Operation Claymore - the Lofoten Islands Commando raid 4th March 1941.

Donald Macey WW II
(13th June 2009)

After our visit to Inverarry with the Austin Healy Club I came across a leaflet about Combined Ops at Inverarry Castle and then their excellent website. This enabled me to put a few specific questions to my father, who gave me "¦ specific answers"¦! When I asked if he had ever been to Inverarary (knowing that he did do commando training on the Isle of Arran) he said"often". Inverarry was the centre of a huge training operation that put through a quarter of a million troops training commandos - in the end up to twelve groups - and did the landing craft training for D-Day. He told me that he was in Number 4 Commando and I already knew that he had been on the Lofoten raids. With the internet being such a fantastic resource I now have details on this - Operation Claymore and the fact that he was on the first raid in February /March 1941. I looked up their shoulder flashes to find that they were a red flash with a yellow hand grasping a dagger. I had a hunch that there might be something in my mother's sewing box and so it proved, a pristine shoulder flash for Number Four Commando and also a white horse on a blue background which was the shoulder flash for Hamlin where they lived after the war. Somewhere there is also a Desert Rat flash and I will ask Grandad specifically why he had that given that he was never in the desert. I think it was to do with some sort of complex labelling system that the army had that transcended geographic theatres of war.

I had thought that he was in the Bombay Sappers and Miners, but was corrected on this by him on this visit and it was in fact the Bengal Sappers and Miners. These two envelopes found yesterday turned up a number of fascinating photographs which he had sent back to his parents, as well as some very early photographs of my parents when they had just met at Longworth (and looked young enough to be at school); together with quite a few wedding photographs from 9th July 1942 when they were both aged 22. All seemed to include spaniels and I know they were called Tess and Judy. Some three weeks after the wedding my father went off to India and Burma and they did not see each other again for three-and-a half-years.

There is also a picture of a young Donald Macey with very long legs in a kilt but he could not recall why that was and also some pictures of an equally young soldier complete with rifle and bayonet with what I would assume to be the BEF - British Expeditionary Force to France that went in 1939/40 and was evacuated from Dunkirk six months later in 1940. There is a nice photograph of him wearing a peaked cap with a big smile and on the back it says"Taken Saturday December 23rd 1939, age 19 years 5 months Last leave before going to France sailing January 15th 1940".

When I asked him about Dunkirk, he said they were too busy to be frightened blocking off roads and blowing up bridges etc so the Germans could not advance. He said the worst thing was the black smoke from burning oil tanks which came down with the pouring rain and got on to everything. There are also photographs of him in India with a snake on a stick with a typical humorous comment on the back in his handwriting"That's me - wearing the boots. Donald India 43", as if we might not be able to tell which was the snake and which was him!

I would still like to got some more detail about the Mawchi Road as this is the area that my father was in fighting the Japanese in Burma. He opened a teak box from Fishlocks one day and took out the map of the area where he was at this time, seemingly behind enemy lines when the war finally ended in the Pacific. But I should be able to get that detail from the service records, which I'll send off the forms for shortly.

Andrew Macey
13th June 2009

Part Two
Dear All
I found this leaflet in the Castle gift shop when we visited with the Austin Healeys some years ago
250,000 troops went through training here, taking over the entire town. Grandad remembered it well, not least how cold the water was !

Sadly, there is now nothing left to remind visitors of this huge endeavour and why it was so vital. All the D Day amphibious training went on here, yet there are no reminders. This booklet is an A5 DIY production to at least provide some information, but was no longer being sold when we went back the last time.

It difficult to scan in order, but will give you an idea of the activity that went on, and from the forward, there must have been a museum at one time. Perhaps in July, post wedding, we should all venture there and individually, as if not connected....ask where has it all gone ?!? They are missing a major tourist boost too.

After watching Night will Fall and Shoah last week end - the stark reality of the nazi Death Camps - it makes you wonder what the world would be like if the Allies had failed....

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/holocaust-night-will-fall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film)

Yours Aye
me

p.s. just to keep all this together, I have attached the amazing letters Grandad sent to his parents before and after the raid - he was 21 years old, having been evacuated off Dunkirk aged 19.5 years... The barometer in the front hall at 100 is from one of the German ships he blew up and sank, hence a trip to the Lofoten islands is on the cards before long

His diary records how they were finally told their destination - above the Arctic circle, and mission- when well out at sea. He decided to plan an escape through Russia, if captured ! Growing up PDQ was the order of the day - he was 21....