German Boots on British Soil in 1943

[Yarkshire Gamer]

I've been talking with Paul Thompson again about the story of a German Kommado raid on the St Lawrence Radar Station in August 1943.

From what was little more than a rumour a few years ago, Paul and his team have done some amazing work to get to the point now where its more likely the raid did happen, than didn't.

Anyway here is a link to the latest Yarkshire Gamer Podcast which covers the latest updates on the investigation.

https://kenrtai.podbean.com/e/episode-73-paul-thompson-german-boots-on-british-soil-1943/

Some big reveals in the episode.

Regards Ken
Yarkshire Gamer

[bluewillow]

Nice one Ken

[Rick]

Wow - that is pretty amazing stuff. I'd no idea about it (I suspect most people don't) but have now ordered the book.
From the snippets of information I've gleaned it looks like Bruneval may have provided the Germans with a template - the setup does seem a bit similar although that might just be the case of a site near the sea gives rise to the same basic approach! 

[HerbertTarkel]

Cool, I have not heard that story before. Good one! “You do you, hombré!” 

Seriously, nice find.

[carlos marighela]

The start point for all this is Adrian Searle's Churchill's Last Wartime Secret: the 1943 German raid airbrushed from History ?

That's been pretty comprehensibly debunked as a load of old tosh. Searle's 'research' was pretty poor, it's based on second hand hearsay at its heart, misses a lot of contextual and specific detail, adds plenty of spurious and irrelevant detail and relies on the tired old trope of it was all kept hushed up by the powers that be.

There are far more plausible explanations for the rumours, including at least two multi-company scale exercises in the area involving the RAF regiment assigned to defend that particular station, indeed there was large exercise taking place on the very night suggested for the 'raid'. It took place on the same night that the Luftwaffe were bombing Portsmouth and at least one Ju-88 was shot down in the area.

The discovery of large amounts of spent cartridge cases and a few grenade spoons really doesn't add much to the story. At the very best it's all inconclusive but when you base this on the original story it looks less and less credible.

Not to say that it wouldn't make a fun game, it would but in the same sense that 'The Eagle Has Landed' is fun gaming fodder.

[carlos marighela]

http://www.pillbox.org.uk/blog/245381/

[Rick]

Sorry but that is just counter supposition, not hard evidence. I agree that Searle's book is probably a lot of supposition with very little evidence in it but the counter argument, at no point, discredits the book - it offers alternatives and possible explanations but that's all, there's no conclusive evidence to overturn the idea.
And then there's the physical archaeological evidence in the ground - without that, I might have agreed with you, but it tallies closely with the accounts given by the survivor to be mere coincidence.
No, Carlos, I may not actually believe there was a 'conspiracy of silence' around what happened but certainly something happened that is not accounted for in the records of the installation. The 3 rounds fired by a P38 might have come from a german airman but why there? Why the sheer number of cartridges used in that one spot? And why were 3 live hand grenades thrown into carefully constructed defences? According to the source you mention, nothing happened near this site and the physical evidence should not exist at all. The counter supposition you link to makes absolutely no attempt to explain these points, hardly mentioning RAF St. Lawrence in its eagerness to show that it all happened at Ventnor - nothing to see here folks, it's all happening over there (honest) move along now!

[carlos marighela]

Ammunition from from various sources? Could mean anything.

Grenades thrown into defences? Well assuming they actually were found in defences, any number of reasons suggest themselves. Bored soldiery do stupid things. My grandather told me that during the war, while stationed at an airfield in Scotland one winter there was running gag of climbing up the back of the guardhouse on the way back from the boozer and dropping .303 rounds down the flue of the pot-belly stove. All very amusing, albeit dangerous, until somebody decided to raise the stakes with larger rounds.

Occam's razor suggests that something other than German commandos caused all this. By the by the original story has as its source the mysterious, supposed participant who claimed to have been in a convalescent unit in Guernsey. Not quite sure how this translated into an an elite Brandenburger, Possibly in the same way that the 'rumour' got to be taken seriously.

[HerbertTarkel]

History is most fun when it’s written a long time after it can be proven, and when speculation mixed with any shred of evidence makes it POSSIBLE.

I relate this to the the massive deep-dive that Canadian author David O’Keefe has done to validate the sheer insanity of Dieppe. That it meant something other than the death and capture of so many Canadians. I’ve met David and he is a well respected veteran and historian, but his books - well, they’re mostly great POSSIBILITIES. His work on his regimental history is far more factual than speculative; the Dieppe stuff? It’s … FUN.

[carlos marighela]

Indeed.

Like all of these things it all ultimately rests on that fundamental element of the conspiracy fantasy; that somehow all the witnesses to what would, by any standard, have been a dramatic event, were all constrained by the Official Secrets Act, with no leakage in the intervening years and that somehow the deep state was able to expunge all record of it happening.

I look forward to the relevation that these crack German commandos effected their landing by way of a flying saucer, the very existence of which would require the deepest layers of state security being applied for the following eight decades. 

[Legiox217]

Thanks for sharing and putting the effort into this. Sounds like a great listen to throw on for a paint sesh very interesting. I never thought much about any sort of German probing actions or ground assaults into England. I am not sure they put much thought into it after they were essentially knocked out for the time being. I can only imagine how hard it must be to research something like that. Not necessarily something England would be bragging about, it is curious to wonder how much more we don’t know ! Cheers

[commissarmoody]

Indeed.

Like all of these things it all ultimately rests on that fundamental element of the conspiracy fantasy; that somehow all the witnesses to what would, by any standard, have been a dramatic event, were all constrained by the Official Secrets Act, with no leakage in the intervening years and that somehow the deep state was able to expunge all record of it happening.

I look forward to the relevation that these crack German commandos effected their landing by way of a flying saucer, the very existence of which would require the deepest layers of state security being applied for the following eight decades. 

Surely it was Thule worm hole tech, and then they teleported to their underground artic base before rocketing off to the moon.

[Yarkshire Gamer]

Indeed.

Like all of these things it all ultimately rests on that fundamental element of the conspiracy fantasy; that somehow all the witnesses to what would, by any standard, have been a dramatic event, were all constrained by the Official Secrets Act, with no leakage in the intervening years and that somehow the deep state was able to expunge all record of it happening.

I look forward to the relevation that these crack German commandos effected their landing by way of a flying saucer, the very existence of which would require the deepest layers of state security being applied for the following eight decades. 

Have you listened to the Podcast and the latest evidence ?. The thing that has impressed me about this investigation is that it hasn't draw conclusions, it has looked at the factual evidence both physical and  from newly located testimony and documentary evidence.

The book was years ago and we have discussed its failings on the Podcast, this is NOT about that book it's about and ONGOING archaeological, scitefic and archival investigation.

Some of the result we discussed are less than a couple of weeks old, to dismiss something that hasn't even reached a conclusion as "conspiracy fantasy" is unbelievable.

[Yarkshire Gamer]

http://www.pillbox.org.uk/blog/245381/

This is from 2017, that's 8 years ago, a lot has moved on from then, the archaeological work located 1,000s of items which are still being analysed.

 

[carlos marighela]

Fair enough, your mate has a theory and he's doing some archaeology, more power to him, it will be intersting to see what conclusions he arrives at.

Still it remains true that whether his investigation follows the logic of the late Mr Searle or not, you are left with the fact that if true, it would not be an insignificant event. If people were brassing each other up around, what were then, still sensitive facilities, someone would have noticed. Not just someone but quite a few someones. The 20 odd folk posted to the facility. The RAF regiment chaps, charged with its defence. the sector command, people higher up the chain all the way to Whitehall. Potentially hundreds of people.

Now, as there is no record of this, we are to assume that the application and enforcement of the OSA was so profound that all these men went to their graves without breathing a word? Somehow MI5 has clamped down on everything and no record exists? You do know the prospect of a secret surviving intact is directly proportional to the number of people that know it? Somehow the rest of the security services must have been complicit as there is no German record of any of this taking place either. Does it not strike anyone as odd that Goebbels wasn't loudly proclaiming such a triumph of arms? The British papers trumpeted the Bruneval Raid, the supposed spur to this action, not long after.

Isn't that odd given that we have the details of far more secretive, far more potentially damaging wartime events?

The podcast was an interesting listen and I wish your mate all the best in his endeavours. The forensics on the ammo etc quite fascinating but underneath all of that there's a fundamental flaw. Overcoming human nature's desire to share a good tale.