The Small Scale Raiding Force

Operation Postmaster

Thirty of the Poole Commandos (see April 1941) had set sail for West Africa in their converted Brixham yacht trawler, the Maid Honor, on 9^th August 1941. Led by Majors Gus March-Phillips and Geoffrey Appleyard, they arrived in Freetown on 20^th September and sailed in disguise around the rivers, estuaries and deltas of Vichy-French Equatorial Africa to locate those used as German submarine bases. On 14^th January 1942 they captured an Italian ocean going liner, the Duchessa d’Aorta (converted to a U-boat supply ship), a German tanker and a number of auxiliary ships and vessels.  The success of Postmaster triggered the expansion of the force and re-designation as the Small Scale Raiding Force (SSRF) or No 62 Commando.

The original ‘Maid Honor Force’ was Station 62 under the Special Operations Executive but as they expanded into the SSRF under the personal command of Louis Mountbatten, head of Combined Operations, they also became known as No 62 Commando.  Early in 1942 their HQ moved from the Antelope pub on Poole Quay to the 17^th century Anderson Manor near Winterborne Kingston in Dorset, becoming a centre for Commando training.

It's possible that Dick, working in Intelligence at the time, was in Combined Operations and stationed here (see The Missing Winter). My mother remembered the Antelope as being very special to their time together during World War 2.

In February 1942 the Small Scale Raiding Force, undertook reconnaissance and minor raids around the Cherbourg Peninsula, Omonville in Brittany and Herm & Jethou in the Channel Islands. Their ‘pinprick’ raids on the coast of Northern France were planned to gather information, take prisoners for interrogation, demoralise German troops and tie up enemy resources that would otherwise be used on other fronts. Success depended on competence in the use of small boats inshore as well as combat and stealth.  They used dories (wooden power boats), canoes known as ‘Cockles’, collapsible craft and the Motor Torpedo Boat they nicknamed the “Little Pisser” for its speed.

The Special Service Unit made frequent raids on the French coast from Poole including the successful capture of German code books and Naval information and destruction of the ‘U’ boat wireless transmitting station at Les Casquets lighthouse in the Channel Islands in September 1942.

Special Operations Executive still shared governance of the SSRF and the Manor was known as their 62 Special Training School. A clash of interests between SOE and SIS (the Secret Intelligence Service) led to the disbandment of the SSRF in April 1943, having soundly demonstrated the benefit of small specialist forces operating at night – Churchill’s ‘butcher and bolt’ approach. Anderson Manor went on to become SOE’s 47 Special Training School for Mines and Booby Traps. 

(From ‘Dorset’s War Diary - Battle of Britain to D Day’ by Rodney Legg, Dorset Publishing Company 2004, ‘Poole and World War II’ written by Derek Beamish, Harold Bennett and John Hillier and published by Poole Historical Trust in 1980 and Combined Operations )