Lt-Col J. C. Manners

Col-Manners at the isle of Brac

The previous page was: "60s Life Malta"

The most formidable of the German troops who were ordered to re-occupy the Dalmation islands of Yugoslavia, was the 118th Jaeger Division, tough, well trained mountain troops able to give a good account of themselves.

Despite orders from Marshal Tito himself, the local Partisans still refused to deliver up their prisoner, whom they shot before he had revealed important information. Even when their own existence was at stake, co-operation with the Yugoslavs was not always an easy matter.

The attacks against the enemy were so numerous there would be great difficulty providing the correct information about them. The partisans believed they were capable of clearing the Germans from their country on their own.

You have to ask; if this were the case why were the Germans in full control of Yugoslavia now. However there were valid reasons why the Allied Forces were there; to keep the German Divisions there and away from the French coast.

60s life Malta

It was decided to attack the island

Of Brac, to prevent the garrison from reinforcing their comrades on the mainland. The enemy on the island were some twelve-hundred strong; with about five-hundred occupying a series of well-sited strong-points, each supporting the other.

Each strong-point occupied the summit of a hill with a clear field of fire all round; their main armament was four 105-mm guns.

The Yugoslav 26th Division was to be made up of thirteen-hundred Partisans, 43 Commando's Heavy weapons Troop, and one other Troop of 40 Commando, all under the command of 'Mad Jack' Churchill.

Artillery support was to be provided by the Partisans manning 107-mm guns, and a battery of eight twenty-five pounders of the 111th Field Regiment Royal artillery.

Complicated arrangements were made so that 242 Group of the Royal Air Force could use their rocket-firing Hurricanes and maintain regular fighter patrols over the island throughout the operation.

The U.S.A. Army Air Force was to bomb three nearby ports on the mainland so as to interfere with any attempt to reinforce the island.

3rd June 1944, the battle opened

With an assault delivered by the Force on the observation position. They were met with very heavy fire and their reply, though vigorous, was ineffective, because the Germans were in concrete trenches impervious to small arms.

The attackers were soon in jeopardy, they were bare of all cover and between them was a complicated and devilish mine field. The combined assault of 43 Commando and the Partisans failed because, of the heavily laden mine fields which coverd all possible approaches.

Reinforcements from Vis were summoned; three Troops from 40 Commando Royal Marines under their Lieutenant-Colonel J.C. Manners, D.S.O. arrived and they made ready for battle.

Manners made a long reconnaissance in person; he determined that both 40 and 43 Commandos should assault Point 622 at dusk. At the same time the Partisans were to attack Points 542 and 648; the two remaining enemy posts at that position.

They had been ordered to harass the proposed objectives, but make no effort to capture them. Unfortunately the orders arrived too late because the Commandos had already started their assault.

It was bright moon-light;

They could clearly see where they were advancing but could also be seen clearly by the enemy. On reaching the mine-fields and barbed-wire they came under incessant small-arms fire from both flanks and machine-gun fire from the centre.

It was here that Marine Charles Nicholls, though badly wounded successfully directed his troop through a gap in the wire blown by a Bangalore torpedo.

Surging forward through the fire two Troops of 43 Commando reached the top of the hill on the northern side. But all of their officers and four of their sergeants were wounded or missing. Hardly had they arrived at the summit when they were driven off of it by a counter-attack with overwhelming odds.

Despite all their efforts Sergeant T.C.D. Gallon, twice wounded and Sergeant K.R. Pickering, who in order that his badly wounded Troop commander could be dragged to safety, stood up in the moon-light and drew the enemy's fire.

Defeated but not broken, 43 Commando withdrew, having lost six officers and sixty other ranks killed, wounded or missing. On the other side 40 Commando had also attacked the Strong-Point 622.

Manners had no need of maps

Or photographs, for there in front of them, bathed in bright moon-light, was the hill that was their objective. As they advanced machine gun fire rattled out first and as they closed the small-arms opened up.

It was noticed that it began with the usual German intimidation fire where they shot at random, but as the advance continued then the fire became more concentrated.

While crossing a wide shallow valley they encountered a Troop of 43 Commando with 'Mad Jack' Churchill who was determined to press forward.

At this point Jack was to assault on the right and Manners on the left. Bayonets were fixed, rifle magazines checked that they were loaded. Then the Commandos moved forward, Colonel Jack Churchill at their head playing his bagpipes.

"The Commandos," he said afterwards, "were magnificent; all in line and chanting "Commandos Coming" "Commandos Coming" loudly whilst firing from the hip as if on an assault course at Achnacarry."

The top of the hill was soon reached. Five Germans were allowed to surrender. 40 Commando had reached and were on top of the hill but 43 Commando were not there. They had been repulsed, and all efforts to get in touch with them by wireless had failed.

Manners and Churchill on Strong-point 622

Manners and Churchill stood a moment whilest surveying the layout on the summit of the hill. Manners moved off when a shot shattered his arm. Jack ran to him, put a tourniquet above his shattered arm, and dragged him to cover beside the other wounded officers and men.

The fire on the hill was still extremely heavy it was coming from all sides and the mortar bombs were dropping all around them. Once more they tried to make contact with 43 Commando, wondering when they would arrive.

Now the hill top was manned by only six persons, two of whom were grievously, and one slightly, wounded. "I was distressed," says Jack, "to find that everyone was armed with revolvers except myself, who had an American carbine."

Despite his condition Colonel Manners continued to fire his revolver until he was wounded again by a mortar bomb which exploded close by, killing Captain Wakefield and two Marines, and wounding the others.

At that moment in the waning moon-light some twenty of the enemy started approaching. Colonel Jack's fire drove them off, and a small post of Commando Marines, somewhere to the left Flank also engaged them. So the fight went on.

Eventually all of the revolver ammunition was spent and Jack had one magazine remaining for his carbine. He alone was not wounded, the rest were dead or unconscious. "Our position," he records, "was growing precarious."

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Jack Churchill grabbed his Bagpipes

Jack took out his bagpipes setting them to his lips he played. "Will ye no come back again?" Almost immediately shouts were heard and it seemed like help was at hand. Then came a flurry of grenades, a fragment struck Jack on the head and stunned him.

On regaining consciousness he found German soldiers prodding him to see if he was still alive.

Colonel Jack was assisted from the field and shut with twelve others, mostly wounded, in a pit ten-foot deep, at the headquarters of the German battalion which had held the hill.

When the Germans realised who Jack Churchill was, they put him on a plane to Berlin, from there he was he was returned to England.

Lieutenant-Colonel J.C. Manners

Lieutenant-Colonel J.C. Manners, mortally was wounded, he died in the arms of a fellow prisoner of 40 Commando Royal Marines, whom the Germans allowed to visit him where he lay in the first-aid tent.

A Veteran from the start, he was the first Commando leader of the Royal Marines. 40 Commando being the first Royal Marine Commando Unit, which formed on 14th February 1942. He proudly led his Commando at the fateful Dieppe. But his proudest moment came when he led his Commando during the Spearhead of the invasion to liberate Europe.

Manners took 40 Cdo to Dieppe where he was thrown into the sea on a sinking and badly damaged Eureka landing craft. He and Lumsden together had led the spearhead invasion of Sicily, he was at the head of the landings at Termoli. He had also led and fought on the banks of the Garigliano River and he gallantly led his men at Anzio.

Now he was going to be buried in a common grave on the battle field where he fell, along with his men who had not survived the battle for Strong-Point 622.

They would be buried by their comrades, before they were marched off to captivity. The total losses for both Commandos in this assault, were sixteen officers and one-hundred and eleven other ranks.

Tactically Brac was a failure,

but strategically it achieved its object, because the Germans sought, not to withdraw troops from the Dalmation Islands, but to reinforce them.

The Commandos had been directly responsible for tying down three German Divisions. This was no mean achievement, and in fulfilling it they had displayed precisely those qualities in action which made them the unique force they were.

The Commandos fought on. 43 Commando Royal Marines put a patrol on Hvar and in a thick dawn fog killed eighteen out of twenty Germans and took fifteen prisoners, without loss.

40 Commando RM harassed the Germans on the island of Mljet and reduced their courage to a very low point.

43 Commando RM, with the Partisans had the privilege of driving the Germans from Brac and then from Solta.

'Mad Jack's' sword and bagpipes, have been seen on exhibition in a glass case in Vienna.

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Col-Manners Forty in Brunei

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