 Operation Huckaback was a British Second World War military operation that was originally designed to be a raid on Herm , Jethou and <unk> , but instead became only a raid on Herm undertaken on the night of 27 February 1943 , following an earlier attempt that had been aborted . Ten men of the Small Scale Raiding Force and No. 4 Commando under Captain Patrick Anthony Porteous VC landed 200 yards to the north @-@ west of Selle Rocque on a shingle beach and made several unsuccessful attempts to climb the cliff in front of them . Porteous finally managed to climb up the bed of a stream and pulled the others up with a rope . They later reported that they had found no sign of any Islanders or Germans ( who were supposed to be billeted near the harbour ) . They had failed to make contact with the few civilians on the island whose duties included looking after the sheep . 
