Author: Ken Ford
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 9781846036934
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
By the end of 1941 Germany was desperately in need of essential raw materials. Vital supplies from Japan were shipped to Germany by 'blockade runners' using the port of Bordeaux as their main base. Allied forces needed an undertaking to interfere with the work of these lone merchant ships at the port, leading to the formation of plans that ultimately became known as the Cockleshell Heroes Raid, in which a unit of Royal Marine Commandos mounted a raid via canoes launched from a submarine. In this new addition to Osprey's RAID series, author Ken Ford explores the history of what is perhaps the bravest and imaginative raids of the entire war. The book details the original plans of the raid, along with the various complications and challenges faced by the Commandos, and explores the outcome of the raid.
Author: Ken Ford
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178096269X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 153
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Book Description
On the night of December 7, 1942, five canoes were launched off the mouth of the Gironde river, each containing a pair of British commandoes tasked with slipping into the port of Bordeaux and destroying as many of the merchant ships as possible. Only two of the canoes made it to the target, but it was enough. Five enemy ships were badly damaged in the attack. It then became a game of cat and mouse for the surviving commandoes in their attempt to get back to Britain. Some of the men made it to Gibraltar; others were caught and executed. Author Ken Ford gives a blow-by-blow account of one of the most daring raids of World War II, which badly upset the flow of material into Germany, and which gave the British public a much needed victory.
Author: Robert Lyman
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1623652626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
During the Second World War, it is hard to imagine a situation where the British High Command could think that one of the only ways they could attack Hitler was to send ten canoeists with limpet mines to paddle one hundred miles up the Gironde estuary, in the middle of winter, in an attempt to sink German blockade ships in Bordeaux harbor. Yet this is precisely what happened in 1942. The man who gave the go-ahead for the audacious commando raid--Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of Combined Operations--fully anticipated that all ten men would die in the attempt. Mountbatten wasn't far wrong--two ripped their collapsible canoes as they were manhandling them out of the submarine; two drowned when their canoes capsized entering the Gironde estuary; and a further six were captured by the Germans and later executed. By complete chance, the two canoeists who managed to escape--Major "Blondie" Hasler and Marine Bill Sparks--stumbled into the arms of the French resistance. Once in their care, Hasler and Sparks made their way across France and into Spain, crossing the Pyrenees in the company (though they did not know it) of a Gestapo agent intent on bringing down the resistance network. Operation Suicide is the first account of this enthralling raid for over fifty years. In utilizing primary source material, including detailed German records captured by the British in 1944 (which remained censored until 1976), Robert Lyman brings to life one of the most courageous and dramatic events to take place in the darkest days of the Second World War.
Author: Cecil Ernest Lucas Phillips
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780330480697
Category : Bordeaux Raid, 1942
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
In December 1942, 10 Royal Marines lauched a daring canoe attack on German ships lying in Bordeaux harbour - a harzardous and successful offensive, in which only two survived. This book tells the story of those cockleshell heroes.
Author: Quentin Rees
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445610442
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 347
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Book Description
The gripping story of the development of the Cockleshell Canoes.
Author: Paul Oldfield
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1781592551
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Operation Frankton is a story of how a handful of determined and resourceful men, using flimsy canoes, achieved what thousands could not by conventional means. The volunteers had enlisted for Hostilities Only and, except for their leader, none had been in a canoe before. However, with a few months training they carried out what one German officer described as, the outstanding commando raid of the war. They became known as the Cockleshell Heroes, having been immortalized in a film and a book of that name in the 1950s. This book covers the whole of the Frankton story including the development of the Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment, the planning and preparation for the raid, its aftermath and an account of the horrific war crimes inflicted on those who were captured. It also includes the epic escape by Haslar and Corporal Bill Sparks across occupied France into Spain.
Author: Mark Felton
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 1848319096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422
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Book Description
July 1945. Eighteen young British, Australian and New Zealand special forces from a top-secret underwater warfare unit prepare to undertake three audacious missions against the Japanese. Using XE-craft midget submarines, the raiders will creep deep behind Japanese lines to sink two huge warships off Singapore and sever two vitally important undersea communications cables. Success will hasten ultimate victory over Japan; but if any of the men are captured they can expect a gruesome execution. Can the Sea Devils overcome Japanese defences, mechanical failures, oxygen poisoning and submarine disasters to fulfil their missions? Mark Felton tells the true story of a band of young men living on raw courage, nerves and adrenalin as they attempt to pull off what could be the last great raid of World War Two.
Author: Quentin Rees
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
ISBN: 9781848688612
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The definitive book on the Cockleshell Heroes, and one of the most famous Marine raids of World War Two.
Author: Saul David
Publisher: William Collins
ISBN: 9780008513368
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Cecil Ernest Lucas Phillips
Publisher: Pan Publishing
ISBN: 9780330480703
Category : Saint Nazaire Raid, 1942
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
'A deed of glory intimately involved in high strategy' - Winston Churchill St Nazaire, 1.34am March 28th, 1942 - the destroyer HMS Campbeltown , with her Oerlikons blazing at the enemy guns only a few yards away, crashed with terrific force into one of the enormous lock gates of the Normandie Dock. Operation Chariot had reached its climax. Its object was to destroy the essential gear of the largest dock in the world, so that it could not be used by German battleships, and it was brilliantly successful in its main purpose. The story of the assault, under a storm of enemy fire at point-blank range which set the sea itself on fire, and of the heroism of the men in the 'little ships' raid, carried out by Royal Navy forces - no fewer than five VC's were awarded - is one of the most thrilling and vivid to come out of any war. 'Exciting and moving account of a great epic' Observer
