Falmouth's mayor is heading for France this weekend to take part in the 80th commemoration of the allied raid on St Nazaire in 1942.

Cllr Steve Eva will be joined by town clerk Mark Williams, who is paying out of his own pocket, at the event organised by the Association Forteresse Saint Nazaire with the support of the Cultural Institute of Brittany.

The ceremony in St Nazaire on March 26 will commemorate the 611 commandos and sailors who took part in Operation Chariot during World War Two, 169 were killed and 200, mostly wounded, were taken prisoner.

Falmouth Packet:

HMS Campleton rammed the docks. Creator: Kramer Credit: Bundesarchiv

HMS Campbeltown accompanied by 16 motor launches packed full of commandos and escorted by two destroyers, departed Falmouth on March 26 1942, with the intention of blocking the St Nazaire docks and rendering the port unusable by the German Navy and the Battleship Tirpitz for maintenance and repairs.

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The raid was successful and Campbeltown, packed with explosives, rammed the dock and exploded, destroying the gates and knocking the giant dry dock out of action for the rest of the war.

Only 242 returned to Falmouth after the raid. Some of the dead lie in cemeteries in France, some were brought home to England, others have no known grave.

Five Victoria Crosses were awarded, two of them posthumously.

The 80th Anniversary will include a debate conference in Saint-Nazaire on Saturday, March 26, 2022 (10am to 1pm on the Nazairienne Memory to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Operation Chariot.

Falmouth Packet:

There will be a screening of the 1974 BBC/ORTF documentary The Raid on Saint-Nazaire" followed by two presentations relating the events that immediately followed the Raid of March 28, 1942 and deeply affected the Nazairian population at the time.

Falmouth Packet: St Nazaire commemoration

Falmouth mayor Steve Eva pays his respects at last year's St Nazaire commemoration

One of the presentations will be dedicated to the testimony of the director of the Loire construction sites, Jacques Bonnaffé, extracted from his memoir, and the other presentation will be dedicated to a remarkable escape of the Corporal Arnold Howarth de Saint-Nazaire, one of them NQ commandos who managed to join Britain through Spain. His story highlights the courage of Nazairians and Trignacais who braved the ban to rescue an injured British soldier and bring him to the Free Zone.

A ceremony in Falmouth is expected to take place at a later date.