Rehearsals for the raid went on for weeks, particularly at Southampton's King George V dry dock, which was big enough to handle the 75,000-ton Queen Mary. The attack teams rehearsed their tasks over and over again and spent many more hours with a precise model created with the help of RAF photoreconnaissance images of St. Nazaire. The demolition parties rehearsed by day, then while blindfolded and finally at night. The standard was to plant explosives on the target in 10 minutes or less, and on each run-through men were declared casualties without notice, so that the rest of the team were forced to learn their tasks as well as their own.

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The raiders even invented a German-proof password: 'War Weapons Week'-the countersign was 'Weymouth'-for there is no 'W' sound in German. They also indulged in a little playacting for the benefit of any German spies who might be hanging around Falmouth, their jump-off point. They called themselves the '10th Anti-Submarine Striking Force' and put out the rumor that they were organized to search for U-boats far beyond the western approaches to the British Isles. They also concocted a tale that the force was going somewhere east of the Suez Canal and made sure anybody watching could see sun helmets and similar hot-weather gear being carried on board the ships that would take them to France.

By the middle of March, everything was as ready as they could make it. Last-minute aerial photos showed four new coast defense guns near the target area. These new pieces were only part of the tremendously powerful weaponry of the 280th Naval Artillery Battalion, which covered the estuary with 28 cannons, ranging in caliber from 70mm all the way up to massive 170mm tubes. There was even a battery of 240mm railway guns some nine miles down the coast at La Baule.

Three battalions of naval flak guns were also situated in or near St. Nazaire. These units manned 43 20mm and 40mm guns and a few 37mms, many of which were positioned in flak towers or atop bunkers or roofs of buildings. And this did not even take into account the aircraft of the Luftwaffe, the guns of ships moored near the dock or roving destroyers of the Kriegsmarine.

Moored in the submarine or Penhouet basins were 10 minesweepers, four harbor-defense boats, and nine U-boats-though the subs were manned only by skeleton crews. Anchored in the stream was a heavily armed Sperrbrecher, a ship designed to deal with magnetic mines. Two tankers were under repair inside the great dock itself and another nearby. There were also four Möwe-class torpedo boats moored in the submarine basin, and they happened to occupy the very spot where Ryder and Newman had planned to site their MGB headquarters. Operation Chariot would go ahead regardless. The odds were formidable: 611 raiders, about half navy and half commando, would go out against 10 times their number. Daring and surprise would have to make up for the disparity in force.

The raiders left Falmouth late on March 26, led by the destroyers Atherstone and Tynedale, followed by Campbeltown and flanked on both sides by the little motor launches. MTB-74 and the gunboat were towed by the destroyers. Those commandos who appeared on deck wore Navy jerseys and duffel coats to deceive any inquisitive German submarine or aircraft. That night the British changed course and hoisted German colors. The next morning they sighted a U-boat, which Tynedale drove under with gunfire and depth charges. Nothing more was seen of the submarine-U-593-but nobody could tell whether she had transmitted the force's position and heading.

It turned out she had, but here the British had a piece of luck. U-593 had probably not seen the little motor launches-they lay too low in the water-and had also signaled her headquarters that she had seen a British force headed west, instead of east. The Germans made the logical assumption that what the submarine had seen was a mine-laying operation, and sent ships to investigate. They found only empty water.

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