Operation Lucid was a British plan to use fire ships to attack invasion barges that were gathering in ports on the northern coast of France in preparation for a German invasion of Britain in 1940. The attack was initiated several times in September and October that year but unreliable ships and unfavourable weather caused the plan to be aborted on each occasion. Inception Following the fall of France in July 1940, the Germans threatened to invade Britain. The British Government made strenuous efforts to meet the invasion and also sought to attack the Germans before any landings took place. As invasion barges were seen to gather in French ports along the English Channel, the Royal Air Force (RAF) was sent to attack them by bombing. Experiments by the Petroleum Warfare Department (PWD) aimed to burn the invasion barges before they could reach the English shore. The first idea was simply to explode a vessel filled with oil and this was tried at Maplin Sands where a Thames oil tanker, Suffolk, with of petroleum was blown up in shallow water. Another idea was that oil should be held in place on the water by a trough formed from coir matting. A machine formed the trough from a flat mat as it was paid out over the stern of a ship. Trials with the Ben Hann produced a flaming ribbon × that could be towed at . Neither idea proved workable. Suffolk provided a trial for a more ambitious scheme to burn invasion barges before they left port. The plan was first floated in early June–July 1940 and became known as Operation Lucid. Lucid had the backing of Churchill. The idea of using fire ships against Hitler's invasion as the English had attacked the Spanish Armada in 1588 appealed to Churchill's sense of history. Recalling a pre-emptive attack by Sir Francis Drake, Churchill said that just as Drake had "singed the King of Spain's beard", he wanted to "singe Mr Hitler's moustache". Preparation Captain Augustus Agar an officer of the Royal Navy, who had been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC) in 1918 was chosen to lead the operation. Agar chose Morgan Morgan-Giles as his staff officer because of his experience with setting explosive charges. Oil tankers were required for the operation but these were in short supply. Only the "oldest crocks laid up in our rivers and creeks which had not been