An Italian source, not explicit in naming the British names, points that Cooke's men encountered a platoon of Italian police paratroopers. Terry gathered the raiding team and retreated with 17 men to rejoin Laycock at the beach. He passed command to Sergeant Jack Terry and remained behind. Shortly afterwards, Campbell was accidentally shot in the leg by one of his own men. Keyes was taken outside but quickly died. Only one round was fired by the Germans during the raid on the HQ. The official version is that Keyes opened the door to a nearby room, found Germans inside, closed it again abruptly, reopened it to hurl in a grenade and was shot by one of the Germans. Campbell shot him and Keyes might have been wounded in the scuffle. They set upon the sentry who opened the door. Unable to find an open window or door, Keyes took advantage of Campbell's excellent German by having him pound on the front door and demand entrance. At 23:59, Keyes led his party past sentries and other defences up to the house. Hiding in a cave during the day, the detachment advanced to within a few hundred yards of the objective by 22:00 on the third night. Keyes then led his men on a 1,800 ft (550 m) climb, followed by an approach march of 18 mi (29 km) in pitch dark and torrential rain. Their Arab guide refused to accompany the party in the deteriorating weather. Shortly before first light, Keyes' men moved to a wadi, where they sheltered until dark on the second night then moved off. ![]() Haselden's detachment completed its mission and was picked up by the LRDG. Laycock remained at the rendezvous with three men to secure the beach, Keyes led his detachment of 25 men for the attack on Rommel's supposed headquarters, while Lieutenant Cooke took six men to destroy the communications facilities near Cyrene. With only 34 of the 59 men available, instead of four detachments attacking the targets, there were only to be three. Laycock and seven men landed but the rest were stranded on Talisman. The weather deteriorated and Laycock's group had a much more difficult time getting ashore. Once ashore, they made contact with Haselden, delivered earlier by the Long Range Desert Group for reconnaissance. The beach lay near a place known as Hamama, some 250 mi (400 km) behind Axis lines. On the night of 14/15 November 1941, Keyes' detachment landed on the beach of Khashm al-Kalb (The Dog's Nose), guided by two-man Special Boat Section (SBS) teams in folboats (folding canoes). HMS Talisman transported Laycock, Captain Glennie, Lieutenant David Macbeth Sutherland and 25 men from Alexandria. On 10 November, HMS Torbay carried Keyes, Captain Robin Campbell, Lieutenant Roy Cooke and 25 men. Rommel was not even in North Africa during Flipper, having gone to Rome to request replacements for supply ships sunk by the British. Some weeks earlier, Rommel had moved his headquarters nearer to Tobruk to be close to the action. Unbeknownst to the planners, Beda Littoria had only briefly been Rommel's headquarters and had been taken over by the chief quartermaster of Panzergruppe Afrika, General Schleusener. The operation was led by Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Laycock Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, present throughout the planning stage, selected the most hazardous task of the attack on Rommel's headquarters for himself. Rommel's headquarters was believed to be at Beda Littoria, because Captain John Haselden had reconnoitred the area disguised as an Arab and reported that Rommel's staff car came and went from the former Prefecture. the headquarters of the Italian Trieste Division near SlontaĪlthough not specified in the orders, the goal of the raid was to kill or capture Rommel, to disrupt German organisation before the start of Crusader.an Italian headquarters and communications cable mast at Cyrene.a wireless station and intelligence centre at Apollonia. ![]()
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