The Last of the Cockleshell Heroes: A World War Two Memoir

In December, 1942, one of the most daring and innovative attacks on enemy shipping was launched by twelve commandos in canoes who became legendary as the Cockleshell Heroes. Of the twelve, two were unable to pursue their mission when their canoe was damaged on the submarine transporting them to France, and two came back alive. Now, for the first time, one of the two survivors, and now the only one living, William Sparks, DSM, tells his own incredible story of the Cockleshell Heroes, a personal account of courage, danger and survival.
This is not just the story of what was perhaps the most daring raid undertaken by the commandos during the war and the intensive training programme that prepared them for it, but it is also the true and remarkable account of a desperate escape by Marine Sparks and Major 'Blondie' Hasler across German-occupied France. For nearly three months while they desperately sought assistance from the suspicious French Resistance and dodged German soldiers at every turn, Sparks and Hasler found themselves in a seemingly futile attempt to avoid capture and certain death. How they survived the raid and escaped to Spain, as told in Sparks' own words, is a tale more thrilling, daring and nail-biting than any invention by writers of fiction.