18 July 1942 Part 4

18 July 1942 Alderney Harbour Commandant diary

Cloudy, visibility 10 nautical miles, NW 1–2, sea 1. 0450: HS 192 returned from patrol. 1640: The signal station reported two harbour-protection boats and two patrol boats in sight under air attack. 1645: HS 135/183/192 departed to assist. 1735: Damaged Vp 204 entered. 1740: HS 135/183/192 entered with damaged HS 133/134. HS 133 had engine damage; HS 134 had been holed by gunfire and was beached. 1855: Vp 209 entered.

According to Vp 204’s commander, approximately twelve British aircraft attacked the patrol boats between Cap de la Hague and Alderney, naval grid BF 3543, from 1700 to 1704, at low altitude from all sides with bombs and aircraft weapons. A bomb hit damaged Vp 204 forward; Vp 209 was less seriously damaged. The diary reports six dead, twelve seriously wounded and eleven lightly wounded. For HS 133 it separately records two dead, one wounded, and a naval artillery man travelling on duty missing, according to the harbour-protection office. The dead and wounded were taken ashore by harbour-protection boats from the patrol boats in the roadstead; the injured received medical treatment. At 2050 a rescue boat summoned from Cherbourg took aboard some of the seriously wounded. The others and the dead were transferred to Cherbourg aboard Vp 713.

2024: Vp 713/211 arrived from Cherbourg with Nordfels, Schwalbe and Meteor. 2225: The rescue fast boat departed for Cherbourg with injured men. 2320: HS 12 went to patrol position. [Contemporary casualty figures and the separate HS 133 statement are preserved without combining them into an inferred final total.]

T-1022 Roll 2422, PG 37995, scan 0397–0398.