On the night of March 28th 1942, a British commando force rams an explosive-packed destroyer into the dry dock gates at St Nazaire, the only Atlantic port large enough to service the German battleship Tirpitz. Jeremy Clarkson narrates the raid from planning to execution, walking through why Combined Operations picked this target and how a force of a few hundred men expected to fight their way out of occupied France after the demolition charges went off. Interviews with surviving veterans sit alongside dramatic reenactments of the dock assault and the street fighting that followed once the alarm went up. Clarkson lays out the cost as well as the outcome: five Victoria Crosses and eighty other decorations for gallantry, awarded for a mission with a casualty rate that reflects how few men expected to make it home. The film treats the raid's tactical detail and its human toll as one story rather than two, following individual commandos from the briefing room onto the dock itself.