Roy Wooldridge
Officer who was captured while searching for mines in Normandy and was interviewed by Rommel
ROY WOOLDRIDGE, who has died aged 97, was awarded two MCs during the Second World War and, shortly before D-Day, took part in a daring commando operation on the coastline of France which led to a tense meeting with Rommel.
Early in 1944, a bombing raid on coastal defences near Deauville set off a series of detonations along the beach and it was feared that the Germans had fixed a new type of mine to the obstacles there below the waterline. Information about how the mines were triggered was urgently required by 21 Army Group as it had a direct bearing on the final plans for Operation Overlord. Failure to obtain hard intelligence might mean that the entire invasion would have to be called off
Four small teams of commandos were rapidly assembled. Each included a sapper officer who was an expert on mines. The proposed Normandy landings were a mere three weeks away and to avoid attracting attention to that area, the operations, acknowledged to be hazardous in the extreme, were to be mounted on the heavily defended enemy coastline around Calais and Boulogne.
On the night of May 17, Wooldridge crossed the Channel in a MTB. Earlier that month, he had got married; he had been decorated with the MC by King George VI at the Palace and he had been recalled from honeymoon to take part in Operation Tarbrush 10.
The MTB anchored a mile offshore and he landed by rubber dinghy on Onival beach on the north-east coast. With him was the patrol commander, Hungarian-born Lieutenant George Lane, Sergeant Eric Bluff and Corporal King, a signalman from the Marines.
Passing through hewn timber posts that extended along the shore, they arrived shortly before 01.00. For the next 40 minutes, they made a detailed examination of three types of obstacles all of which had to be swept for mines. With them, they had an infrared camera to photograph a particular type, known as Element C.
They found nothing but Teller mines but they knew from aerial photographs that there were some of the Element C obstacles to the south-west and, having sent the NCOs back to the dinghy, they set off in teeming rain towards Ault.
They failed to find any Element C and returned to the dinghy to discover that the NCOs had disappeared. They assumed that the two men had been taken prisoner but, in fact, they had been unable to wait any longer and had left the dinghy and swam out to the MTB.
Wooldridge and Lane, receiving no answer to the signals that they flashed out to sea, decided to set off in the dinghy themselves. They had only covered a mile when the sun rose. Their chances of escape seemed very slight and they threw their minedetection equipment over the side and kept only their pistols. They were spotted by a German patrol boat and hatched a plan to overpower the soldiers but changed their minds when they saw three Schmeissers levelled at them. Soaked through and miserable, they were told that they would be handed over to the Gestapo and shot as saboteurs.
For several days they were separated, moved from place to place and interrogated by German officers. Eventually, they were bound, blindfolded and pushed into a car. They drew up at the castle La RocheGuyon on the River Seine.
Wooldridge was taken to a large library to meet Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The interview was short. Rommel reminded him that he was liable to be shot under Hitler’s “commando order”. Wooldridge refused to admit that he was a sapper but, when asked if there was anything he wanted, he requested a pint of beer, a packet of cigarettes and a good meal. All three were waiting for him when he was taken to the officers’ mess.
Lane also met Rommel who asked him how Montgomery was getting on with his invasion plans. “You will soon have the opportunity of asking him in person,” replied Lane, who feigned ignorance of the German language and pretended to be a Welsh soldier to disguise his Hungarian accent.
Wooldridge and Lane were taken to Fresnes prison, near Paris. There they were told that they would be hung or shot but after a few days they were sent to Oflag IX A/H at Spangenberg Castle. The two men were convinced that the field marshal had saved their lives. Wooldridge’s Bar to his MC was gazetted in September 1945.
Roylance Wooldridge, always known as Roy, the son of a signalman, was born at Pontarddulais, near Swansea, on July 11 1919. He was educated at Llanelli Grammar School and Aberystwyth University, where he read Mathematics and graduated with a First.
He volunteered for the Royal Engineers and, after completing his basic and officer cadet training, in 1941 he was commissioned and posted to 209 Field Company RE (209 FC). The following year, he embarked for Egypt and took part in the Battle of Alam el Halfa.
In the second Battle of El Alamein, he commanded a section of his Company in three weeks of vital mine-lifting operations, often under enemy fire, and was awarded the first of his MCs. After a spell with the First Army in Algeria, instructing at the School of Mine Warfare, he returned to 209 FC at Sousse, Tunisia.
He took part in the invasion of Sicily before returning to England in December 1943. He transferred. to 11 Field Company RE in March 1944.
Wooldridge was repatriated to Britain following the German surrender. After he was demobilised, he became a lecturer in mathematics at Brighton Technical College and, subsequently, senior mathematics lecturer at the Wolverhampton College of Technology. From 1968, he was Principal of the Derby College of Art and Technology and played a notable part in the College, which subsequently became the University of Derby.
In 2014, he was featured on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. By then aged 95, he gave an entertaining account of his wartime adventures and produced the packet of “Echt Orient No. 5” cigarettes that Rommel had given him 70 years earlier. That and his medals were not for sale he told his audience.
He married, in 1944, Phyllis Williams. She predeceased him and he is survived by their two sons. Roy Wooldridge, born July 11 1919, died December 9 2016