St Nazaire raid - remembered

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**Wolfstan**

I was reading an article about the 70th anniversary of this raid and a thought crossed my mind. I wondered if we are ever likely to have the same freedom in a war that we did in WWII? If you look at all the crazy stuff that happened and private armies that came about, could you see that happening again in modern times?

**purplefood**

I don't get what you mean...
AFAIK freedoms were pretty damn limited... at least in Britain they were...

**alarmingrick**

Look at all the "Private Contractors" in Iraq at one point.
I'd say it's possible.

**Wolfstan**

What I mean are units like SAS, SBS, Commandos, Chindits. All these came about due to Churchill and his desire to keep hitting the Nazi's, even if in small amounts. These were all niche forces at the time. Someone would get Churchill's ear and the next thing you know he's allowing some Captain to have ago with a newly formed unit.

**Albatross**

Did you watch the 'Castle Commando' program last night on the beeb? It was awesome.

**Wolfstan**

No I didn't know it was on. I will iPlayer it later. Thanks for that.

**Albatross**

It basically tells the story of the Commando brigades, their formation and training, some of their missions... Was really interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bfl4x

**RossDas**

I have a book about the St Nazaire raid, I must get through it some time. I did see a documentary about it though, presented by Jeremy Clarkson; it was a good thing they wrecked those docks - the Tirpiz would have sent a great many merchant sailors to the bottom of the Atlantic otherwise.

**mattyrm**

Wolfstan wrote:No I didn't know it was on. I will iPlayer it later. Thanks for that.

Yes I heartily recommend it as well, I watched it yesterday. Its pertinent to this discussion obviously. Its got some great information about my fine regiments beginnings, although some of it was incorrect (We still have some army commando's!) The bit where the nods (commando recruits) are jumping out of the raider onto the beach and the mortars are landing about 3 feet away from them made me laugh out loud, makes the stuff I went through look like childsplay.

We still do the tarzan course and it looks almost the same to this day, although they don't fire shells at you when you complete it nowadays.

Also, some good stuff on unarmed combat by Fairburn and Sykes, and If you enjoy reading about the commando raids and such, I recommend you watch the movie "The Cockleshell Heroes" as well.. Its an oldie but a goodie.