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landing onto smooth sand was now a high tide landing onto rocks and boulders from wooden, V-hulled boats that were anything but flat-bottomed: ‘I jumped in, armpit-deep. A wave hit me on the back of the neck and caused me to trip over a rock. All around me officers and men were scrambling for balance, falling, coming up and coughing salt water. I doubt there was a dry weapon amongst us,’ recorded Major Durnford-Slater. He led the way towards the enemy, battle-dress heavy with seawater:

    I set off running up the long flight of concrete steps which led to the cliff top, 250 feet up. In my eagerness I went too fast. By the time I got to the top I was absolutely done … and my sodden battledress seemed to weight a ton. My legs were leaden, my lungs bursting, I could hear the squeak and squelch of wet boots as the rest of the troop followed us up from the beach. 7

    Once on the clifftop high above the beach they sent out patrols, established road blocks and searched for enemy to kill. Not a German was found. Although Second Lt Hubert Nicolle, an officer whose pre-war home had been on Guernsey, had landed a few nights before the raid to carry out a stealthy reconnaissance, the Germans appeared to have altered their dispositions in his absence. Reluctantly, and with time for the RV with HMS Scimitar running out, Durnford-Slater ordered his men back to the boats. Down the steep steps they hurried:

    I was last down from the cliff top with Peter Young clattering just ahead of me. Near the bottom I accelerated and suddenly realised that my feet had lost the rhythm of the steps. I tripped and tumbled the rest of the way, head over heels. I had been carrying my cocked revolver at the ready. During the fall it went off, seemingly tremendously loud and echoing against the cliffs. This, at last, brought the Germans to life. Almost at once there was a line of tracer machine-gun fire from the top of the cliff on the other side of our cove. 8

    They reached the beach. Heavy swell and a change of tide meant the men had to swim out to their rescue boats waiting 100 yards out in deep water beyond the growl of surf and pounding waves. Which was when three of his party admitted that, unfortunately, they were non-swimmers. They were left behind to give themselves up. Some of the men stripped off naked for the swim out to the boats. One man – Gunner John McGoldrick of the Royal Artillery – was later reported missing, believed drowned. Durnford-Slater left his battledress blouse on the beach for the Germans. It had his name sewn into the collar.
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    And so, eventually, they came home.
    Operation Ambassador , evidently, provided a learning curve for these new raiders that was almost vertical. Although much was learned – about boat suitability, personnel selection, the need for good small boat navigation and, above all, proper beach reconnaissance – nothing could disguise the fact that Ambassador was another disappointment, another fiasco. Churchill himself recognised it as such: ‘Let there be no more silly fiascos like those perpetrated at Boulogne and Guernsey,’ he said. ‘The idea of working all these coasts up against us by pinprick raids is one strictly to be avoided.’ 9 Churchill had a point. Lord Lovat, one of the war’s outstanding commando leaders, wrote:

    The sailors got a reprimand and Churchill ordered an immediate reorganisation. There would be no more slackly planned, uncoordinated efforts mounted by a collection of amateurs – naval or army – against targets of insignificant importance. With a hostile War Office, limited resources, our poor track record and the disapproval of every Army Command, it required courage to reinforce the concept of a corps elite . 10

    So far, despite all his frustration and impatience, March-Phillipps appeared to have missed very little. Yet already, thanks to the fiascos of Operations Collar and Ambassador , the very commando concept was already under fire and in question. It