Cockleshell Heroes -- UK TV Programme

  • 11 Nov 2023 21:36
    Reply # 13278376 on 13278081
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Bonsoir

    The life of blondie Asler is a novel. I would recommand his biography:

    https://www.worldcat.org/fr/title/Blondie-:-a-biography-of-Lieutenant-Colonel-H.G.-Hasler-DSO-OBE-Croix-de-Guerre-Royal-Marines/oclc/39837007

    written by Ewen Southby-Tailyour at the origin of the Jester Challenge.

    Eric

  • 11 Nov 2023 12:16
    Reply # 13278264 on 13278253

    There is one thing that I would like to know, was this commander Blondie Hasler the author of the Practical Junk Rig which was like a bible for me when I built my sailboat ?


    Yes. The same man!
  • 11 Nov 2023 10:54
    Reply # 13278253 on 13278081

    Hi,

    I am an Autrian who lost 6 of my 8 uncles in WW2 and was named Karl after one of them and being told that he was stationed in Bordeau although he died later during the war in Russia.

    Therefore I watched this UK TV Cockleshell Heroes Programme with great interest and sadness how many lives were lost in those days. I wish all of us born after WW2 would have learned from history that war should never happen again. Putin and Hamas skipped the history lessons in school and we see the result now. I have 10 grandchildren and I hope to live long enough too pass my peace gen onto them in words and deeds.

    There is one thing that I would like to know, was this commander Blondie Hasler the author of the Practical Junk Rig which was like a bible for me when I built my sailboat ?


  • 11 Nov 2023 09:05
    Reply # 13278234 on 13278081
    Anonymous wrote:

    Available for the next 27 days only on iPlayer (for UK residents only)

    Timewatch - The Most Courageous Raid of World War II

    Thank you Roy


    For non-UK residents, it's also available here:

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2lf7wh
  • 10 Nov 2023 19:02
    Message # 13278081
    Deleted user

    Available for the next 27 days only on iPlayer (for UK residents only)

    Timewatch - The Most Courageous Raid of World War II

    Lord Ashdown, a former special forces commando, tells the story of the Cockleshell Heroes, who led one of the most daring and audacious commando raids of World War II. 

    In 1942, Britain was struggling to fight back against Nazi Germany. Lacking the resources for a second front, Churchill encouraged innovative and daring new methods of combat. Enter stage left, Blondie Hasler. 

    With a unit of 12 Royal Marine commandos, Major Blondie Hasler believed his 'cockleshell' canoe could be effectively used in clandestine attacks on the enemy. Their brief was to navigate the most heavily defended estuary in Europe, to dodge searchlights, machine-gun posts and armed river-patrol craft 70 miles downriver, and then to blow up enemy shipping in Bordeaux harbour. 

    Lord Ashdown recreates parts of the raid and explains how this experience was used in preparing for one of the greatest land invasions in history, D-Day.


       " ...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in junk-rigged boats" 
                                                               - the Chinese Water Rat

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