The Cockleshell Raid - Bordeaux 1942 [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I have to admit up front, that I have always found the British Operation Frankton - the raid on Bordeaux on 10/11 December 1942 - to be a fascinating subject and am pre-disposed to favor books on the subject. That being said, Ken Ford's The Cockleshell Raid: Bordeaux 1942, one of Osprey's new RAID series, is well-deserving of high praise. It is a thoroughly researched, well-written account about one of the most imaginative and daring Commando operations of the Second World War. This volume is also written for a wide audience, since there is plenty of detail for the specialist military reader but enough human drama to sustain the general reader. Overall, it is a superb volume.

The author begins by outlining the origins of the raid, which lay with the German ability to dispatch blockade runners from the port of Bordeaux in France to Japan and then return with valuable cargoes (rubber, tungsten). The British reckoned that the Germans had 26 blockade runners but they were unable to catch many on the high seas and RAF efforts to mine the mouth of the Gironde River leading to Bordeaux failed to stop the ships from sailing. The author then discusses at some length, how British Combined Operations (i.e. Special Forces) were given the mission to attack the blockade runners in the port of Bordeaux, but they could not come up with a suitable means of ingress/egress that offered much chance for success. Enter Major Herbert Hasler, a Royal Marine officer with a passion for small boats, who suggested creating a canoe-borne (`cockleshell' in British parlance) commando force to attack German shipping. Ken Ford then goes into some detail about the training of this small commando force, the development of the Cockleshell Mk. II and the planning of the raid. Six two-man crews were chosen to participate in Operation Frankton. My only disappointment here was that there not photos of all the raiders (only ten).

The raid proper comprises about two-thirds of the volume. The raiders were brought close to the mouth of the Gironde River by a British submarine and then launched into the sea. This is when Murphy took over. One cockleshell was damaged and had to abort and two more were lost on the first night. It was particularly distressing to read about how Major Hasler was forced to leave two of his marines in the water, where they subsequently drowned. German defenses were quite active on the Gironde River and two of the crews were captured before the raid occurred. Eventually, Major Hasler and one other boat reached Bordeaux after a 5-day paddle up the 60-mile long river and succeeded in attaching limpet mines to several cargo ships in Bordeaux. However, only Major Hasler and Corporal Sparks were able to escape with help from the French resistance and escape to Gibraltar. Ken Ford's narrative is quite gripping, aided by two 3-D BEV maps, a color plate of a raider and all their equipment and a battlescene by Howard Gerrard depicting the actual attack. The escape of the two raiders and the execution of six of the captured raiders by the Germans is also covered in some detail.

A number of interesting points about special operations emerge from this volume. First, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) is vital for successful execution of a raid. The British knew where most of the German defenses and patrols were, but they were relatively ignorant about the tidal races in the river estuary, which led to the loss of two boats. Second, you cannot add an evasion plan into a tactical operation at the last minute and just hope it works. The raiders were not informed until they were already in the submarine that they would have to E & E across occupied France and only Major Hasler spoke any French. Furthermore, the raiders were told that the French Resistance had been told to be on the lookout for them and would provide assistance, but this fell through the cracks. Third, there were no real control measures in place to synchronize the raid. Once on the river, the three surviving boats became separated and Major Hasler was concerned that one might attack the target before the others, which would make it impossible for the rest of the boats to approach an alerted naval facility. The lack of communications between the boats, Combined Operations in England (which meant no hope for pick-up by British sub) or the French Resistance was a serious flaw in the planning for a 5-day operation. Indeed, I got the impression - and with no offense to a clearly brave officer - that Major Hasler's passion and enthusiasm for the cockleshells caused him to neglect other, but vital components of the raid.

The author did make one odd omission - his maps show Vichy France, but the Germans invaded Vichy territory a month before the raid in response to Operation Torch. Readers may be confused into thinking that once onto Vichy Territory the two surviving raiders were somehow safer, but German troops were already there. I was also disappointed that there was relatively little information provided on the ships targeted by the raid and no photos. Despite this minor issues, this is a thoroughly interesting and well-packaged account of one of the most unusual commando raids of the war.

In "the Cockleshell Raid" Ford recounts the daring raid in December, 1942 by Royal Marines Commandos who in specially built kayaks, called cockleshells, rowed 60 miles up the Gironde river, behind German lines in occupied France to sabotage shipping in the port of Bordeaux.

Ford goes into great detail about the formation and training of the special commando unit, men trained to infiltrate the coast line in tiny craft, but the bulk of the book focuses on the raid itself giving appropriate attention to the risks of navigation and concealment during the days it took to reach their target. The reader can appreciate the sense of fatigue and concern as the raiders battled river conditions so severe that only 2 of the planned boats made it to the target.

Afterward Ford focuses on what today would be called `the extraction' from behind enemy lines. With an almost "Boys own" level of planning that was little more developed beyond wander around this town and try to get picked up by the resistance. A plan that resulted in 6 of the 8 men who survived the river being captured and executed by the Germans.

Ford provides very good maps but otherwise the illustrations in the book are fairly weak, with photographs limited to contemporary looks at the training areas and a few shots of the submarine used to transport the raiders to the coastline. The piece is also solely written from the British point of view with the Germans getting no more explanation than the villains in a 1960's war movie-bodies to be avoided or attacked with no view of their own. This is unusual considering Ford ends his very good book with a slagging off of the Jose Ferrer movie about the raid called "The Cockleshell Heroes" for its historical inaccuracies. It may not have gotten its facts straight, but it is this very good film that kept alive the memory of these daring men in what was otherwise a very minor event in a very, very big war.

While not the definitive work on the raid, Ford strikes a nice balance between information and brevity to let the reader feel that by the end of the book he has been given a very good look at a very dramatic but ultimately minor event. There is more information out there for the person with a deep interest but for most students of the war Ford has provided a very good work.

Ken Ford's THE COCKLESHELL RAID; BORDEAUX 1942 offers an authoritative analysis of one of the greatest raids in military history, and thus deserves a place in any military library. It tells of a 1942 operation where five canoes took on the job of destroying merchant ships docked at Bordeaux. Two made it to target - and changed the nature of the war. A riveting saga results.