Thomas O'Leary, the wireless operator for "ML 446", said:"One commando was remarking how pretty the tracer fire, red and green, was. A moment later one blew the back of his head out. I was down below with my tin hat because by now the bullets were going through (the boat) and out the other side. If I wanted to get about I had to crawl on my hands and knees and I was lucky nothing came through at my level. We couldn't get in (to the objective) and all of a sudden the wounded started coming down. By then all our guns had jammed and most of the other ships were on fire." "ML 177", the launch that had successfully taken off some of the crew from "Campbeltown", was sunk on her way out of the estuary. "ML 269", another torpedo-armed boat, moved up and down the river at high speed to draw German fire away from the landings. Soon after passing "Campbeltown" it was hit and its steering damaged. It took ten minutes to repair the steering. The boat turned and started in the other direction, opening fire on an armed trawler in passing. Return fire from the trawler set the boat's engine on fire.