St Nazaire 1942

The raid on the port of St Nazaire in March 1942 by a sea-borne task force from British Combined Operations remains one of the most impressive actions of World War II. The port lies at the mouth of the River Loire, and in 1942 as well as a U-boat base it contained the massive "Normandie" dock. Originally built for the pre-war construction of the giant Atlantic liner of the same name, the "Normandie" dock was the only facility on the Atlantic coast large enough to accommodate the German twin battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. This volume tells the full story of the raid on St Nazaire, a raid that would deny the use of the dock to the Tirpitz, and which constituted a vital step in the Battle of the Atlantic.