SEVERAL articles about Weymouth’s links with the famous St Nazaire raid of the Second World War have already appeared in the Looking Back pages.

They featured Stoker Reginald Hodder, who came from Weymouth and lost his life when his ship, the HMS Campbeltown, rammed the dock gates at St Nazaire on the mouth of the River Loire on March 28, 1942.

It was, and still is, hailed as one of the most audacious raids of the war and Portland man, Stoker Petty Officer Daniel Charles Pyke, lived through it and returned home to his family.

PO Pyke’s niece Marie Samways, who still lives on Portland and recently celebrated her 91st birthday, contacted us with details about her uncle.

She said: “He was a real daredevil, but he was lovely. My mother Ethel had two brothers and he was the youngest.

“He won a lot of medals during the war and when he left the Navy he came back to live on Portland with his wife Edie.

“I was married by them and my husband Philip came out of the Army at the same time.

“They were good friends and both knew all about serving in the forces and they would go to the pub together.”

She added: “I was an Army wife and had a good time.

“I was in Singapore for two-and-a-half years and found life back here hard work because we were all waited on over there.”

Several pages of a small booklet called Do You Remember? Portland’s War, Part Four (May-August 1942) are devoted to PO Pyke’s involvement in the St Nazaire Raid.

Portland’s War tells us: “Like other wartime activities, the story of the St Nazaire raid was made obscure by secrecy.

“PO Pyke was slightly wounded, leaving hospital to return to Portland for 14 days survivors’ leave.

“It was typical of this modest man that he had returned from leave before it became known that he was one of the last two men to leave the Campbeltown before it crashed into the dock.”

For his part in Operation Chariot, as the raid was also known, PO Pyke was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French.

He was also mentioned in dispatches twice and decorated with the 1939-45 Star, Atlantic Star, Africa Star, Pacific Star, Italy Star, Defence Medal and War Medal 1939-45.

Marie said: “After uncle Daniel died I found his medals in an old Oxo tin and my husband got them mounted but I don’t know where they are now.

“I would love to know because I think it would be a lovely thing to give them to the Campbeltown Museum.”