16 Dec 1941, Colin McEwan Diary

Morning saw our nearest meeting with bombs – one landing outside our flat and opening the roadway half across but luckily doing no damage apart from shattered glass, the retaining wall taking the blast. Our next job was detailed – sinking another ship and lighter at West Point. After the Taikoo job this appeared easy as no activity had been seen on board and the ship was well removed from both shores. The H.D. were arranging a motor boat and we anticipated no great difficulty. In the evening we paid what was my second visit to B.H.Q. and having to wait on Mike we had time to collect our impression. After our entry by a dim blue lit baffle gate our stay was most oppressing. Somehow the whole atmosphere was dreary – the guards seemed apathetic. The air was close and in that huge catacomb with its innumerable passages, doors, pipes and guards I felt more uncomfortable and depressed than at any other time. It was, too, amazing to see how eagerly Mike’s appearance with news was welcomed – after all what was happening when their own people could not correlate reports and tell us. It had been the same at P.H.Q. The C.P. seemed to have no sources of information either and no means of communication with H.Q. Bluntly it seemed to me a bloody place in which to have to pass any time at all.

From there we moved with C.S.O., I to the General’s house where, over a drink, we, at least again I, had an eyeopener when GSO1, in detailing a job he seemed to feel we could do, revealed a shocking gap in our North Point defences. 1000 yards, without even a booby trap. The job however involving as it did laying mines in daylight under M.G. fire about 400 yards away did not appeal to our minds and with mutual expressions of goodwill we homed hoping that none of the innumerable sentries would have a crack at us.