The 12th September 1944 Captain 'Red' Huntington-Whiteley RM of 30 Commando/AU was callously cut down by a group of Wehrmacht who clearly wanted to fight to the end, 'Red' was just 24 years old and was killed alongside Marine Shaw.
'Red' who had been with the unit from the start & had personally recruited many of the Royal Marines who served, was killed whilst taking the surrender of a large group of Germans in Le Havre.
Marine Jim Feely was captured for a short time following this action and here he recounts the events of that fateful day:
“I was, with the distinguished ‘Doc’ Livingstone, taken prisoner by the German at Le Havre for 24 hours. The German High Command nominated me for an Oscar after acting dead, having been fired upon with a machine gun from four yards away by the worst shot in the Wehrmact. He did manage to put a couple of holes through my leather jerkin after I had taken such tender care of it. The German medics were amazed after examining me.
Regrettably Captain Huntington-Whiteley and Marine Shaw were killed nearby by better marksmen. Anyway we were handed over to the Naval HQ, our original target which turned out to be a large submerged concrete bunker, and interrogated outside the entrance.
We told everything we knew…which was a complete blank. Tucked into my web belt was a 45 Colt automatic pistol, fully loaded, which no one in the excitement had noticed; with 4 or 5 guns pointing at me I had no wish to risk aggression by reaching for it. Eventually, one man did notice it. The Admiral himself had just come out of the bunker to see what all the commotion was about. He pushed by the interviewer and pulled the gun out of my belt. Not at all pleased, apparently, he asked who had taken me prisoner.
The man in question stepped forward, the Admiral threw the gun at him and bombarded him with a tirade of abuse. He told us later he was punished by having to stand guard over us all the following night.
The next morning, the Germans surrendered, and we were released after being subjected to such atrocities as Erzatz coffee, black bread and weak beer. There were no cells as such in the bunker so we were confined in the officer’s store room. A table, a couple of chairs and two small mattresses were supplied.
With our sign language and his smattering of English we convinced him he had nothing to loses but everything to gain by being our friend. We even signed the RAF leaflet he had picked up, offering safe conduct. We didnt get much sleep that night, the queues formed quickly when word went round that we were giving autographs, so I suggested that 200 francs a time wasn’t excessive.
Doc wanted to pull rank and charge only 100 but Lance Corporals younger than myself don’t have much of a pull and I convinced him it was a dwindling market. Some paid over the odds and special words of comfort were added.
As I pointed out to the Germans, the next few days would see them in England and the francs would be useless there. Two days after our release we entered Paris with our pockets bulging with francs. Our application for a Red Cross parcel was turned down.”
(Taken from "Attain By Surprise", D. Nutting, 1997)
Related Royal Marines 'Dits':
References/ Further Reading
30 AU Website https://www.30au.co.uk/
30Commando on X - @IHistorical
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