Commando courage

Patrick Hagen served as a wireless operator with 4 Commando Brigade signals troop. Here he describes the moment when, while guarding their exit route during a four-man hit-and-run raid on a radar site on the French coast, he and his friend Harry were discovered by two Germans.

‘There were only two types of commandos, the quick and the dead. This is what we’d been taught. So we both shot at once. Harry gave his man on his side two shots and I gave my man two shots. There was a small hole in his front — where the other shot had gone to, I don’t know — but a very large hole in his back and there was a lot of tomato sauce. By now, the other two who had gone to the radar site, which was only 400 or 500 yards away, were running like hell towards us and we all picked our way through the sand hills which was difficult because it was said that they were mined. S mines, they were called — “Schuh mines”, the Germans called them; the Americans called them “Bouncing Betties”; and we called them “De-bollockers”. They’d jump up about three or four foot and take you in half. Anyway, we made our way very gingerly to the boats and we got off-shore and we were taking shots from the Germans by this time. And we got on the MTB and I lay flat on my back on the deck and I was violently sick over the side. Harry pulled me back and said, “What’s up with yer?” I said, “I don’t like it. I think I’ve got it wrong. I ought to join the Girl Guides.”’