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John Lodwick
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Raiders from the Sea: The Story of the Special Boat Service in WWII Kindle Edition

by John Lodwick (Author), Lord Jellicoe (Foreword), Nigel Jones (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 out of 5 stars 82 ratings
The Special Boat Service was a small force during World War II, never more than about 300 men. But that did not stop it from inflicting great damage on the enemy. In the Mediterranean arena and in the Aegean, which the Germans controlled after the fall of Greece and Crete, this small commando force kept up a constant campaign of harassment, thus pinning down enemy forces and preventing their joining other fronts.They travelled by night to their targets, using submarines, small surface vessels or canoes, with the commanders of the vessels often putting themselves in danger in order to help the men carry out their dangerous and secret missions. They were reliant on the co-operation of the fiercely independent Greeks and in particular the Cretans, all working together in their common objective against the German invaders.John Lodwick took part in the SBS Mediterranean campaign and writes from personal experience with the panache and verve of the squadron itself. For it is more than the story of the remarkable men who made up the force: men such as Anders Lassen, ‘the Dreadful Dane’ who was awarded a posthumous VC, Fitzroy Maclean, Eric Newby, Jock Lapraik, and Lord Jellicoe, who commanded the squadron for almost two years and who contributed a memorable foreword to this memoir.Strong, determined individuals, together the men of the Special Boat Service formed a deadly, cohesive fighting force which contributed much to the war in the Mediterranean and to whom John Lodwick’s book is an excitingly readable tribute.
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  1. Print length
    307 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Greenhill Books
  4. Publication date
    November 30, 2018
  5. File size
    8.4 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Lodwick (1916-1959) was one of the leading novelists of the early twentieth century and a key player in London's surrealist movement. This memoir covers his wartime experiences in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Special Boat Service. He died in a car crash in Spain, alongside his publisher, at the age of just 43.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07QLFPDRK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Greenhill Books; Reprint edition (November 30, 2018)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 30, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 8.4 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 307 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 82 ratings

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John Lodwick

John Lodwick

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4.3 out of 5 stars
82 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • lee-metford
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Fantastic. Rare title. Excellent quality and value.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Steve Reynolds
    2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
    Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I first learned of the Small Boat Service (SBS) in Eric Newby's WWII memoir 'Love and War in the Apennines' (highly recommended). The opening of Newby's book, which leads directly to his capture and imprisonment, concerns an escapade of the SBS which was so full of British spunk and so unlikely of success that I was excited to find Lodwick's book, purporting to tell the Story of the SBS. What a disappointment. Lodwick appears to be unable to relate anything without resort to cliche, he relies of inside jokes way too often, which have absolutely no meaning to me, he spends zero effort on character development, and doesn't in fact seem to know much about story telling, places and place names are key, but there are no maps. He appears to have intimate knowledge of the individuals in the SBS section, which apparently amounted to no more than 200 men, but his personal involvement, which could have been a good story, is not explained, at least within the first 30 pages. Which is as far as I got on this book. This book might be more meaningful to the men who partook in the SBS, for it reads a lot like you might find the conversation running at a reunion of old war buddies - possibly of interest to some academics, but not much to the general reader. The jargon of killing gets quickly tiresome - men on every page are being 'neutralized' and 'liquidated' and 'turned to raspberry jam' as well as occasionally just 'shot' - with no sense of reality to the telling, very much in line with an opening statement made in the first chapter about the enthusiasm with which soldierly Brits responded to the fall of Dunkirk - 'The era of the swashbuckling adventurer and the licensed privateer was at hand again, and as the glad tidings [of the renewed war in Europe] spread round, the spiritual descendants of Hawkins, of Peterborough and of Drake swallowed a last double whisky in their messes and took the train for London. They carried with them in their luggage mysterious rope ladders, aplenstocks, home-made bombs and magnetic devices, which they proposed to attach to the sides of enemy ships.' Still in the spirit of the jolly-good-war, focused on the 'excitement, indeed the exhilaration, of raids well executed', there isn't anything that I could learn from this book. And, PS, there are typo's on many pages.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Special Boat Squadron WW2
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Great condition and service I bought it for a gift.
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  • Tim H
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good read but...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I enjoyed this account, mostly about SBS activity in the Aegian which is new to me but the way it is written was not quite so easy at least for me. The author was also a writer and there are parts of the book that read more like a novel. However, the account is valuable and I particularly like the way he describes the activity of all who took part in these SBS activity, not just the leaders.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Great read
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  • Railway Mike
    3.0 out of 5 stars A simple history.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    A simple history, lacking detailed description.
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  • tony
    5.0 out of 5 stars The real SBS
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 9, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    The courage and daring is well documented
    in a very matter of fact way. The missions come to life and how so much was achieved by a small number of devoted is incredible. Well worth reading. I read whilst on holiday on a Greek island and could imagine the stealth and daring of these troops.
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