WW2 100 - 19 August 1942 - ‘Never forgotten. He was one of the best.’ Private Ernest Frank Harding, Devonshire Regiment (1919-42)
Continued from 10 July 1942
‘His last Flight into the Sunshine’
PILOT OFFICER JOHN ALASTAIR SEABROOK (1920-42) RAFVR, 250 Squadron
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/01/ww2-75-10-july-1942-his-last-flight.html
Finding Ernest’s name on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website but failing to see it on Budleigh’s War Memorial was a surprise. He was, according to the CWGC, the son of Herman Henry and Ellen Emily Harding, of Budleigh Salterton. But it was the date of his death – 19 August 1942 – and the location of his grave, in the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery, which was the real surprise. How on earth did one of these brave Commandos, who took part in the bold but disastrous Dieppe Raid, come to be forgotten in his home town? He was, after all, as his mother had inscribed on his headstone ‘one of the best’. And researchers on the Devon Heritage website have concluded that he was indeed born in Budleigh in the summer of 1919.
Curiously,
Ern, as he was apparently known to friends, is commemorated on Newton
Poppleford’s War Memorial, as seen above. Which is odd, as the village’s John
Hagger, suggested. I first came across John’s excellent and detailed study of
the names on the village War Memorial when I was researching local war dead of
WW1. John would certainly have been smart enough to discover the facts. But
even he is a bit mystified by Ern’s connection to the village. ‘In
that he was selected to be commemorated on the village War Memorial, we have to
assume that he at least worked in Newton Poppleford, prior to his enlistment,
at the age of 20, in 1939,’ wrote John. ‘Maybe he had attended the village
school when he was a boy.’
No. 3 Commando ski training in Scotland at
Killin in Perthshire, March 1942 Image
credit: Lt W.T. Lockeyear War Office official photographer - Imperial War
Museum ref H18098
According to John Hagger, Ern was drafted to the Devonshire Regiment, with service number 5618672. He volunteered for special service, and after the usual selection process, joined No.3 Commando which had been formed in July 1940; it was the first such unit to bear the title of Commando. Ern's training may well have been in the Scottish Highlands, as seen in the above photo.
The early years of WW2 saw various operations in which Ern may have been involved. Shortly after its formation, on 14-15 July, 40 men from No. 3 Commando along with 100 men from No.11 Independent Company took part in Operation Ambassador, a raid on the German-occupied Channel island of Guernsey. The raid resulted in no immediate military gains for the British. But the experience gained in the mounting and conduct of the operation was to prove invaluable for the success of subsequent Commando operations. Hard lessons were learnt by the military planners concerned. It was later reported, for example, that as the raiding party was leaving Guernsey to return to Britain, three of the men from No. 3 Commando’s 'H' Troop admitted that they could not swim and had to be left on the beach with additional French currency!
The German Enigma encoding machine, model ‘Enigma I’, used during the late 1930s and during the war; displayed at Museo scienza e tecnologia, Milan, Italy Image credit: Alessandro Nassiri - Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia ‘Leonardo da Vinci’
Operation Claymore, which took place in March 1941, proved that many lessons had been learnt. 250 officers and men from No. 3 Commando took part in the first large-scale Commando raid, which was launched on four ports in the Lofoten Islands in Norway. The raid proved to be a considerable success. It resulted in the capture of a number of wheels of the German Enigma encoding machine which helped the Allies to decode German radio traffic later in the war, as well as the destruction of a considerable amount of petrol and oil and the capture of several hundred Germans.
An oil factory burns in Vaagso, Norway,
following Operation Archery on 27 December 1941. British troops can be seen on
the quay in the foreground. From the collection of the Imperial War Museums ©
IWM (N 459).
Operation Archery, which took place at the end of the same year, was even more ambitious. It was a British Combined Operations raid against German positions on the island of Vaagso, Norway, on 27 December 1941.
No. 3 Commando was part of a total commando force of 570 troops, supported by the Royal Navy’s light cruiser HMS Kenya along with the destroyers HMS Onslow, Oribi, Offa and Chiddingfold and the submarine HMS Tuna. Troop transport was provided by HMS Prince Charles and HMS Prince Leopold and additional support came from RAF bombers and fighter-bombers.
Central to the operation was the destruction of fish-oil production and stores which the Germans used in the manufacture of high explosives. Another intention was to cause the Germans to maintain and increase forces in Norway, which would reduce forces deployed on the Eastern Front, thereby giving a numerical advantage to Allied forces.
The commandos withdrew having destroyed four factories, the fish-oil stores, ammunition and fuel stores, the telephone exchange and various military installations, leaving much of the town of Vaagso in flames. The naval assault force of one cruiser and four destroyers had sunk 10 vessels, some found in the act of being scuttled to prevent capture.
Wounded commandos being helped onto a landing
craft at Vaagso, 27 December 1941. From the collection of the Imperial War
Museums © IWM (N 481).
The commandos accounted for at least 120 defenders killed and returned with 98 prisoners and, it is said, a complete copy of the German Naval Code. The raid was enough to persuade Adolf Hitler to divert 30,000 troops to Norway and to build more coastal and inland defences. Hitler thought that the British might invade northern Norway to put pressure on Sweden and Finland.
Sadly it is not known at the time of writing whether Ern took part in these raids. But various books have been written about such early commando operations in WW2 and perhaps one day an alert reader of these pages will spot the name of Private Harding in a publication or on an audio recording. Or perhaps a member of his family is reading these words and will get in touch.
What is known for certain is that on the night of 18 August Ern was one of a 6,000-strong force which set out for Normandy across the English Channel. He was part of Operation Jubilee, an ambitious project with the aim of capturing the port of Dieppe and holding it for a short period.
The operation would test the feasibility of a full-scale Allied landing in France and would gather intelligence, including data on the importance and performance of a German radar station on the cliff-top near the town of Pourville, west of Dieppe. German coastal defences, port structures and important buildings were to be demolished. The raid had the added objective of boosting Allied morale. It would also help to satisfy the Soviet government’s demand that the Allies create a second front in France, thereby forcing the Germans to move some of their divisions away from the Eastern Front and so relieve pressure on the Red Army.
Light naval craft covering the landing during
the Combined Operations daylight raid on Dieppe. MGB 321 is nearest the camera
(partly obscured by some sailors in the foreground) whilst submarine chaser Q
014 can be seen in the middle distance. From the collection of the Imperial War
Museums © IWM (A 11234)
The plan was for over 6,050 infantry, mainly Canadian, supported by a regiment of tanks, to be put ashore from a naval force operating under protection of RAF fighters.
Initially, Commando groups would neutralise two
German artillery batteries that were covering the main anchorage for the port
of Dieppe.
The sea crossing was not without incident. In the early morning of 19 August, Ern and No. 3 Commando in 25 landing craft ran into an enemy force consisting of a tanker and armed trawlers. In the ensuing fight, several landing craft were sunk: it seems that only 18 Commandos managed to arrive on time at the planned landing points on beaches to the east of Dieppe. We do not know whether Ern was among them.
No 3 Commando occupied 25 LCPs (Landing Craft Personnel) at the eastern end of the assault convoy. At 3.48 am they ran into armed trawlers escorting a tanker and in the resulting melee, several of the flimsy LCPs were sunk and the rest scattered. Any element of surprise the assault force had expected was now lost and the dispersion of No 3 Commando substantially weakened their capacity to suppress the eastern flank gun battery at Berneval.
Image credit: www.combinedops.com
No. 3 Commando had been assigned the task of attacking the Goebbels Battery, located on steep cliffs near Berneval-le-Grand, about half a mile from the sea. The gullies which rose towards the battery would provide concealment while the Commandos approached their target.
But Operation Jubilee was doomed from the start. Allied intelligence on the area was sparse: there were dug-in German gun positions on the cliffs, but these had not been detected or spotted by air reconnaissance photographers. The planners had assessed the beach gradient and its suitability for tanks only by scanning holiday snapshots, which led to an underestimation of the German strength and of the terrain. The German forces at Dieppe were on high alert, having been warned by French double agents that the British were showing interest in the area. They had also detected increased radio traffic and landing craft being concentrated in the southern British coastal ports. Dieppe and the flanking cliffs were well defended.
No. 3 Commando returning to Newhaven after Dieppe raid, August 1942. From the collection of the Imperial War Museums © IWM # H 22588
Of the men of No.3 Commando who landed at Berneval-le-Grand, 37 were killed, including Ern. Of the others, 81 were captured, mostly after having been wounded, and just one managed to evade capture and return to Britain.
Tanks and landing craft burning on the beach after the Allied raid on Dieppe. From the collection of the Imperial War Museums © www.iwm.org.uk
The aerial and naval support provided for Operation Jubilee was insufficient to enable the ground forces to achieve their objectives; the tanks were trapped on the beach and the infantry was largely prevented from entering the town by obstacles and German fire. After less than six hours mounting casualties forced a retreat; only one landing force achieved its objective.
A wounded Canadian soldier being disembarked
from the Polish Navy destroyer ORP Ślązak at Portsmouth on return from Dieppe,
19 August 1942. From the collection of the Imperial War Museums www.iwm.org.uk
The operation was a fiasco in which the only success was in gathering intelligence including electronic intelligence. Of the 6,086 men who landed, within ten hours, 3,623 had been killed, wounded or became prisoners of war. The Luftwaffe made a maximum effort against the landing as had been expected, and the RAF lost 106 aircraft. At least 32 of these losses were due to anti-aircraft fire or accidents), against 48 German losses. The Royal Navy lost 33 landing craft and a destroyer.
The Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery, where Ernest Frank Harding is buried. Image credit: Labattblueboy
The lessons of the Dieppe Raid influenced preparations for Allied seaborne operations such as the Normandy landings. Ern’s sacrifice was not in vain. In tribute to him and the many others who lost their lives, a commemoration service takes place each year in the Sussex town of Newhaven, where many of the survivors landed after the operation.
The next post is for LIEUTENANT JAMES AYERS BAYLEY (1918-42), who was killed on 25 Sept 1942 in a tragic accident at Dalditch Camp, near Budleigh Salterton
You can read about him at
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/10/ww2-75-tragic-accident-at-dalditch-camp.html
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