The No. 1 Special Boat Section raiding force consisted of eight
British Commandos, two Greek guides and two interpreters. The commander of the raid was
Captain Richard Allott with
Lieutenant David Sutherland as the
second in command. The rest of the raiding group were
Sergeant Moss,
Corporal McKenzie,
Private Blake,
Marines Barrow, Harris and Duggan. The Greeks included
Sub Lieutenant Calambokidis, Pavlos Moustakellis, and Antonios Moustakellis, and an unidentified fourth. The raiding force left
Beirut in two
submarines, and the Greek submarine . Their objective were two airfields on the island of Rhodes at
Kalathos and
Maritsa. They reached Rhodes on 31 August 1942. The raiders were landed by using a folding boat and three inflatable floats to reach the shore on the east coast of Rhodes near
Cape Feralco. After hiding their boats in some nearby caves they rested for the first day before splitting into two groups. One group, under command of Lieutenant Sutherland, headed for Kalathos from the beach. The second group, under command of Captain Allott, made for Maritsa ( from the beach). Sutherland's group reached Kalathos over the night of 11/12 September. They established an overlooking position to observe the airfield, and settled in to identify targets and observe the airfield for the next day. The following day, they divided into two smaller groups and started their attack. Sutherland and John Duggan formed one group, with and Sub Lieutenant Calambokidis and two SBS soldiers comprising the second. In torrential rain, both groups infiltrated the airfield and placed their charges; Sutherland and Duggan placing charges on at least 13 aircraft and around a fuel dump. However, the men were spotted and fled the airfield. Only Sutherland and Duggan reached the prearranged rendezvous point, and heard shooting coming from the direction they believed the other SBS was located. The following day, Sutherland and Duggan began their return journey to a rendezvous point near the beach with the expectation that the entire raiding force would reassemble. No one else had arrived, and in the meantime an Italian patrol ship had disembarked soldiers on the beach who had found the hidden boats. The two left a message at the rendezvous for any stragglers, and returned to the beach. Using a torch, they signalled "swimming-come in" to HMS
Traveller, which was waiting off shore. The captain of the submarine,
Commander Michael St John, was surprised to see the recognition signal coming from the shore and replied by using his periscope to signal back. The boat then moved towards the remnants of the raiding force and expecting to pick them up from their boats. Upon hearing the men shouting in the darkness, the crew of the submarine retrieved the two swimmers. The submarine was spotted by a patrol boat; with the SBS members on board it crash-dived and survived a
depth charge attack. ==Aftermath==