Campbeltown, at the end of her long life, was racing down to die in style. On her bridge, Beattie called his steering corrections, aiming for the great caisson gates still some 700 yards upriver. Campbeltown’s Oerlikons were in action, hammering the German coastal defenses. When the crews of two of the Oerlikons were hit, other crew members ran in the storm of fire to replace them. German tracers streamed out toward her, and heavier shells smashed into her flanks. Newman, watching Campbeltown from the MGB, said later: ‘The weight of fire caught one’s breath. Her sides seemed to be alive with bursting shells.’ Dead and wounded men littered her bloody decks.

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Campbeltown’s coxswain and quartermaster were both killed on the bridge, but Tibbets calmly stepped past another officer and took the helm. ‘I’ll take it, old boy,’ he said, and held the old ship straight on her run to glory. Almost blinded by the German searchlights, Beattie and Tibbetts remained the consummate navy professionals, laconic and matter-of-fact in the midst of fire and carnage. The bearded Beattie’s icy calm prompted one observer to exclaim: ‘By God! The absolute Elizabethan!’

‘Hard a-starboard,’ said Beattie quietly to his new coxswain.

‘Hard a-starboard, sir,’ came Tibbetts’ equally calm reply.

‘Steer 055 degrees.’And then, ‘Port 25.’

‘Twenty-five of port wheel on, sir.’

‘Steer 345 degrees.’

Finally Beattie ordered, ‘Steer 350 degrees,’ and old Campbeltown pointed directly at the south caisson of the dry dock. Then, ‘Stand ready to ram.’ Just before impact, Beattie ordered ‘port 20,’ and Tibbets swung her stern to starboard, neatly clearing a landing place for the motor launches coming in behind her.

At 19 knots the old destroyer tore through the cables of an anti-torpedo net, smashed into the massive southern caisson and jammed herself deep inside the great dock. Her steel bow warped and buckled for 36 feet under the tremendous impact of striking the dock. Now she was stuck fast, pointed upward at an angle of about 20 degrees, her stern almost submerged. Beattie allowed himself a smile, then said, ‘Well, there we are, four minutes late.’ It was 0134, just four minutes off Ryder’s carefully planned schedule. Over the side of Campbeltown went the survivors of the raiding parties. Most of them had already been hit on the run in, but anybody who could move clambered down from the dock on scaling ladders and went about his mission. The destroyer’s forward gun crew and the men serving the commandos’ mortars were all down, dead or wounded, but the remaining Oerlikons continued their accurate fire on the German coast defenses. With so many men dead or wounded, no more than 113 commandos got to shore, and of those about one-fourth-the demolitions men-carried only pistols.

Colonel Newman got safely ashore with his command party and was immediately engaged in a furious firefight with German guns mounted on the sub pens, cannons on guard vessels and a riverfront shore battery. Troop Sgt. Maj. Haines arrived with a 2-inch mortar in the midst of all this hell, calmly set up his tube and managed to suppress much of the German fire, even though he was firing without sights. When one of the German ships in the St. Nazaire Basin fired on Newman’s party, Haines silenced it with a Bren gun.

Lieutenant John Roderick led his part down scaling ladders from Campbeltown’s bow, rushing two gun emplacements in a row and destroying both with grenades. The next obstacle was a flak tower, which Roderick’s men took out with grenades lobbed onto the gun platforms on the roof. Next was a 40mm gun position, which they reduced to silence. Beyond them another gun and a German searchlight were erased by British fire, though to this day no one knows who got through to destroy them.

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