For his “great gallantry, skill and devotion to duty” during the St. Nazaire Raid in March 1942, Sergeant Tommy Durrant of No. 1 Commando and the Royal Engineers was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
Having been ordered to withdraw from the port of St. Nazaire, Motor Launch (ML) 306, carrying twenty-eight men – including fourteen commandos – encountered five ships of the German 5th Flotilla returning to port. Cutting its engines, the ML settled into the darkness as the first two ships sailed past without spotting her. The third, however – a destroyer named Jaguar – detected them, illuminated the launch with its searchlight, and opened fire on the wooden-hulled vessel.
The commandos and crew returned fire as Jaguar manoeuvred to ram the flimsy craft. Swift action by the ML’s skipper, Lieutenant Henderson RNVR, avoided the collision, but the destroyer’s vastly superior size and firepower soon took its toll: twenty of the twenty-eight men were either killed or wounded.
One man, however, refused to be beaten. Despite already having been shot multiple times and wounded in many places, Sergeant Tommy Durrant, manning the Lewis gun without cover or protection, “continued to fire at the destroyer’s bridge with the greatest coolness and with complete disregard of the enemy’s fire.”
His Victoria Cross citation records the courage and determination he displayed to the very end:
“The ML was illuminated by the enemy searchlight, and Sergeant Durrant drew on himself the individual attention of the enemy guns and was again wounded in many places. Despite these further wounds he stayed in his exposed position, still firing his gun, although after a time only able to support himself by holding on to the gun mounting. After a running fight, the commander of the German destroyer called on the ML to surrender. Sergeant Durrant’s answer was a further burst of fire at the destroyer’s bridge. Although now very weak, he went on firing, using drums of ammunition as fast as they could be replaced. A renewed attack by the enemy vessel eventually silenced the fire of the ML, but Sergeant Durrant refused to give up until the destroyer came alongside, grappled the ML and took prisoner those who remained alive.”
Tommy Durrant’s gallantry was commended by the German officers upon boarding the ML. Some weeks later, an officer from Jaguar, in conversation with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Newman VC – captured during the raid – described Durrant’s actions and remarked, “You may wish to recommend this man for a high decoration.”
Sergeant Tommy Durrant, the first soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross for a naval action – and on the recommendation of an enemy officer – died of his wounds. Lieutenant Corran Purdon, tasked with identifying the dead, counted twenty-seven bullet wounds in his body.
Sergeant Tommy Durrant VC is buried in Escoublac-la-Baule CWGC cemetery near St. Nazaire.