The Greatest Raid of All Trivia Quiz

Answer: To destroy the dry dock

The St Nazaire Raid, was a British raid on a German held dock that was conducted on the 28th of March, 1942.

The goal of this raid was to destroy a dry dock which would deny the Germans the ability to repair their larger ships, thus denying those ships operations in the Atlantic.

Answer: Tirpitz

The British were worried that if the German battleship Tirpitz managed to escape the naval blockade and reach the Atlantic, it could destroy a substantial number of cargo ships. Thus a decision was made by the Naval Intelligence Division to destroy the dry dock.

Answer: Operation Chariot

The mission was approved on the 3rd of March, 1942, codenamed Operation Chariot.

Operation Varsity was a successful airborne operation that took during the last months of WW2. It was the largest airborne operation to be carried out in one day, in a single location.

Operation Jubilee/Rutter, also known as the Dieppe Raid was a disastrously failed allied attack on a German held port of Dieppe.

Operation Sledgehammer was an allied plan to invade Europe through the English Channel, creating a second front and relieving some pressure off the Soviet Red Army.

Answer: They rammed the gates with a ship, which exploded afterwards

It was decided that the best way to destroy the gates was by taking a ship, filling it with explosives on a timer and ramming the gates with the ship.

The ship (HMS Campbeltown) successfully rammed the gates and even drove itself onto the gates. There was a problem with the timer and the explosives did not detonate on time. The next day the explosives did detonate, killing a party of 40 senior German officers and civilians who were inspecting the HMS Campbeltown.

Answer: 611

611 men were involved in this raid. This includes commandos and sailors.

Out of 611 only 228 returned to Britain, 169 were killed and 215 became prisoners of war.

Answer: HMS Campbeltown

HMS Campbeltown was originally an obsolete US destroyer, the USS Buchanan, which was transferred to the Royal Navy.

The ship was modified for the raid. It was striped of all of its internal parts, most of its weaponry and was packed with 4.5 tons of high-explosives. The ship's appearance was also modified to look more like a German destroyer so it would be easier to sneak into the docks.

HMS Tynedale and HMS Atherstone accompanied the raiding party but did not participate in the actual raid.

HMS Legion served a short life in the Mediterranean and was sunk by an air attack near Malta.

Answer: Destroy water-pumping machinery and gate machinery

After landing and securing an area around the HMS Campbeltown, commandos immediately sabotaged the water-pumping machinery and gate machinery.

If the worst case scenario occurred and the explosives in the hull of the HMS Campbeltown did not detonate, destroying this machinery would have at least put the dry dock out of commission for some time.

Answer: 5

The five Victoria Crosses were awarded to the following:

Commander Ryder
Lieutenant Colonel Newman
Lieutenant Commander Beattie
Sergeant Durrant
Able Seaman Savage

In total 89 decorations were awarded to the participants of the raid.

Answer: 1948

The damage was so extensive that German forces were unable to repair the dry dock for the entirety of the war. Only in 1948 the dry dock was fully repaired and recommissioned in 1950.

Answer: They got suspicious and suspected an invasion from the air or by sea

The bombers were supposed to stay over the port for 1 hour and divert attention to themselves.

Because of the unusual behavior of the bombers only dropping one bomb at a time, the Germans assumed it was an airborne invasion and ordered all guns to cease fire and searchlights to be turned off. The Germans were on high alert and started suspecting some sort of landing by sea as well.