A Dangerous Enterprise: Secret War at Sea

312 pages

Tearless

This is ‘gung-ho’ and reads like a cloak and dagger spy thriller which, in a way, it is. The real Fleming and the fictitious James Bond both feature and so do many other fascinating characters from SOE, SIS, MI9, from the RN and the RNVR. Many from France too and some from the Gestapo/Abwehr.

Most of us know about the small, black-painted Lysander aircraft which ferried WW2 agents by night from RAF Tangmere, near Chichester, deep into France. Some of us, certainly those who have visited the Scilly Isles by Grey Funnel Line or on holiday, will know about the MGB flotilla that ferried agents by night from Tresco to Brittany. But I had not known about the parallel MGB flotilla that fulfilled the same task between Dartmouth and Brittany. And, after victory in France, for a few months at the end of the War, from Aberdeen or Shetland to Norway. This book tells that story.

For a short time early in the War, Dartmouth was quiet. Cadet training had been shifted from RNC to Eaton Hall, the Duke of Westminster’s country estate in Cheshire. Later when the USA entered the war, the RNC became a USN HQ. But in the river below lay two depot ships and the small craft of MGB flotilla 15. A clandestine unit that became the most highly decorated team in WW2.  Observers believed that they simply did occasional patrols in the Channel.

Their task was not made easy by the conflicting aims of SOE, SIS and MI9. The aim of SOE – Churchill’s “Set Europe Ablaze” – was to cause havoc. The aim of SIS, primarily under Admiralty control, was to acquire intelligence and discreetly. The aim of MI9 was to create Escape Lines for PoWs or downed aircrew through Occupied Europe to Spain or Brittany.

MGBF15 had to juggle these aims, avoid agents meeting one another, and, far more difficult, navigate the treacherous coast of Brittany at night and often in foul weather. Anyone who has sailed that coast or around the Channel Islands will have experienced the very high rise and fall of the tides and the currents that these generate swirling around the plenteous rocks. No room for error in peace, still less in war.

So, Navigators, how might you have fared?  Night. No radar for obvious reasons but you may use an echo sounder. No moon. Spring or Neap tide rips. Foul weather, wind, rain, spray, fog. Action Stations: then penetrate some obscure rock riddled surf surging coastline, locate a cove, a beach, await a recognition signal, real or false? Anchor; launch a surfboat with crew and agent(s) and await its return. Weigh anchor and depart the same way, always avoiding, if possible, any contact with German forces.

The core of the book then moves ashore to France, to actions, bravery, betrayals, capture, double-crossings, espionage, torture and executions (some of which were grotesque), and to the Resistance. Always in support of SOE, SIS and later MI9.

It reveals the problems which all shared, whether at sea or ashore; the successes of some operations, some spectacularly so; and the failure of others, again, some spectacularly so. Such is war. Good luck: bad luck: miracles: disasters: hair’s breadth escapes: sheer chance arrests.

The reader will encounter all these hazards for himself, but they certainly pose the question as to how might each of us have fared, at sea or ashore. Certainly, it took consummate courage to serve in the Resistance. After such a rapid and ignominious defeat in 1940, most French simply wanted to keep their heads down. Some collaborated for an easier life, at least until after D-Day when denunciations abounded. Assisting the Allies was punishable by death for a man and deportation for a woman. Unless, of course, they might be ‘turned’ and thus betray others in their group; then all would be shot.

These, then, are the scenes which Tim Spicer’s A Dangerous Enterprise describes. But don’t overlook the appendices, each a gem of information, because these are almost a parallel book. A list of all the many MGBF15 operations, a strikingly impressive recognition of decorations, honours and awards; citations; some potted WW2 and post-WW2 biographies of those with daring-do; intelligence reports, in particular one about the V1 and V2 weapons; and the author’s sources.

Highly recommended, especially to those who read bland war histories but may know little about how people were in WW2.  And it is people who fight and win wars.