Cockleshell Heroes: The Final Witness is without doubt the definitive account of a mission thought to be an impossible one. This is not just an authoritative story about thirteen ‘black-faced villains’ embarked on a secret mission via T-class submarine. It is a powerful depiction and an astounding tale of courage and bravery by men and women of both Britain and France – one which is graphic in its telling. This is the complete ‘no holds barred’ record and is a deeply researched, highly detailed, intricately woven account of a Combined Operations Clandestine Raid, with men who volunteered for Hazardous Service, who sought challenges rather than avoid them. They paddled 105 land miles in canoes to place Limpet mines on Axis blockade runners deep inside enemy-held territory.
Led by ‘Blondie’ Hasler – from an English seaside resort in the Solent via a secret secluded bay, the icy temperatures of Scottish lochs and the unpredictable waters of the Bay of Biscay – into the Nazi-occupied harbours of Bordeaux, the story takes us from MI9 to an escape network care of a Countess, punctuated by the love of a fifteen-year-old girl and the forlorn future hopes of young men, through the vineyards and dwellings of the French heroes and heroines to incarceration in the Gestapo-controlled prisons as well as over the Pyrenees, into Concentration Camps, out of Gibraltar and, for many, death by firing squad. By ‘cigar-shaped coffin’ and ‘Cockle’, by Shanks’s pony, on starlit night, and with determination and by guile, this is the story of another ‘Few’, a group that mattered, a team that helped shorten the war – they were the Cockleshell Heroes.
Never before has this narrative been told in its entirety. Never before have all the individuals concerned been named. Never before have all those that played their part in this historic ‘little event’ had each of their stories told; coloured and crafted with actual words written and spoken by these notables, the very essence of their being. Here laid bare are life stories, intertwined with these commandos, leading into the indelible part of history that is and will remain the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’. This is their ‘Final Witness’.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Quentin Rees's previous best-selling book for Amberley, The Cockleshell Canoes, generated an exhibition of wartime canoes that is still on at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. One of Quentin's canoes on exhibition is the same Mark of canoe that was used on the 'Cockleshell Heroes' raid; it is the only known privately owned Cockle Mark 2 in the world.
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| Publication: |
November 2010 |
Extent: |
320 pages |
| Availability: |
In stock |
Images Mono: |
173 |
| Format: |
248 x 172 mm |
Images Colour: |
0 |
| Binding: |
Hardback |
