RAID ON COAST OF FRANCE

Southland Times, Issue 24521, 23 August 1941, Page 7

RAID ON COAST OF FRANCE

LONDON, August 21. The Germans suspect that the British have a new type of ship for night landings equipped with a silent engine, says the Stockholm correspondent of The Daily Express. This belief results from a swift and silent raid on the French coast near Dieppe on the night of July 26. German witnesses of that raid said the sentries heard no sound of motors. The first alarm came when British hand grenades were bursting among the German occupying forces guarding the coast. After some firing the ships disappeared into the stormy night. Several thousand troops of the Ist Canadian Division were recently put through a strenuous week of _ secret training in coast assault tactics in preparation for the time when the British offensive strikes back at the Nazis in Europe, says a British Official Wireless message from Rugby. The brigade group included infantry, engineers, artillery, machine-gun men and signal units. It slipped quietly away from its Southern England camp area and travelled by train and boat to the special training territory. The Canadians, aided by the British Army and Navy officers, learned the trying technique of assault and landings on beaches and within a few days were effecting landings in full battle kit. The deepest secrecy surrounded this drill in invasion preparations. Some Canadians were put into the blunt-nosed motor landing vessels used six months ago in the Lofoten Island raid. Two infantry regiments went through the most strenuous drill with route marches of from 10 to 20 miles and practice in jumping from shipboard to small bobbing boats and effecting landings in coastal areas.