Movies - The Cockleshell Heroes

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Cockleshell Heroes

	Movies - The Cockleshell Heroes

The Cockleshell Heroes is a 1955 2nd World War film with Trevor Howard, Anthony Newley, David Lodge and José Ferrer, who also directed. It is a fictionalised version of Operation Frankton, the true story of a Commando raid on shipping in Bordeaux harbour.

Ferrer plays a newly-promoted Major of the Royal Marines, who is given the assignment. He clashes with his second-in-command, a cynical by-the-book Captain (played by Trevor Howard), and his tough sergeant (Victor Maddern) and relentlesly trains his group of volunteers, losing several in the process, but gradually building a small skilled team.

Following the extensive training, the raid is launched ten miles off the mouth of the Gironde river from a British submarine. The team face a further seventy miles of paddling upriver in their Cockle MK II kayaks.

After travelling by night and hiding by day, only four men reach the target, where they plant limpet mines on a number of ships.

The raid is successful, but only two men survive and get back to England after the raid, with assistance from French resistance fighters. The rest perish in the icy waters or are shot on Hitlers' orders.

One of the survivors, Ex-Cpl Bill Sparks, was an advisor on the film.

A Royal Navy ship, HMS Flint Castle was used to portray a German anti-submarine vessel dropping depth charges.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Cockleshell Heroes ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Cockleshell Heroes; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay