The British Landing Craft The Germans Mistook For A Sinking Trawler
27 landing craft. 50 German guns. A deliberate sacrifice that opened Europe's most important port. On 1 November 1944, the Support Squadron Eastern Flank — 27 converted landing craft under Commander Kenneth "Monkey" Sellar RN — sailed at 10 knots into the concentrated fire of Walcheren Island's Atlantic Wall batteries. Their mission: draw German fire onto themselves so the Royal Marine Commandos behind them could reach the beach alive. Within 90 minutes, 9 craft were sunk, 8 disabled, and 172 men were dead. The German gunners had wasted thousands of rounds of irreplaceable ammunition on targets that couldn't hurt their concrete casemates — exactly the fatal error Sellar had gambled his entire squadron on. Every commando landing craft reached the shore. The capture of Walcheren opened the Scheldt estuary to the port of Antwerp, which had been captured intact on 4 September but sat useless for 85 days while the Germans controlled the sea approaches. Once open, Antwerp handled 22,300 tons of supplies daily — the lifeline that sustained the Allied advance through the Ardennes winter. This is the story of the ugliest, most expendable vessels in the Royal Navy — flat-bottomed cargo lighters with welded-shut ramps and destroyer guns bolted to their decks — and how they achieved what a 36,000-ton battleship could not. CHAPTERS 0:00 — Cold Open: 1 November 1944, off Westkapelle 1:45 — Why Antwerp was the most important port in Europe 4:10 — The fortress island: Walcheren's 50 coastal guns 6:30 — Commander Sellar and the Support Squadron Eastern Flank 8:15 — The craft: LCG(L)s, LCG(M)s, LCFs, LCS(L)s, and LCT(R)s 11:00 — The assault: 0750 hrs, 1 November 1944 14:30 — LCF 37, LCG(M) 101, LCG(M) 102 — the first losses 17:00 — "A grave tactical error" — the German mistake 19:00 — Why HMS Warspite and the monitors couldn't do it alone 21:30 — The commandos land: 41, 48, and 10 (IA) Commando ashore 23:00 — Antwerp opens: 28 November 1944 24:30 — Vindication SOURCES & FURTHER READING Brooks, Richard. Walcheren 1944: Storming Hitler's Island Fortress. Osprey Campaign Series, 2011. Rawling, Gerald. Cinderella Operation: The Battle to Supply Dunkirk and Open the Port of Antwerp. Cassell, 1980. Pugsley, Rear Admiral A.F. Destroyer Man. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1957. HMSO. The Campaign in North-West Europe, June 1944 – May 1945. Naval Staff History, 1994. Roskill, Captain S.W. The War at Sea, Vol. III, Part 2. HMSO, 1961. "North Sea 'Island Hopping.'" Naval History Magazine, U.S. Naval Institute, October 2019, Vol. 33, No. 5. Imperial War Museum, London — Walcheren/Operation Infatuate photographic archive (catalogue refs. A 26233, A 26236 and associated negatives). National Archives, Kew — ADM series: Commander K.A. Sellar's after-action report; Captain A.F. Pugsley's despatch for Force T operations, November 1944. Bevrijdingsmuseum Zeeland — SSEF casualty records and Walcheren garrison documentation. Royal Marines Historical Society — SSEF composition, landing craft specifications, and Operation Infatuate personnel records. Traces of War (tracesofwar.com) — Walcheren battery identification (W11, W13, W15, W17, W18, W19) and German garrison order of battle: Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung 202, Marine-Flak-Abteilung 810, Grenadier-Regimenter 1019 and 1020. VESSEL SPECIFICATIONS (SSEF) LCG(L) Mk.3/4: 495 tons, 192 ft × 31 ft, 10 knots, 2 × 4.7-inch QF guns, crew ~48 LCG(M): 2 × 17-pdr guns in armoured turrets, 80 lb DIHT armour, ballast tanks for beaching LCF: 455 tons, 159 ft × 31 ft, 11.5 knots, 4 × 2-pdr pom-poms + 8 × 20mm Oerlikons LCS(L) Mk.II: ~112 tons, 1 × 6-pdr, 2 × 20mm Oerlikons, wooden Fairmile H hull LCT(R): 1,066 × 5-inch rockets (17 tons of explosive per salvo), Type 970 radar SSEF LOSSES — 1 NOVEMBER 1944 Sunk: LCG(L) 1, LCG(L) 2, LCF 37, LCG(M) 101, LCG(M) 102, LCS(L) 252, LCS(L) 256, LCS(L) 258, LCF 38 Disabled: LCG(L) 11, LCG(L) 17, LCT(R) 334, LCT(R) 363, LCM 42, LCM 36, LCS(L) 260 Personnel: 172 killed, ~200 wounded out of ~1,030 engaged The ONLY YouTube channel dedicated exclusively to Royal Navy warships, warfleets, and naval technology. Every video tells the story of a British vessel or weapon that was underestimated — and proved the critics wrong under fire.
The British Steam Gunboats The Germans Could Not Outshoot In A Diesel War
The 'Outstanding' British Fighter That Test Pilots Called Better Than The Spitfire
The British Rocket Ships Germans Called A 'Rolling Wall Of Fire'
Why it took 1000 men to run a Warship
The 'Outdated' British Monitor That Fired 1,800 Heavy Shells Into German Positions
The 'Outclassed' British Destroyer That Killed Two Italian Cruisers In Five Minutes
The Vehicle the LRDG Feared – AS.42 “Sahariana”
The 'Makeshift' British Anti-Aircraft Ships That Protected More Convoys Than Any Cruiser
The British Sailing Ships That Fought The Nazis With Camouflage Nets And Commando Knives
The Secret British Island That Sank 23 U-Boats—Germany Never Found It on Any Map
The 'Old' British Battleship Whose Guns Killed German Tanks Eight Miles Inland On D-Day
The 'Retired' British Bomber That Flew The Most Dangerous Route Of The War
The 'Forgotten' British Gunboats That Terrorised Japanese Rivers
The British Gunboats The Kriegsmarine Warned Coastal Forces To Avoid
When German Pilots First Chased the Mosquito — And Realized They Couldn't Catch It
The £20,000 British Warship That Sank More U Boats Than Every Destroyer Combined
They Called It "Impossible" — Until His Weapon Sank 47 U-Boats
The Engineer Who Turned A Primitive Battleship Into Britain's Most Feared Weapon !
They Mocked His “Toy Submarine” — Then It Sank 33 Japanese Ships in One Year
