Operation Basalt

On the night of October 3–4, 1942, 12 people from the 12th commando unit and the Small Raider Forces (aka the 62nd commando unit ) of the Special Operations Directorate landed on Sark Island in order to conduct reconnaissance and capture prisoners.

Several Britons entered one of the houses on the island. The owner of the house, Francis Noel Pittar, said that about 20 German soldiers had settled in the Dikar hotel ( Fr. Dixcart ), but refused to leave the island. Mrs. Pittar handed over to the British documents (including newspapers from Guernsey ) confirming the facts of German crimes against the civilian population of the Channel Islands, including the theft of local residents for forced labor in Germany.

In front of the hotel was a small hut without security. This annex included a corridor and five rooms where five German soldiers (not officers) slept. The soldiers were woken up and taken out onto the street, after which the commandos decided to go into the hotel and take out a few more prisoners. In order not to worry about the protection of prisoners, the British tied the Germans' hands with belts from German trousers and recommended that the prisoners hold their pants. Such actions were familiar to the commandos and made it possible to worry less about the possible escape of prisoners.

Suddenly, one prisoner began to call for help, trying to shout to colleagues at the hotel, but he was immediately shot from a 38-caliber revolver. It was a signal for the Germans: fire was opened from the hotel on the British. The commandos hastened back to shore with the remaining four captives, three of whom still escaped. The circumstances of the escape have not been established: it is assumed that someone could still untie the belt and free his hands, but it is not known whether the escape was made by all three at the same time. Two were shot, the third was stabbed to death. The fourth survivor, Corporal Hermann Weinreich, was brought to England and provided important information.

A few days later, the Germans published a report on the consequences of the attack: one prisoner fled, two were shot while trying to untie their hands. This report became one of the prerequisites for the issuing of an order by Hitler, according to which the German commandos were forbidden to capture German soldiers.

In December 1943, a second raid was carried out on the island of Sark by British and French commandos, called " Rusk 7 ". The raid ended in failure: two of the four commandos, passing along exactly the same route, were blown up by mines.

• Major Jeffrey Epplyard ( English Geoffrey Appleyard )
• Captain Philip Pinckney, later a SAS 2nd Brigade fighter and participant in Operation Veronica
• Lieutenant Anders Lassen ( Dates. Anders Lassen ), later major, Knight of the Victoria Cross and Military Cross, participant in Operation Roast
• Patrick Dudgeon
• Colin Ogden Smith
• Bruce Ogden Smith
• Graham Young
• James Edgar
• Sergeant Horace 'Brammy' Stokes ( English Sergeant Horace 'Brummie' Stokes ), later a fighter of the 2nd SAS brigade and a member of the operation “Veronica”
• Corporal Flint
• Sgt . Joseph “Tim” Robinson , later a SAS 2nd Brigade fighter and participant in Operation Veronica
• Private Redborn

Actor David Niven, in his autobiography The Moon's a Balloon, wrote that the commandos who landed on Sark Island were treated to drink by locals, but no Germans were found on the island. It is believed that Niven confused Operation Basalt with Operation Ambassador held in July 1940 - then 140 commandos from the 3rd division and the 11th separate company landed on the island of Small Sark by mistake, deciding that they were on Guernsey . The Germans really were not there, but in the reports there was no information that one of the locals had treated the commandos with booze.

• Fowler, Will (2012). Allies at Dieppe: 4 Commando and the US Rangers. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781780965963 .