COCKLESHELL HEROES

Double signed by the last surviving Cockleshell Hero

Bill Sparks DSM Royal Marines

William Heinemann First Edition, first impression 1956.  252 pages and well illustrated with photos and diagrams

Very good condition hardback book in a Very Good condition unclipped dustjacket with some neat repairs to the reverse. There is a little light scattered foxing, a neat date to the front end paper (Xmas 1956) and RM written at the top of the title page (Royal Marines?). Sparks has neatly written and signed on the dedication page and has also signed the picture of him and Blondie Hasler on page 169.

‘Cockleshell Heroes’ is the incredible true story of one of the most audacious exploits of WWII. Winston Churchill believed the mission shortened the War by six months and Admiral Louis Mountbatten, the commander of Combined Operations, deemed the raid “the most courageous and imaginative of all the raids ever carried out by the men of Combined Operations“.

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, Blondie Hasler and Bill Sparks. But far greater than the damage caused to the nine ships they partially sank was the immense blow struck at the German’s sense of impregnability.

An inspiring story of courage, resource and endurance enhanced by the signatures of one of the men who features prominently in the book.