Operation Claymore - Background

Background

After the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called for a force to be assembled and equipped to inflict casualties on the Germans and bolster British morale. Churchill told the joint Chiefs of Staff to propose measures for an offensive against German-occupied Europe, and stated: "they must be prepared with specially trained troops of the hunter class who can develop a reign of terror down the enemy coast."

One staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke, had already submitted such a proposal to General Sir John Dill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Dill, aware of Churchill's intentions, approved Clarke's proposal. Three weeks later the first Commando raid Operation Collar took place. The raiders failed to gather any intelligence or damage any German equipment; their only success was in killing two German sentries.

The Commandos came under the operational control of the Combined Operations Headquarters. The man initially selected as the commander was Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, a veteran of the Gallipoli Campaign and the Zeebrugge Raid in the First World War. In 1940, the call went out for volunteers from among the serving Army soldiers within certain formations still in Britain, and men of the disbanding Divisional Independent Companies originally raised from Territorial Army Divisions who had seen service in Norway. In November 1940 the new army units were organised into a Special Service Brigade under Brigadier J.C. Haydon, with four Special Service Battalions. By the autumn of 1940 more than 2,000 men had volunteered for commando training, and the Special Service Brigade now consisted of 12 units which were called Commandos.

After an inauspicious start the first large scale commando raid was to be on the Lofoten Islands, which are just off the Norwegian coast inside the Arctic Circle and about 900 miles (1,400 km) from Britain. Once at the islands the raiders would be landed at four small ports, to destroy fish oil producing factories. All the oil produced was being shipped to Germany who extracted the glycerine, a vital ingredient in the manufacture of high explosives. The commandos would be transported to the islands aboard two new infantry landing ships, escorted by four Tribal class and one L class destroyer of the 6th Destroyer Flotilla.