Fighting The Vichy French

Been reading England's Last War Against France .Fighting Vichy 1940-42 by Colin Smith. Quite an eyeopener on the madness of war .A lot about 11 Scottish Commando fighting in Syria.Also St Nazaire.. But my interest was the fighting in Madagascar with No5 Commando There were some nasty hand to hand fighting with the Vichy French. A Lt "Dopey" Rose ( named by his fellow officers as he looked like one of the Seven Dwarves) was in the thick of it ,as was Captain Chips Heron who led a party to take the French surrender who then changed their minds. Capt Heron had to call up the Navy to blast the top off the hill.(Capt Heron MC came to see my mother when dad died after the war ,a lovely man) The book mentions a senior officer from Commando HQ being sent home in disgrace for not supplying boats for an assault when there were boats available. Drink is mentioned. Who was this officer? The medical officer was Lt Patterson
Another terrific book is Commando to Colditz by aussie author Peter Stanley The story of Micky Burns it really is a good read about St Nazaire and especially the aftermath where the families are waiting for news .
Also Ive got the second hand book The Raiders by John Laffin which includes Dieppe with photos of dead commandos on the beach there. Surely these are Canadians.Also many training photos are said to be action shots The famous one of Mad Jack charging ashore in a storm with his claymore is said to be at Vaagos

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 11/01/2011 19:47:31

The Last War against France book sounds very good - there are very few detailed accounts of the Madagascar operation. Even though No5 came away with a few decorations - not least Chips Heron's MC ( Chips was indeed a very popular officer and leader in No5.

I recently had a discussion (via email) with someone whose father (surname Rose) was in No5 and I'd hoped that her father would turn out to be 'Dopey' Rose as that is how the poor fellow appears in my No5 Cdo Nominal Roll - I'd have liked to have put in his given name so that he wouldn't be referred to as 'Dopey' for eternity...

The Rose in question was not the Lt Rose after all, so he lives on as 'Dopey' - unless someone can throw some light onto the subject?

Nick