops stationed on the island of Leros – which the raiders had only recently ‘liberated’ – a considerable amount of money.

Jellicoe’s men hesitated only for the barest instant before forcing open the safe and helping themselves to massive
bundles of cash. Henceforth Italian Lire became their kitty and their fighting fund for the battles to come. Such were the spoils due to the pirate raiders as they cut a swathe through the Dodecanese.

But as with all things that seemingly came too easy, there would be blowback. Lapraik, Lassen and their fellows would feel it heaviest on Symi. When it came, the German counter-offensive would employ serious firepower and numbers. Sensing what was coming, Lapraik – an unyielding commander possessed of a strong moral and physical courage – issued stark orders to the twenty RAF men now temporarily under his command.

At dawn on 7 October three boatloads of German troops put ashore on Pedi Bay, lying to the east of Symi town. Manning the Breda cannon that morning at Anders Lassen’s castle lookout was RAF Flight Sergeant Charlie Schofield who, like Porter Jarrell, was terribly short-sighted. Yet even Schofield had
spotted the three craft, which were less than a mile away from his vantage point – putting them well within range of his cannon.

Lassen, fresh from sleep, stared down into the bay, and roared, ‘Who the hell are they?’

His words were drowned out by Schofield opening fire.

The German force scattered under the 20mm cannon fire, but they were already ashore. Lassen rallied his men to head them off before they could make it into the town, while Schofield sought to keep as many as possible pinned down on the rocky coastline. The fierce percussions of the Breda’s fire brought two immediate misfortunes on Schofield: one, it shattered his glasses; two, it attracted a flight of Stukas, which proceeded to dive-bomb his castle-top position.

Schofield had never been in sustained combat, but he stood his ground. As the Stukas howled in, he yelled out words of reassurance to the fellow RAF men manning his position.

‘It’s impossible for the Germans to hit this spot,’ Schofield declared, gleefully. ‘Their bombs will fall short ‘cause of the angle of approach needed to avoid the hills.’

It proved true. Time and again the Stukas tried to bomb the 20mm gun emplacement, but their bombs slammed into the slopes below and the houses of the town itself, leaving the tower unscathed.

In the winding streets Lassen’s Irish Patrol was already in action. O’Reilly noticed the Dane freeze by a wall. He had an uncanny sixth-sense for finding the enemy, almost as if he could smell Germans. Lassen indicated there were soldiers on the far side. On a signal, Lassen and O’Reilly burst into
the open and fired over the German’s heads, who promptly surrendered. They took two prisoners, but now it would be down to bitter fighting at close quarters.

The streets of Symi town are labyrinthine, and it was a real art to get close enough to the enemy to engage them – an art in which Lassen excelled. Underfoot, the narrow, winding roads are paved with white cobbles, the steps scaling the steeper slopes worn smooth with time. The hobnailed boots of the Germans rang and clattered as they dashed from cover to cover, while the felt soles of Jellicoe’s raiders padded silently through the streets, as they stalked the enemy.

A second patrol, led by Englishman Lieutenant Charles Bimrose, pushed into eastern Symi – the direction of the German attack, but it seemed that the enemy had already seized the high ground overlooking the town. A line of ancient windmills marked the ridgeline, terrain that the Italians had been charged to defend. But the Germans had brought with them a unit of Italian fascists, who were exhorting their brothers through loud speakers to turn on the British. Torn, the Italians it seemed had abandoned their positions.

A German machine gun had been established on the ridge, from where it could pour down fire into Symi’s rabbit warren of streets. Bimrose’s patrol was the first to feel its heat. He and his men played hide-and-seek with the German gunner, as they dashed from cover to cover. Then Bimrose’s patrol was hit in an ambush. A stick grenade was tossed over a wall, exploding at the feet of Seaforth Highlander William Morrison. Bimrose’s sergeant was hit by a burst of follow-up fire and Bimrose himself took a flesh wound in the arm.

For an instant his advance faltered, before Bimrose himself, enraged by what had befallen his patrol, charged forward and decimated the enemy position. Two Germans were killed and one wounded, after which Bimrose withdrew his men to better cover. But William Morrison died from the wounds he’d suffered in the grenade attack, and Bimrose’s sergeant was seriously wounded.

Bimrose briefed Lassen on what he’d discovered about the German strengths and numbers. Lassen’s men had studied the layout of Symi town and knew it well. The newly arrived Germans did not. Lassen held his men back so as to draw the Germans in, and then the trap was sprung. Time after time as they tried to storm the ancient fortress of the Kastro the German troops were ambushed, Lassen himself stalking and killing three at very close quarters.

As the morning dragged on the ancient alleyways rang with savage bursts of gunfire, and echoed with grenades exploding, plus the bloodcurdling cries and screams of the dying and wounded. Bullets zigzagged and ricocheted across cobblestones, chasing the German attackers along the twisting streets, and gradually their offensive began to peter out.

As their battered forces regrouped on the town’s outskirts, something extra was needed to drive them back to their boats. Lapraik decided to send Lassen and his patrol to put some steel into the Italians’ spine. So far, the 140-strong Italian garrison had played little part in the fighting, apart from giving up the high ground. The Germans needed to be driven off that ridge, so who better to do it than those troops who had first abandoned it.

Lassen presented the Italians with a stark choice. ‘You may be shot by the enemy, but if you run you
will
be shot by me.’

In spite of the pain from his burned and blistered legs, Lassen had worked himself up into some kind of a trance – one very likely fuelled by Benzedrine, and doubtless fanned by his fervent killer instinct. With the Italians’ resolve thus stiffened he drove them up through the burning-hot terrain, which all about them droned with the rhythmic
chirp-chirp-chirp
of cicadas.

As they hit the ridge, the Italians were forced into action against their erstwhile allies. The last of the German positions were cleared and they were driven back to their boats, Lassen and his Irish Patrol chivvying the Italians, guns at the ready. One Italian was injured in the fighting, but none had been killed, and at least the honour of the Italian nation had been somewhat restored.

By three o’clock that afternoon the German commander had withdrawn his men to the spot where they had first landed, and he started to evacuate his wounded. But the battle was far from over. At four o’clock a larger German vessel hove into view – a landing craft packed full of reinforcements, steaming full speed for Pedi Bay. It was crucial that it be prevented from making the shore.

It was now that the scavenged Breda cannon came into play. Lassen dashed up to the gun emplacement, took control of the weapon and opened fire on the landing craft, using the white plumes of spray thrown up by the falling rounds to walk them on to the target. Within moments the 20mm armour-piercing rounds were tearing into the vessel, its overcrowded deck being swept by a whirlwind of shrapnel.

Lassen kept at it until the ship’s commander, fearing the gun was going to sink her, made an about turn and set a course back to Rhodes – not a man among his assault force having managed to put ashore.

Seeing the German boats disembarking from the beach, Lapraik ordered his men to give chase. They readied one of the caiques at anchor in Symi harbour and set sail, but it proved too slow to catch the German ships. Yet its very presence forced the retreating armada to alter course, driving the vessels into range of the Bren guns that Lapraik had positioned along the Kastro’s thick walls.

The Bren is deadly accurate out to 600 yards, but its maximum range is three times that. The German vessels were well within that distance. Lapraik’s machine guns raked the ships’ exposed decks, targeting them for the entire length of Pedi Bay, and until they turned south around the headland for Rhodes. The battle for Symi was finally over, but no one among the town’s defenders believed for one moment that the wider war for the island was done.

*

General Ulrich von Kleemann, the overall commander of Axis forces in the region, was furious when he heard about the defeat. He had some 40,000 troops stationed on nearby Rhodes, yet a handful of British raiders and turncoat Italians had defeated him. He ordered the island to be bombed into oblivion.

At 0800 hours the following morning the first flight of Stukas swept in. Coming in at around 5,000 feet, the Ju-87s rolled through 180 degrees above the town and plummeted in a 90-degree dive towards earth. Air-brakes kept the dive speed
constant at a maximum 600kph, and the first bomb was released some 400 metres above the target, at which stage the pull-out began – the Stuka leaving a thick black plume of blasted smoke and dust in its wake.

Packed with 650lbs of bombs, the Stuka was designed as a precision ground-attack aircraft. But over Symi that morning the bombing proved largely indiscriminate, and designed to terrorize the island population. Every two hours a new wave of dive-bombers swept in, and it quickly became clear that the entire population of Symi was to be made to pay for the German defeat. As they screamed out of the burning blue, even Lassen – who seemed to feel no fear – found that the Stukas could strike terror into his soul.

Another of Lapraik’s men, Lance Corporal Robert McKendrick, was killed, and all across the town there were civilian casualties, as Symi’s ancient streets were torn apart. Most of the buildings were built without any cement, and even a near-hit from a Stuka collapsed them into a pile of rubble and dust. Bereft of any air cover, Symi was hugely vulnerable. The Stukas were able to dive so low that the island defenders could see the faces of the pilots through the Plexiglas cockpit, the banshee wail of the aircraft’s sirens drilling into their ears.

Just after lunch Lapraik’s headquarters took a direct hit. Lapraik escaped unharmed, but two of his men were trapped beneath the heap of rubble. One was Tom Bishop, originally from the Grenadier Guards. The other was Sidney Greaves, who together with Nicholson had done such a sterling job on the eastern side of Kastelli Airbase three months earlier, as Lassen and Jones had hit the western side.

A former miner serving in Lapraik’s force led the search party, as they tunnelled in to free the two men. Porter Jarrell, the American medic-cum-raider, was at the forefront of the rescue operation, as was an RAF doctor, Flight Lieutenant Leslie Harris. As the Stukas continued with their terrifying strikes, the rescuers managed to clear an airway to the lower of the two figures, Sidney Greaves. He was trapped by the heavy debris lying on his stomach, and Bishop was above him, his foot pinned under the wreckage.

With Stukas tearing through the skies, the rescue force faced a terrible dilemma. They needed to free Bishop in order to get to Greaves, but if they tried to move the weight off Bishop’s foot, the whole lot might collapse and crush Greaves completely. The only option was to amputate Bishop’s foot where he lay, drag him free and then attempt to prop up the wreckage and lift Greaves out from below.

To make matters worse, the RAF doctor had suffered a wrist injury in the blast, so he would only be able to guide Jarrell through the operation. He’d lost most of his medical equipment under the debris, and Jarrell only carried the bare basics. Together, they managed to gather a few forceps, some tourniquets, a scalpel and scissors, plus some chloroform to deaden the pain. But the only tool available with which to amputate the leg was a small carpenter’s saw.

Despite this, Bishop agreed to the amputation in an effort to save his brother warrior’s life. With the RAF doctor and Jarrell hanging half-inverted in the narrow space, and with others holding onto their feet at ground level to keep them from falling, the operation got underway by flickering candlelight.
After the tourniquets had been wound tight to cut off the blood flow, Jarrell began sawing through Bishop’s leg, under instructions from the doctor.

The wreckage rang with Bishop’s cries of pain. Another flight of Stukas howled and wheeled overhead, like dark birds of prey, but neither Jarrell nor Harris paused in their task. With the foot finally sawn off, they were able to drag Bishop clear, whereupon he was given intravenous blood. But the shock and the bomb blast that he’d suffered, plus the crushing injuries must have proved too much.