Bardia raid The Bardia raid was an amphibious landing at the coastal town of Bardia in North Africa by British Commandos over the night of 19 / 20 April 1941 during the Second World War . The raid was carried out by No . 7 Commando also known as A Battalion Layforce together with a small detachment from the Royal Tank Regiment supported by five navy ships and a submarine . The raid — which destroyed an Italian artillery battery and a supply dump — was deemed a success despite the loss of 71 men . The more lasting strategic effect of the raid was the diversion of a German armoured brigade from the front line to provide rear area security . Background . In January 1941 , an " ad hoc " force of 2 , 000 commandos — known as Layforce — was sent from Great Britain to take part in raiding operations in the Mediterranean . Under the command of Colonel Robert Laycock , the force comprised No . 7 , No . 8 , No . 11 Commandos , a troop from No . 3 Commando and the Folbot section . On their arrival in Egypt in March 1941 , the force was strengthened by the amalgamated No . 50 and No . 52 Commandos . To avoid the Axis powers becoming aware that a large force of commandos had arrived in theatre , 7 , 8 , 11 and 50 / 52 Commandos became known as A , B , C and D Battalions Layforce . After the German Operation Sonnenblume offensive in North Africa by the " Afrika Korps " which re - occupied Cyrenaica , Sollum and Bardia in February 1941 and the invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941 , the plans for the deployment of Layforce were changed and their first operation would be a raid on Bardia . Raid . The Bardia raid was planned for the night of 19 / 20 April by A Battalion Layforce , with the objective of disrupting enemy lines of communication and inflicting as much damage as possible to installations and equipment . The plan called for the simultaneous landing of A Battalion and a troop of tanks from the Royal Tank Regiment on four beaches by Landing Craft Assault ( LCA ) . The landing force would be transported to the area by , escorted by the anti - aircraft cruiser and the destroyer s , and . On arrival of the transports off Bardia , one LCA could not be lowered and there were difficulties releasing the others . When they did get going and approached the beaches , they were expecting to see lights to guide them in , which were to have been deployed by the Folbot section ; unknowingly , the Folbot section had been delayed " en route " when friendly fire caused the submarine transporting them — — to submerge and take evasive action . The main landing force — now behind schedule — were landed on the wrong beaches . All the landings , however , were unopposed and the commandos made their way inland to locate and destroy the objectives they had been assigned . The town of Bardia was found to be unoccupied by the Italian or German forces , and faulty intelligence before the mission resulted in some objectives being missed , as they were not where they were supposed to be , or they did not even exist . The commandos , however , did manage to find and destroy an Italian supply dump and an Italian coastal artillery battery before returning to their waiting LCA ′ s to reembark . The raid would have passed without any loss to the commandos but for the death of a commando officer by friendly fire from an overalert commando soldier and the capture of 70 men who , after getting lost , ended up on the wrong evacuation beach and became prisoners of war . Aftermath . The raid on Bardia was a considerable strategic success . Alarmed by it , the Germans diverted the greater part of an armoured brigade from Sollum , where it was beginning to exert heavy pressure on the Western Desert Force , and kept it for some time in the rear areas . Layforce — instead of being used as a commando raiding unit — were deployed as normal infantry battalions , a role for which they were neither equipped nor trained . As one of the few reserve forces available , they were sent to take part in the Battle of Crete ; fighting as the rearguard they lost 600 men before being evacuated . Layforce C Battalion was not sent to Crete but instead to Lebanon , where they lost over 120 men fighting in the battle of the Litani River . The steady drain of manpower without the re - supply chain of normal British Army regiments meant that Layforce as a unit was left in an ineffective state and was disbanded in July 1941 . The author Evelyn Waugh — who took part in the raid — related in an article he wrote for " Life Magazine " in November 1941 that the Germans " sent a strong detachment of tanks and armoured cars to repel the imagined invasion " . However , in his personal diary published in 1976 , a very different picture emerged of incompetent execution by the commandos against virtually no opposition .