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No. 2 Commando, 11th S.A.S.
1st Parachute Battalion (1940-45)
Tragino Aqueduct
February
1941
Commanding Officer
Major Pritchard Royal Welch Fusiliers
At 2142
hours on 10th February
1941, X Troop, of 11 Special Air Service Battalion, (formally No. 2
Commando and later to become 1 Parachute Battalion), comprising a party of seven
Officers and thirty-one other ranks, including a demolition team led by Captain
Daley, Royal Engineers, were dropped 50 miles inland at Tragino, a remote area
in Southern
Italy.
Their assigned task was
to destroy the Aqueduct which supplied vital water, from the River Sele to the
Ports of Bari, Brindisi and Taranto. This was an operation conceived as a
learning exercise, to be carried out by a force, whose largest previous
experience had been the dropping of twenty men from two Whitleys. It was also a
completely new and untried experience for 91 Squadron R.A.F., who were required
to drop men from the unprecedented height of 500 feet, over enemy territory at
night. Without the aid of beacons, a later development, the party, except for
one stick, who were dropped in the next valley, landed safely in the area of the
Aqueduct. Unfortunately the missing stick consisted of the demolition team and
vital explosives. With only about 800 pounds of explosive available to the
remaining party, this limited amount was placed around one pier and it's
abutment. The charge was fired and the pier collapsed. As water began to flow
from the damaged pipe, the Commando unit prepared to make a hurried dash for the
coast, where they were to be picked up by
submarine.
The force split into
three parties, each taking a different route to the coast. One party got to
within eighteen miles of their destination, before being surrounded and
captured. The other two parties, making their way through ploughed fields and
over mountainous countryside, in wintry conditions, were themselves captured.
The submarine which was to rescue them never reached the
rendezvous.
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