Training in Wales, Scotland & England
From mid-November 1942, No. 3 Troop spent three weeks at the Commando Training Depot in Achnacarry, where around 25,000 commando soldiers were trained over the course of the war. After returning to Wales, Hilton-Jones took great pleasure in chasing his men back up to the summit of Mount Snowdon or swimming through Aberdyfi harbour at the end of the day, even in winter and occasionally with full equipment. The marches, including sprints with full packs, sometimes pushed the men to the limits of their endurance and allegedly also led to many of them giving up alcohol and especially tobacco in order to physically perform better. Accidents and injuries were commonplace, but according to his Viennese student Peter Masters, the “skipper”, as Hilton-Jones was called by the men, never demanded anything he had not performed himself and enjoyed great admiration and popularity. However, it was not only Hilton-Jones and his officers or members of other commandos who acted as instructors; the unit’s men themselves also changed sides from time to time. Fred Gray alias Manfred Gans from Germany was sent to Cambridge University soon after his arrival in Aberdyfi to attend an intelligence course and taught his comrades on his return. Geoff Broadman alias Gottfried Konrad Sruh, also a native of Vienna and a judoka, took care of hand-to-hand combat with a few others.
After just over half a year in Aberdyfi, where a memorial stands today, No. 3 Troop, which had now reached its total strength of 87 men, had to bid farewell to the Welsh idyll in the last days of May 1943. With the exception of a small group, which had already received its marching orders to the Mediterranean theatre of war, it was transferred to Eastbourne in southern England for further training, which was probably not met with boundless enthusiasm by everyone. For almost all soldiers, the motive for volunteering for the commandos had been the prospect of soon being able to fight against Hitler and thus take revenge for expulsion and the violence they had experienced. Nevertheless, despite the initial scepticism of the population, some close relationships had developed, which manifested themselves, for example, in regular weekly dance evenings in the community centre. In the case of Max Laddy alias Werner Max Lewinsky and Richard Tennant, they even extended to marriages with local women.
Training continued in Eastbourne and the different topographical conditions in the south of England compared to Wales provided good conditions for lessons on orientation or infiltration, with a particular focus on intelligence. The soldiers also had the opportunity to visit other units such as armoured, anti-tank and field artillery outfits and to practise using landing craft (as shown in a training movie of No. 4 Commando) or cliff climbing on the beaches. However, if the transfer to the south coast had raised the hopes of some that actual deployment to the European mainland was imminent, this was not (yet) the case. Although a few men were “loaned” to other units in the meantime – for example, the Viennese Peter Terry (Joseph Tischler) and Ernest Webster (Ernst Weinberger) are said to have landed on the French coast, taken a suitcase from presumably members of the Résistance and brought it back to England – everyday life only changed for the majority of them when the troop moved to Littlehampton, west of Eastbourne, in mid-September 1943. Here, it took over airborne and naval reconnaissance tasks from No. 12 Commando for the first time and switched from general basic training to more specific operational training, for which they also underwent brief but intensive parachute training near Manchester.
In mid-November 1943, a first task force under Hilton-Jones himself was finally deployed to Wimborne Minster in south-east Dorset to take part in Operation Hardtack, a series of raids on the Channel Islands and the northern French and Dutch coasts. Therefore, intensive climbing training – alongside the use of muffled weapons and night shooting – had also been emphasised at Littlehampton, as the plan was for the soldiers to parachute onto the islands, carry out their mission and then abseil down the cliffs to the sea to be picked up by a waiting boat. However, due to bad weather and the fact that the mission was only possible in a dark period without a moon, Hilton-Jones and his men waited in vain for the launch order. It was not until the end of December 1943 that they got ready again, this time supported by another group under George Lane, who had been promoted to lieutenant in the meantime and was supposed to pick up their parachuted comrades in so-called dories, small auxiliary boats that could be sailed and rowed. However, it is not clear from the available sources whether this time they took part in one of the raids carried out between 24 and 28 December as part of Hardtack; but at least one member of the unit, Russian-born Jack Jones alias Vladimir Kottka, saw action with the French No. 1 Troop of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando and was captured while attempting to explore the beach at Gravelines between Calais and Dunkirk after the team’s dinghy sank following an engine failure.
From the end of February 1944, No. 3 Troop trained for Operation Crossbow to locate and disable German long-range V1 and V2 weapons. It was in preparation for this mission when the Viennese Evelyn Fraser broke his ankle in an accident on Seven Sisters Cliff and, like the Berlin-born Peter Carson alias Peter Carlebach, who was seriously injured in a crash, had to leave the troop permanently. However, the training efforts and sacrifices had been in vain, as the unit’s participation in Crossbow – the men were supposed to jump into the Calais area and explore the V1 launch pads there – was cancelled, as was Operation Coughdrop – the blowing up of a submarine bunker near Lorient. The majority of the troop had to wait until D-Day before they could finally show what they had learnt from Hilton-Jones during the physically and mentally demanding months in Wales, in Scotland and on the south coast of England.
