Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - A History of Penarth Dock by Roy Thorne . . .

In January 1942 Pritchard was told that he would be needed for the raid on St. Nazaire and that he and Montgomery were to train the demolition teams. At the end of February the Commandos to be used for the demolition were split into two teams, one under Pritchard and the other with Montgomery to the battered docks at Southhampton. The King George V Dock at Southampton had been built similarly to the Normandie Dock at St. Nazaire.

One group went with Pritchard to Cardiff, the area he knew so well. The men were trained at Cardiff and Penarth Docks which had to be approached across mud banks similar to those at St. Nazaire. They also used the cliffs at Penarth to practice their approach to the targets at St. Nazaire.

After about a week the Southampton and Cardiff parties changed so that each team would be familiar with the approach work and dock demolition training which was done at Cardiff and Penarth, and the destruction of the dry dock which was done at Southampton.

On 12th March 1942 the two parties joined at Cardiff and then went to Falmouth to meet number two Commando who were the fighting party.

The destroyer "Campbeltown" was to be used to ram the dock gates with timed fuses and her four funnels had been replaced by two so that she resembled a German Möwe Class destroyer. The total force consisted of 16 motor launches, two hunt class destroyers, H.M.S. "Atherstone" and H.M.S. "Tynedale", the "Campbeltown", motor gun boat 34 which was to lead the force and motor boat 74 which was to be at the rear.

On 26th March 1942 thay sailed for St. Nazaire for 36 hours out into the Atlantic and then doubled back to the mouth of the Loire at 1.30 in the morning. The "Campbeltown” was rammed into the main gate of the St. Nazaire dock with fuses set to go off at 11 p.m.

During the terrible fighting Bill Pritchard led a raiding party whose plan was to blow up a bridge, but Pritchard saw two ships in the submarine basin and he selected Sergeant McLaghlan to accompany him with two five pound charges. The charges were laid and the ships destroyed, but then the Germans fired upon the two and Pritchard was fatally wounded.