What does the word "Commando" mean to an Englishman? What does it mean to a German—or to a Frenchman, whose country came to be attacked by its allies and defended by its enemies? Here is the Frenchman's answer. But it is much more than that .. .
In this book the author shows how the English—"the rulers of the sea" —have, through the centuries, habitually used Commando tactics to attack enemy installations, bases and ships in port, at no matter what cost in lives and material. He draws a parallel between the raid on St. Nazaire in 1942 and an attack on a French squadron off the Ile d'Aix in 1809, when, as at St. Nazaire, an old ship was filled with explosives and sent in to destroy herself and the enemy.
Taking his theme to the last war, he describes minor operations from the tropics to the polar regions, as well as such famous Commando raids as Guernsey, Lofoten, Dieppe, and St. Nazaire, some of which took a tragic toll of. Allied lives. But, as Earl Mountbatten points out. "all these minor combined operations were merely a prelude to the Normandy landing, but that the lessons drawn from these raids, and particularly from Dieppe, made the whole difference in ensuring our ultimate success".
And the French? Of course they were afraid, sometimes disappointed, but they were never left without hope. Admiral Lepotier visited Dieppe and St. Nazaire immediately after the capitulation and had the whole story from the Frenchmen who were on the spot. With its direct conversational style, this is a deeply moving book, and no reader will fail to be stirred by its accounts of the unfaltering heroism of men who fought on against fearful, odds.
