Survivor of daring raid on Nazi base

Born: November 3, 1920;

Died: October 20, 2016

ROBERT Montgomery, who has died aged 95, was one of the last survivors of what has been described as the greatest raid of all time, Operation Chariot, on the Nazi-held French port of Saint-Nazaire on March 28, 1942.

As a Royal Engineers explosives expert attached to 2 Commando, Montgomery was in charge of the teams who packed an obsolete navy destroyer, HMS Campbeltown, with explosives, disguised it as a German vessel and rammed it into the massive Saint-Nazaire dry dock.

The dock was the biggest in the world at the time and vital to Nazi vessels including the feared new battleship Tirpitz, which threatened the allies' vital Atlantic convoys.

The raid cost many lives, but was a massive setback for the Nazis, with the dock remaining out of action for the rest of the war and the Tirpitz destroyed by "Tall Boy" bombs dropped by Lossiemouth-based RAF Lancasters on November 12, 1944.

Of the 624 Royal Navy personnel and army commandos who sailed from Falmouth, Cornwall, for the raid, 102 Navy men were killed and 90 taken as prisoners of war.

The commandos lost 66 killed and 124, including the 21-year-old Captain Montgomery, became POWs. He spent the rest of the war in the Nazi POW camp Oflag 1X (nine) A/H in Spangenberg Castle, North Hesse, Germany, from which he was twice caught trying to escape. "One spent most of one's time trying to get out," he recalled.

As the allies closed in, the Germans marched Montgomery and his fellow POWs east on March 29, 1945. They were liberated by the 261st Infantry Regiment of the US 65th Infantry division at Lengefeld unterm Stein, in the German state of Thuringia, at 4pm on April 4 - "4/4/4," Montgomery later recalled.

For his part on the Saint-Nazaire raid, he received Britain's Military Cross (MC) and eventually, in 2006, was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by France.

Born in the village of Maresfield, East Sussex, on November 3, 1920, Robert Kerr Montgomery came from a long line of military officers. His grandfather was Major General Sir Robert Arundel Kerr Montgomery of the Royal Artillery and his father Lt Col Robert Vandeleur Montgomery won a Military Cross while serving in the Somerset Light Infantry during the Great War.

Robert attended Wellington College, Berkshire (1933-38), followed by the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich where he was one of the last cadets. "The Shop," as the Academy was nicknamed, closed down as all its cadets were called up at the start of the war and it later became part of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Montgomery was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in February 1940. He saw his first action in France from 15 June 1940 during Operation Ariel, the evacuation of allied forces and civilians from western French ports, including Saint-Nazaire, in the wake of the Dunkirk retreat.

He himself was evacuated from Cherbourg and spent the next two years building defensive fortifications against a feared Nazi invasion of England.

On March 27, 1942, now part of 2 Commando, he boarded HMS Campbeltown at Falmouth on a top-secret mission which turned out to be the raid on Saint-Nazaire. The old, explosives-laden vessel, re-named by the Royal Navy after the harbour town on the Kintyre peninsula, had originally been a US navy vessel named USS Buchanan. On the night of the raid, it was accompanied by 18 motor launches carrying commandos, which were meant to ferry the raiders back to England.

After the Campbeltown rammed the lock gates at Saint-Nazaire, Montgomery, all of its crew and the commandos on board the motor launches - whose men had already suffered heavy losses from German defensive fire - stormed ashore, leaving the ship's massive bomb on a timer. Montgomery and his group blew up the pumping house. In close combat, he was wounded by a grenade and took refuge in a civilian cellar.

He recalled his commanding officer Lt-Col Charles Newman pointing to the motor launches off the dock - their would-be escape vessels - all destroyed or on fire and telling his men: "Well, chaps, we've missed the boat home. We'll have to walk." He advised his men to split into small groups and fight their way south through France and head through Spain to British-controlled Gibraltar. A handful successfully did so but most of the survivors, including Montgomery were captured.

Hours later, with the ground fighting over, the old Campbeltown blew up in a massive explosion, bringing whoops and cheers from the Navy men and commandos being led away by their German captives. Mission accomplished. The captives were sent to POW camps, in Montgomery's case Spangenberg Castle where he would spend exactly three years before being liberated by the advancing US army.

Within six months, he was back in action, this time with the 1st Airborne Squadron of the Royal Engineers in troubled Palestine from 1945-46, where he was involved in combat in Tel Aviv. Two of his fellow RE officers and two British intelligence agents were killed in separate incidents.

He later served in West Africa, Tanganyika and Malaysia before retiring from the army in 1967 as a Lieutenant-Colonel. He became a businessman involved in ceramics and cement products until his final retirement in 1985.

Thereafter, he was an active member of the Bentley Drivers Club, himself owning two classic 1930s models, and branch chairman of his local Conservative Party branch in the village of Mere, Wiltshire.

Lt-Col Bob Montgomery died at his home in Mere on October 20. He is survived by his wife of 70 years Elizabeth (née Archer), sons Robin and David, daughters-in-law Elizabeth and Gwynneth (Gilly) and grandsons Owen and Huw.

PHIL DAVISON