Remembrance Sunday - Nov 10th 2024 Lest We Forget

[MrsORichSenior_]

Just wanted to take a moment to share.............

I live down the coastal road, close to St Nazaire, our beach sign states the Atlantic covers over 29.155 square nautical miles [100 million square kilometres]



Saint-Nazaire was one of the largest U-boat bases built by the Germans during WW2..... being 300 meters long,150 meters wide and covered 4 hectares....it required 450,000 cubic meters of concrete to build..... it had a 9-meter-thick concrete ceiling that could withstand almost any bomb at the time.........
.... The base was defended by a German garrison of 24,000 men.....the roof was covered with anti-aircraft weaponry, machine guns and mortars..... and it still stands today.

.... after Hitler approved unrestricted submarine warfare in May 1940 his U-boats attacked shipping around UK in groups called “wolf packs”..... from summer 1940 to Spring 1941 each U-boat sank an average of eight merchant ships a month

These attacking U-boats based at St Nazaire could also be attacked by our allies though via our escorting warships....... as convoys were formed into several columns of ships with up to five ships in each column, forming a big box of up to 60 ships........
These U-boat wolf packs still kept returning to the mid-Atlantic though...... as a temporary Allied inability to read their signals meant that by the end of 1942 allied shipping was in a crisis...... the introduction of aircraft carriers, long range aircraft and roving 'support groups' of warships eventually defeated the U-boat wolf-packs by the end of May 1943..........

Though U-boat tactics initially saw success in the Battle of the Atlantic [greatly disrupting Allied shipping] the improved convoy and anti-submarine tactics such as "high-frequency direction finding" and the Hedgehog anti-submarine system eventually began to take a toll on the German U-boat force......

... the local St Nazaire U-Boat Museum states on official literature i'm reading that ......
... “Of the U-boats, 519 were sunk by British, Canadian, or other allied forces while 175 were destroyed by American forces, 15 were destroyed by the Soviets and 73 were scuttled by their crews before the end of the war for various reasons.”

Saint-Nazaire was one of the last Atlantic ports to surrender, on May 11th 1945.

The St. Nazaire raid, also known as Operation Chariot resulted in 169 deaths of the British commandos and sailors who participated in the operation........ with over 360 Germans killed..... including 40 senior German officers.

The raid was a daring operation to put out of action the facilities at St. Nazaire base ..... which the British Admiralty worried could be used by the German ship "Tirpitz" to raid Atlantic shipping........
This raid was so successful that it earned the nickname "the greatest raid of all" in British military circles.
Sadly the town itself of Saint-Nazaire was flattened by 53 bombing raids during the war and in the post-war period, just like Plymouth in the UK, a lot of not terribly attractive concrete formed its rebuilding....... but the character of the town and people that live there is strong to this day.......... attracting 350,000 visitors a year.......

I was privileged to be present at the very emotional special service of Remembrance to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the St Nazaire Raid during WW2 that took place on Sunday 17th March 2024 with my Mother, 90, to lay our wreath in honour of all fallen service men and women.

"Lest We Forget"
......... to honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedoms from communities across the country, those brave men and women who have served in both peacetime and war. Their efforts are why I and family wear a poppy this month.
MOT