Brilliant Little Operation

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'Blondie' Hasler
A01=Paddy Ashdown
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Author_Paddy Ashdown
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Bordeaux Harbour
bravery
british battle
british bravery
british military history
british servicemen
british soldiers
canoe mission
canoe raid
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJD
Category=HBLW
Category=HBWQ
Category=JWL
Category=NHD
Category=NHWL
Category=NHWR7
cockleshell
cockleshell canoes
cockleshell heroes
COP=United Kingdom
courageous battle
dangerous mission
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desperate battle
El Alamein
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German merchant fleet
german ships
german troops
Gironde
hazardous mission
heroic story
Language_English
leader of liberal democrats
liberal democrats
marine military history
military history
Mountbatten
Operation Frankton
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Price_€10 to €20
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royal marine mission
royal marines
royal marines commando
Royal Marines Historical Society Literary Award
royal marines WWII
sinking ships
softlaunch
Special Boat Squadron
story of british marines
story of the cockleshells
submarine
submarine mission
Vichy France
war history
Whitehall rivalry
world war 2
WWII
WWII marines
WWII missions

Product details

  • ISBN 9781781311257
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 02 May 2013
  • Publisher: Quarto Publishing PLC
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
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The complete story of the remarkable canoe raid on German ships in Bordeaux Harbour – by the man who himself served in the Special Boat Squadron.

In 1942, before El Alamein turned the tide of war, the German merchant fleet was re-supplying its war machine with impunity. So Operation Frankton, a daring and secret raid, was launched by Mountbatten’ s Combined Operations and led by the enigmatic ‘ Blondie’ Hasler – to paddle ‘ Cockleshell’ canoes right into Bordeaux harbour and sink the ships at anchor.

It was a desperately hazardous mission from the start – dropped by submarine to canoe some hundred miles up the Gironde into the heart of Vichy France, surviving terrifying tidal races, only to face the biggest challenge of all: escaping across the Pyrenees. Fewer than half the men made it to Bordeaux; only four laid their mines; just two got back alive. But the most damage was done to the Germans’ sense of impregnability.

Paddy Ashdown, himself a member of the Royal Marines’ elite Special Boat Squadron formed as a consequence of Frankton, has always been  fascinated by this classic story of bravery and ingenuity - as a young man even meeting his hero Hasler once. Now, after researching previously
unseen archives and tracing surviving witnesses, he has written the definitive account of the raid. The real truth, he discovers – a deplorable tale of Whitehall rivalry and breakdowns in communication – serves only to make the achievements of the ‘ Cockleshell’ heroes all the more heroic.

​Jeremy John Durham (Paddy) Ashdown, politician, born 27 February 1941; died 22 December 2018. Paddy Ashdown spent the first seventeen years of his adult life serving his country as an officer in the Royal Marine Commandos, a member of the Special Boat Service and as an employee of the €˜shadowy side' of the Foreign Office. He then went on to become Liberal Democrat MP for Yeovil and leader of his party, and the international community's High Representative in war-torn Bosnia. He wrote two books for Aurum: A Brilliant Little Operation, which tells the story of the Cockleshell heroes of World War Two, and his autobiography, A Fortunate Life has been hailed as one of the most readable and exciting political life stories ever written.