Important base installations such as the power station , dry dock , shipyard , maintenance , and fuel and torpedo storage facilities , as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building Building ( also home of the intelligence section ) were not attacked Attack .

The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Defending Normandie dry dock at St Nazaire in German-occupied France during the Second World War .

St Nazaire was targeted Aiming because the loss of its dry dock would force Request any large German warship in need of repairs , such as , sister ship of , to return Motion to home waters by running Self_motion the gauntlet of the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy and other British forces , via the English Channel or the GIUK gap .

The obsolete destroyer , accompanied by 18 smaller craft , crossed Motion_directional the English Channel to the Atlantic coast of France and was rammed Self_motion into the Normandie dock gates .

The ship had been packed Filling with delayed-action explosives , well-hidden within a steel and concrete case , that detonated Damaging later that day , putting Causation the dock out of service until 1948 .

the german passenger airship lz 129 `` hindenburg '' caught fire Damaging and was destroyed Destroying during its attempt to dock Motion with its mooring mast at naval air station lakehurst .