page_title: Operation Postmaster
section_title: Mission
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Postmaster / Mission
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS Violet At a buoy.
context_page_description: Operation Postmaster was a British special operation conducted on the Spanish island of Fernando Po, now known as Bioko, off West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea, during the Second World War. The mission was carried out by the Small Scale Raiding Force and the Special Operations Executive in January 1942. Their objective was to board the Italian and German ships in the harbour and sail them to Lagos. The SSRF under the command of Major Gus March-Phillipps left Britain in August 1941 and sailed the Brixham trawler, Maid Honour, to the Spanish colony.
  The British authorities in the area refused to support the raid, which they considered a breach of Spanish neutrality. Permission for the operation to go ahead eventually came from the Foreign Office in London. On 14 January 1942, while the ships' officers were attending a party arranged by an SOE agent, the commandos entered the port aboard two tugs, overpowered the ships' crews and sailed off with the ships, including the Italian merchant vessel Duchessa d'Aosta. The raid boosted SOE's reputation at a critical time and demonstrated its ability to plan and conduct secret operations no matter the political consequences.
context_section_description: SOE agent Richard Lippett had obtained employment with the shipping company John Holt & Co (Liverpool), which had business offices on the island. Having taken up the post he started to make preparations for the raid. He became aware that the crew of Duchessa d'Aosta were in the habit of accepting invitations to parties ashore and had held their own party aboard ship on 6 January 1942. Under the guise of a party-goer Lippett managed to gain information about the readiness of the ship for sea, crew numbers, and the watch arrangements.
  The raiders left Lagos in their two tugs on the morning of 11 January 1942, and while en route they practised lowering Folbots and boarding ships at sea under the command of Captain Graham Hayes. They approached Santa Isabel harbour and at 23:15 and 23:30 hours on 14 January 1942; both tugs were in position 180 metres (590 ft) outside of the harbour. Onshore, Lippett had arranged for the officers from Duchessa d'Aosta to be invited to a dinner party; 12 Italian officers as well as two German officers from Likomba attended.
  The boarding parties assembled on the decks of the two tugs as they entered the harbour. Vulcan, with March-Phillipps and his second in command Appleyard on board, headed for Duchessa d'Aosta.  As they approached, a few men could be seen on the after deck of the merchant vessel, but they seemed to take no notice of the tug other than to shine a torch in its direction. At the same time, Folbots under the command of Hayes from Nuneaton, were being paddled towards Likomba and Burundi, which were moored together. Challenged by a watchman on Burundi, they persuaded him with their reply that it was the ship's captain coming back on board. The men from the canoes boarded Burundi and the two man crew on watch jumped overboard. After planting explosive charges on the anchor chain, the commandos guided Nuneaton alongside Likomba to take her and the Burundi in tow.
  As soon as they were ready, the charges were blown and Nuneaton started to tow Likomba out of the harbour. Eleven men from Vulcan had managed to board Duchessa d'Aosta; while one group planted charges on the anchor chains, another searched below decks collecting prisoners. Blowing the anchor chains, Vulcan started to tow Duchessa d'Aosta out of the harbour. The explosions had alerted the population of the town, who started to gather on the pier, but no attempts were made to stop the ships from leaving. Several anti-aircraft emplacements opened fire at imaginary targets, believing the explosions to have been caused by an aerial attack, but the six-inch guns protecting the harbour itself remained silent. From entering the harbour to leaving with the ships under tow, the operation had taken 30 minutes, without any losses to the raiding party.
  Out at sea on 15 January 1942, March-Phillipps established a routine of watches and placed guards on the 29 prisoners they had taken. During the evening they started to have trouble with the tugs' engines and the tow ropes to the captured vessels. The next day Vulcan reached the location for the rendezvous and was "captured" at sea by HMS Violet. Nuneaton, suffering from engine trouble, managed to contact the Nigerian collier Ilorin by semaphore, which in turn contacted Lagos, and a ship was dispatched to tow them into port.
caption: The Flower-class corvette HMS Violet
exif: {}