Lord Lovat, I Presume

Brigadier Lord Lovat, tall, tough, handsome leader of British Commando troops, was back in England last week, a bit bunged up from the Normandy fighting, and correspondents at last could tell the story of how Lovat and his men kept a promise on Dday.

Just before the invasion Lovat, 32-year-old veteran of Dieppe, the Lofotens and many a secret Commando raid, conferred with the commanding general of the British Sixth Airborne Division somewhere in southern England. One detachment of the Sixth's parachute and glider troops was to carry out the desperate mission of seizing key bridges over the River Orne and the Caen Canal. They were to hold them against German counterattack until Lovat's Commando-men could fight their way in overland. The general explained:

"Yours will be the first help we shall get. You'll land on the beach ten miles from us. I want you to fight your way across country, reach the bridges we are holding and pass through to aid us in fighting the Nazis in the country beyond--and I want you to be there on time. You land on the beaches some time after 8 a.m. on Dday. I want you to be at the bridges by 12:15, four and a quarter hours later. Do you think you can do it?"

Lovat answered:

"We may be a bit pressed now and then, sir, but at 12:15 we shall be there."

The Pledge. It was no easy promise to keep. German strength in the area turned out to be even heavier than expected. The airborne troops dropped in at 1 a.m. and grabbed the vital bridges, but then they had to dig in and stand off one violent counterattack after another.

Morning came and the Commando-men splashed ashore, each carrying his 60-lb. pack and wearing a green beret (they scorn the steel helmet as a needlessly heavy encumbrance). They skirted beach mines, passed pillboxes, dodged gunfire, and started the long, tough fight inland.

Even after they had pushed through the zone of mortar and artillery fire the going was hard. German skirmishers and delaying parties fought stubbornly, fell back slowly. Lovat's men pushed on in a continual process of dashing forward, dropping in their tracks, firing a few rounds, snatching up pack and gun and dashing forward again.

As the day wore on, the beleaguered paratroops, under merciless enemy pressure, began to steal glum looks at their watches. At 12:14 a weary officer muttered: "They'll never make it now." At that moment, through the crash and rattle of gunfire and mortar shells, came a distant skirling of bagpipes, the Commandos' signal. A paratroop bugler answered with "Defaulters,"* indicating that the road immediately ahead had Germans on it, and that the first Commando-men should go around them.

The Payoff. At exactly 12:17 1/2 a tall, slim officer with a rifle slung over one shoulder scrambled up the bank of the Caen Canal. Behind him came a sweating, 21-year-old Glasgow piper, behind the piper a long line of grim-bereted Commando troops. The paratroop brigadier came up to shake Lord Lovat's hand. Their greeting was brief and British.

Brigadier: "We are really most pleased to see you."

Lovat: "Thank you. Sorry we were two and a half minutes late."

* "You can be a defaulter as long as you like, as long as you answer your name."

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