Brilliantly simple on paper, but fraught with danger in reality. The successful execution of the plan, Sir Winston Churchill was later to say, disrupted key Nazi supply lines and infrastructure so much it shortened the Second World War by six months.
But the daring and novel raid into occupied France in December, 1942, claimed the life of one of our own - former Stockport milkman and Royal Marine James Conway, who was just one of the 10 famous 'Cockleshell Heroes'. With the fortunes of the war at the time seemingly stacked heavily against the Allies, Royal Marine command devised a plan to attack a strategically vital Nazi port and harbour in Bordeaux. Using small canoes.
In the dead of night the commandos - sitting two apiece in canoes with codenames including 'Cuttlefish' and 'Catfish' - entered the still waters of the Gironde estuary from submarine HMS Tuna and set off to paddle 80 miles upstream to silently plant limpet mines on docked German vessels.
