47 CDO Royal Marines Timber Force & The Shetland Bus Service
- Si Biggs
- Nov 27, 2025
- 8 min read
Months after its formation 47 RM Cdo was given its first active service task. It was asked to select a detachment for ‘special duties’. Of the officers who volunteered, two were selected, Captain Isherwood and Lt Bennett, and they were asked to nominate their own men, 30 in number.
The title ‘Timberforce’ was given to the detachment as it would be serving in boats of wooden construction. The force set off on 4th October 1943 for Lerwick in the Shetlands.
It was to operate with a flotilla of MTBs (motor torpedo boats) and a flotilla of MLs (motor launches) commanded by Commanders Gemmel and Russell respectively.
Operations were under the overall command of the Admiral Commanding the Orkneys and Shetlands (ACOS) who was delighted to have this group of Marines joining his force and anxious to show what the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines could do together.
They were to accompany the MTBs to Norway, land there – part of the ‘Shetland bus’ service – and report shipping movements for the benefit of the RAF.
Widely dispersed landings also meant that a relatively small force in the Shetlands was tying up German troops and German shipping in Norway. Alongside the British forces, under the command of a Norwegian Admiral, were a Norwegian MTB flotilla and the Norwegian Commando.
Timberforce also carried a responsibility for the defence of the Shetland Islands in the event of any attempt by the Germans to disrupt the ship and submarine activities there – MTBs, MLs, Norwegian fishing vessels, midget submarines, visiting submarines and chariots.
At times it was the only defence force.
The wooden MTBs were 30 feet long, powered by four large petrol engines and carried four torpedoes. They were not designed for the North Sea in midwinter, and as they crossed to Norway and patrolled around the Shetlands, their battles were as much against the sea as against the enemy. In addition to accompanying naval personnel in MTBs, members of Timberforce also sailed in MLs.
Shortly after Timberforce arrived, two of its members were in an MTB which crossed to Norway, landed and obtained the information sought. On the return journey the MTB was spotted by an enemy aircraft which swooped down and shot up the MTB. The two marines were wounded – one with a bullet in the chest – and the MTB’s engines were damaged. 47 RM Cdo had suffered its first battle casualties.
One of the Bus Journeys
On 4th February 1944 Bennett and Marines Quinney and Tatton were in one of two MTBs, one British MTB 666 commanded by Lieut. Bullen (MTB 666 was built at Dorset Yacht Co. Ltd. Hamworthy, England, U.K. and sunk in action off Ijmuiden on 4/5 July 1944 and would blow up inside a U Boat pen) and one Norwegian, which set out for Norway.
MTB 666 was to take a Norwegian pilot ‘to see his family’ – at least that was the explanation given – to take a second pilot across, and to pick up two Norwegians in plain clothes who would be located and identified by instructions given by the second pilot.
On the way, the wind got up and, surprisingly, a radio message was received direct from the Norwegian MTB that it was turning back. The surprise was at the use of radio. The Norwegian boat had taken homing pigeons aboard so that it would not break radio silence at sea but communicate with the British MTB through pigeons to base, and base would radio back to the British MTB. It was not unknown for the Norwegians to eat pigeons, and it was wondered whether this had happened to the homing variety!
MTB 666 continued alone on its long, 250-mile crossing to a fiord north of Bergen. Twelve hours later it was entering the fiord. The night was beautifully clear and a bright moon shone on glistening snow-covered mountains. As the MTB moved up the fiord it met a fleet of Norwegian fishing boats, lit up like Christmas trees, trawling for herring. MTB 666 merely glided through them and found a suitable place to lie up. It had to trust the fishermen to keep the knowledge of the presence of a British MTB to themselves. Bennett and the two marines then went ashore to look out for movement of ships in the fiord and to pick up the spy passenger. The latter failed to appear or make any contact.
On the following day, in what daylight there was, the MTB went on a reconnaissance. It approached an island with a lighthouse on it as a possible objective for a raid but the German occupants did not fire as they were expected to do. It was concluded that rather than the hazard of putting up a fight, if attacked, they would prefer to surrender and spend the rest of the war in a good POW camp in Canada, and it was considered that it was not worth giving them that opportunity. They avoided not only capture but an enemy more implacable than those who had faced them – the sea.
As MTB 666 turned westward to head home, the winds were rising and it was not long before they had reached gale force. The sea was soon a veritable maelstrom. Horizontal sheets of freezing spume were being whipped off the crests of mountainous waves and voices were often blown away unheard in the blasts of the gale.
The MTB bucked and reared as it sank low into a trough one minute and perched precariously on a crest the next. Battling through these conditions in the darkness of these northern latitudes, the MTB began to ship water and show signs of strain. The marine party aboard had to man the hand pumps: the mechanical pumps were out of action. One of the marines was so seasick that he could hardly move but had to rise to this emergency.
First, one engine – ‘there are still three’; then another – ‘there are still two’; and then a third – ‘we will have to try and last out on one’, were swamped by water and ceased functioning. The single engine, coaxed by the naval engineer aboard, kept the boat going, but frustratingly slowly. Lacking forward momentum, the MTB seemed to be crashing up and down and skewing to right and left rather than moving forward. Long hours of darkness were interspersed by a few brief hours of gloomy daylight which revealed only an expanse of heaving water stretching out to an encircling horizon where sea and sky merged imperceptibly in a misty grey. MTB 666 was very much alone in a hostile sea.
Watched anxiously, the one engine still kept going. As sheets of water broke over the boat, the pumps were being worked furiously to keep the water level down. As brief daylight followed long dark night, anxious eyes peering ahead saw only watery gloom, and yet more watery gloom before night again descended. Three days passed. There were unvoiced fears as to whether the MTB was going to make it. Then, on the fourth day, it happened quite suddenly as a weary crew peered into the penumbra of yet another day. Was that a low line breaking through the gloom? There were a few moments of indecision. Only the engine remained active as sailors and marines tensed to concentrate their gaze. A few minutes of indecision then a definitive answer – land it was.
Lt Bullen and the navigator Lt Wilson managed to find a sheltered inlet into which Wilson guided the MTB. Fortunately the inlet had a sandy bottom on to which the MTB settled. The water was now halfway up to the top of the messroom table. Using a small rubber dinghy, Bennett and Wilson managed to scramble ashore. They climbed a cliff and found a track with a telephone wire running along it.
Choosing to follow the wire in a seaward direction, they found that it led them to a Nissen hut which, as they approached, revealed itself as an RAF outpost. Reaching it unchallenged, they had to wake up the sentry on guard duty! Confronted with two wet, bedraggled figures who had apparently emerged from the sea and were demanding to see the CO, currently abed, the sentry at first demurred at accepting any orders from them. Finally he complied and went off to wake his CO. In due course out came a querulous CO who, to his and to Bennett’s astonishment, found that he and Bennett were old school friends. The trip was effectively over; the twelve-hour journey back had taken four days.
In the severe winter weather during Timberforce’s five-month stay in the Shetlands the number of trips to Norway could only be very limited.
The most ambitious trip which would have involved the 47 RM detachment was one in which it was thought that it might be possible for MTBs to attack the Tirpitz with torpedoes. The Tirpitz was said to be moving north through the fiords.
A group of the marines under Capt. Isherwood was first ordered to Aberdeen. There, on further consideration the Navy decided that the operation was not feasible.
Timberforce rejoined the commando on 24th March. Next day the commando received a congratulatory message from ACOS on the work that it had done. [1]
What happened to MTB 666
as told by Stan Cross
To say that I was flabbergasted when, during the CFVA's Annual Commemoration Service the Rev. Ron Patterson when delivering his sermon called me over and asked me to tell the congregation about the last action of MTB 666, would be an understatement. The Reverend had been talking about the battles of Coastal Forces and mentioned that 666 was the Devìl's number and when he called me over I felt very embarrassed...
The action he referred to took place during the night 4/5th June 1944 when British MTB's engaged a large convoy that was heading towards the invasion area. lt was heavily protected by armed trawlers and flak boats. The British Force had managed to get between them and the shore and the action was going well until a shell from a shore battery hit 666 in the engineroom. At once we lost all power. There was a fire in the engineroom and no power for the guns. In fact we were like sitting ducks.
We had also suffered a number of casualties and the boat was taking water. So it was not long before the Skipper, Lt. Cdr D Buller, gave the order to abandon ship. The crew were very reluctant to do so because, I believe, they were hoping that one of our boats might manage a rescue — but they had no chance.
For about three hours we were in the sea. Every so often a German boat would draw into gun range and fire a few rounds — just to remind us that they had not forgotten us. Some of these shots came quite close and we could feel them passing through the water It was not until daylight before we were picked up. Those of us that were wounded were taken to a hospital at Heiloo, just north of Ijmuiden. It was there that we heard, via the grapevine, that 666, nearly submerged, had been brought into Ijmuiden between two trawlers. They did a quick patch up job on the hull and took her into the E-boat pens along with their E-boats.
Early the following morning there was a mighty explosion that rocked the whole town. The E-boat pens and the boats were to take no further part in the war. We are not sure what happened but with all that high octane leaking from MTB 666 tanks, it does not take much imagination.
666 is the Devil’s number. Makes you think
Stan Cross [2]
Related Royal Marines 'Dits'
References/ Further Reading:
Comments