ARmy Rumour SErvice

Amazing tale and still commemorated annually by the French through the Frankton Souvenir Association. The Frankton Memorial was unveiled last March. Well worth a visit to walk the Frankton Trail. Sadly I don't have tv as would have loved to watch this.

good old Paddy Pantsdown......the only man to make sure that everyone know's he was shakey boats...... a total tosser apart from when he was kicking the back doors in on his secretary.....

Originally Posted by CigarIsland

good old Paddy Pantsdown......the only man to make sure that everyone know's he was shakey boats...... a total tosser apart from when he was kicking the back doors in on his secretary.....

Not too keen then?

They have cockle (probably the only one in existence) at the Combined Military Services Museum at Maldon, Essex.

BBC link .......

BBC - BBC Two Programmes - The Most Courageous Raid of WWII

Lucky enough to meet Bill Sparks about 10 years before he died. A humble man who campaigned for his entire life after the raid to get the other lads remembered. Also remember watching him on TV when he had to sell his medals to keep his house. A true legend.

Well, I thought the prog' was very interesting and well presented (the latter being a real suprise). I suppose at least PA has walked the walk and better him than some nob like Tony Robinson ...................

I never knew about SOE planning an op' on the same target.

It was an interesting update on the old C.E.Lucas Philips book I've read so many times.

In the credits there were a lot of senior NCO's listed. I wonder if some current or ex Shakey Boat lads did the paddling sequences ? Obviously Kleppers were used rather than repro Cockles and they looked pretty light when being carried over the mud and I think the filming was done in daylight but with 'darkness' filters on (or we'd have seen nothing !) but all in all I thought it was all well done.

There is a canoe in the RN Submarine Museum. When I took my grandson there this year the guide on board HMS Alliance gave an excellent explanation of how the canoes were got up out of the boat.

I also knew nothing about the SOE bit. I thought the depiction and explanation of the raid were VG, however it seemed quite unnecessary to try and smear Mountbatten by assuming he knew of the SOE activity. That part said more about Ashdown than Lord M. In fact what was missing was the realisation beforehand that the shallowness of the berths would mean the damaged merchantmen were recoverable, something fairly predictable considering they were river bank berths which would only have been dredged just enough for the traffic. If the SOE raid had gone in instead and succeeded (a big 'if') charges placed inside the ship so as to start serious fires as well as explosions might have done more lasting damage. But that's an armchair judgment larded with a large dollop of hindsight.