World War II is remembered for gigantic battles on land, massive clashes at sea, and enormous campaigns in the skies. Behind the front lines, however, smaller, clandestine operations often played key roles in shaping the course of the war. One such was Operation Creek, sometimes referred to as Longshanks. It was a little-known but daring covert strike carried out against Axis espionage activity in the neutral Portuguese colony of Goa, India. Planned by the clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and executed by an unlikely team of overage part time soldiers from the Calcutta Light Horse and Calcutta Scottish, the raid destroyed the German ship Ehrenfels along with three other Axis vessels, crippled Nazi intelligence operations in the Indian Ocean, and safeguarded Allied shipping from deadly U-boat attacks.
An Indian Ocean Axis Spy Ring
By 1942, the Battle of the Atlantic was at its peak, as German submarines devastated Allied shipping lines. In the Indian Ocean, U-boats were guided by an unlikely source: Axis spy rings operating out of neutral ports. One of the most critical hubs of German intelligence activity was in the Portuguese colony of Goa, on India’s west coast. Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar was officially neutral, and Lisbon maintained a delicate balance between the Axis and the Allies. When the war began in 1939, three German merchant ships in the Indian Ocean, including the SS Ehrenfels, sought refuge in Goa’s Mormugao harbor. When Italy joined the conflict in 1940, they were joined by an Italian merchantman, the Anfora. There the four ships remained, stranded for the duration.
While ostensibly idle, the Ehrenfels was secretly equipped with a powerful radio transmitter. The ship’s crew, in collaboration with German agents ashore, transmitted coded signals to U-boats patrolling the Indian Ocean. The messages revealed the movements of Allied merchant convoys, and thus enabled German submarines to stage devastating ambushes. In early 1943, British intelligence confirmed that the loss of numerous ships in the Indian Ocean could be directly traced to signals emanating from Goa. Neutrality made a direct military strike diplomatically dangerous. Britain could not openly attack Portuguese territory without triggering international condemnation. However, something had to be done to silence the Ehrenfels and her clandestine radio.
Turning to Over the Hill Volunteers
British intelligence and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) sought volunteers who could operate without attracting attention, and who were not tied to regular forces. To carry out a delicate mission, they turned to unconventional units: the Calcutta Light Horse and Calcutta Scottish. These were not regular army regiments, but rather volunteer reserve forces composed mostly of older British men living in India. Many of them were middle-aged businessmen, professionals, and planters who had seen service in World War I but were now past their prime for active duty in WWII.
A bit long in the tooth for more strenuous and active military service, members of these volunteer units were nonetheless eager to contribute to the war effort. They trained part-time, and maintained a sense of camaraderie and discipline. The mission was organized under the broader authority of Force 136, the SOE’s branch in Southeast Asia. Command was placed in the hands of Colonel Lewis Pugh Evans. A WWI hero who had earned the Victoria Cross and retired in 1938, and rejoined the military after WWII began. He was assisted by Lieutenant Colonel Jack Grice, commander of the Calcutta Light Horse. Both were determined to turn the aging and over the hill volunteers into stealthy raiders.
Operation Creek
The plan, codenamed Operation Creek and sometimes referred to as Operation Longshanks, was deceptively simple but fraught with risks. The volunteer raiders would sail from Calcutta aboard a decrepit barge converted into a transport ship, later known as the Phoebe. Disguised as civilians on a pleasure cruise, they would navigate roughly fifteen hundred miles around India’s coast to Goa. Under cover of darkness, they would slip into Mormugao harbor, board and sabotage the Ehrenfels, and retreat before Portuguese authorities could react.
To avoid a diplomatic black eye, the operation had to be entirely clandestine. No official acknowledgment could be given, and if captured, the men would be disavowed. Success would cripple German radio transmissions, while failure could trigger a diplomatic crisis with Portugal and result in severe reprisals against the volunteers. The operation’s secrecy was absolute. So much so that even the Indian government and British regular forces in the region were kept in the dark. Only a handful of senior intelligence officers knew of the mission.
Arrival at Goa
Operation Creek’s volunteers set sail in their disguised vessel in March, 1943. After a grueling journey along India’s coast, they reached Goa under the cover of night. Timing was crucial, and the raid was planned to coincide with the festival of Carnival. That would ensure that many Portuguese officials, locals, and ship crew were distracted by celebrations. To further tip the odds in their favor, SOE funds were used to throw a massive party ashore on the night of the raid, with free food and booze. Most sailors aboard the Axis ships went ashore to partake in the festivities and free fare, and left behind only skeleton crews. On the night of March 9-10, 1943, the barge carrying the volunteers slowly motored towards the Ehrenfels.
A Daring Raid
“Coincidentally”, both the lighthouse and illuminated buoy were out of service that night, plunging Murmugao harbor into darkness. That allowed the Phoebe, its passengers posing as drunken tourists on a Carnival pleasure cruise, to approach the Ehrenfels undetected. Finally, the barge bumped into the German vessel with a loud screech whose noise was masked by the louder festivities ashore. Armed with pistols, knives, and a few explosives, the raiders dropped the pretense of drunken revelers and clambered aboard the German vessel in a lightning assault. The crew was caught off guard, and although some resistance was encountered, the attackers quickly overpowered them in a brief fight. Four men, including the German ship’s captain, were slain in the process. Once in control, the raiders placed charges and destroyed the ship’s radio equipment, effectively silencing the transmissions.
Or at least that was the official account. Documents released in 2002 indicate that the aim had been to capture the ship, but the crew’s resistance led to its destruction instead. Whether intended by the raiders or not, fires spread rapidly, and soon the Ehrenfels was ablaze. Panic set in among the German and Italian crews of the other Axis ships in the harbor. Rather than risk capture or destruction, they scuttled their own ships then leapt overboard and rowed or swam to shore to avoid falling into enemy hands. By dawn, not only the Ehrenfels, but also three other Axis vessels – the German Drachenfels and Braunfels, and the Italian Anfora – lay destroyed or sunk in the harbor. The raiders quickly withdrew before Portuguese authorities could intervene. By the time officials investigated, the volunteers had already slipped away.
A Resounding Success
Operation Creek was a smashing success, and its impact was immediate and measurable. The destruction of the Ehrenfels and associated ships abruptly ended the stream of intelligence reaching German U-boats. Deprived of vital convoy data, U-boat operations in the Indian Ocean faltered. Allied shipping losses dropped dramatically in the months following the raid, proving the effectiveness of the mission. In the months leading up to the operation, German U-boats had been sinking Allied ships in the Indian Ocean by the dozen. That toll took a nose dive after the raid.
Thirteen U-boats were operating in the Indian Ocean at the time. For the rest of March, they managed to sink only one Allied merchant vessel. Throughout the entirety of April, they sank only three ships – a mere fraction of the devastating losses that they had inflicted the previous months. The destruction of Ehrenfels’ radio had effectively blinded the German submarines. They were transformed from coordinated predators, well informed of their prey’s location, and into random hunters, reliant on luck alone.
An Extraordinary Accomplishment
The diplomatic fallout was surprisingly muted. The Portuguese authorities were irritated, but did not press the issue forcefully. That was partly because the action had been carried out so covertly, and partly because Salazar’s regime did not want a confrontation with Britain. So the fiction of Portuguese neutrality remained intact. For the raiders, the mission was a unique chapter in their history. Members of the volunteer units, well past traditional fighting age, had achieved what few regular military forces could.
The secrecy surrounding Operation Creek was so tight, that the participants received no public recognition at the time. So the volunteers created their own emblem to commemorate their accomplishment: a seahorse. The Calcutta Light Horse and Calcutta Scottish were disbanded after India gained its independence in 1947, their members scattered to the four winds in the post-colonial world. The raid remained buried in the deepest vaults of official secrecy for decades, its participants’ story highly classified. The mission came to wider attention only in the late 1970s, when official secrecy was lifted and the details were revealed.
Operation Creek’s Legacy
In 1978, British writer James Leasor published the book Boarding Party, which recounted the daring mission. The tale later inspired the 1980 film The Sea Wolves, starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, Roger Moore, and Trevor Howard, dramatizing the exploits of the Operation Creek volunteers. The raid was a classic example of WWII’s clandestine actions that, while limited in scale, had disproportionately large consequences. It also highlights the global nature of the conflict, showing how even neutral territories in far-flung colonies became contested arenas of intelligence and covert warfare.
Operation Creek remains one of WWII’s most remarkable clandestine operations. Conceived in secrecy, executed by an unlikely group of middle-aged volunteers, and carried out in a neutral colony, it combined ingenuity, audacity, and stealth. By silencing the Ehrenfels and neutralizing German espionage in Goa, the volunteers not only safeguarded Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean, but also demonstrated the far-reaching impact of covert action. Though overshadowed by larger battles and campaigns, the raid deserves recognition as a pivotal moment in the intelligence war. It illustrates how Allied victory depended not only on armies, fleets, and air armadas, but also on the courage of small, unconventional units willing to strike in the shadows.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
History Halls – Jean Moulin: The Hero Who Unified the French Resistance in World War II
Leasor, James – Boarding Party (1978)
Miller, David – Special Forces Operations in South-East Asia, 1941 – 1945 (2015)
