The raid on Berck-sur-Mer

raid

You have to give it to the Brits, they don’t give up. Regardless how dire the outlook they will come up with daring stuff to overcome their struggle.

As it was the case in June 1941. They appear to be fighting the Germans on their own, Heavily outnumbered they had to come up with innovative ideas to fight the enemy. The British army send in a group of commandos assisted by French resistance on a raid on raid on Berck-sur-Mer in France.

The raid was highly successful. Media across the world reported on this daring action.

One newspaper article reported on June 18,1941 “One party of parachutists, heavily armed with Tommy guns and hand grenades, overpowered the airfield guards, rushed the control room and seized its occupants,”

New York Herald­ Tribune and New York Post, 18.6.41, repeated on WRUL.
“An amazing and daring raid by the British on a Nazi airport in the Northern
French town of Berck-­sur­-Mer. According to the Zurich correspondent of the
Herald Tribune, a detail of British parachutists landed on the airport,
overpowered forty German troops and pilots stationed there, and destroyed 30
planes. Joined by a number of Frenchmen who wanted to join the Free French
Forces of General de Gaulle, the British raiding party then made their way to
the nearby seashore, where naval motor boats were waiting to take them back
to England. The attack occurred during a heavy RAF raid on the coastal ports
of Calais and Boulogne and caught the Nazis flatfooted. Forty prisoners were
taken.”

It was believed by everyone except by the 40 prisoners, because it never happened.

The whole raid was a made up story. It was a genius bit of fake news WWII style. The man behind it was Canadian born Brit William Stephenson. Stephenson was the head of the SOE operating from New York, His job was to draw the Americans into war by propaganda. The  on Berck-sur-Mer in France was designated Sib 766.The ‘news’ wenet from London to New York, from New York to Zürich, from Zürich bakd to New York after that Stephenson’s team sent out to Dr Jan Loewenbach  the press attache at the exiled Czechoslovak government’s  consulate in New York, just to put the cherry on the cake and make it look completely genuine. The dirty news had been laundered and it was believed.

There were many more to follow. Ironically I recently saw an article in the Guardian Newspaper where they were remembering this ‘daring raid’ there was no mention that had had never actually happened.

william

The story of William Stephenson and his efforts to drag the US into war is written in a very interesting book by Henry Hemming titled “Our Man in New York: The British Plot to Bring America into the Second World War”

 

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