Churchill’s Pirates: The Seafaring Heroes Who Helped Win WWII

'SUPERB' James Holland
'EXCITING AND IMPORTANT' Dan Snow
'REVELATORY AND THRILLING' Saul David
'THIS IS HISTORY AT FULL THROTTLE' Guy Walters

Just after midnight on Saturday, 2 September 1939, a German U-boat quietly slipped out of its berth and into the North Sea. This was the first of a Nazi onslaught of submarines and airplanes turning peaceful shipping lanes and fishing spots around Britain into treacherous mine-studded waters.

As those first mines found their marks, capsizing innocent shipping vessels just off the coast, the nation called its men and women to join in its defence. The result was a rag-tag group of sailors and volunteers that came to form a ‘navy within a navy’ – the Royal Naval Patrol Service.

These motley crews grew into a force of 70,000 men and women manning and supporting a fleet of 6,000 ships. Using converted fishing vessels, pleasure yachts and trawlers, they cleared sea mines, escorted merchant vessels across frozen northern waters, hunted submarines off the coast of America, undertook secret missions in the Mediterranean and heroically rescued soldiers at Dunkirk, working day and night to keep Britain safe in her darkest hour.

Drawing on fascinating first-hand accounts with surviving veterans, exclusive interviews, original papers and new archive material, Will Iredale brings us onto the decks of these small brave ships, onto the beaches where boffins worked to crack German engineering and into clandestine war room meetings where Winston Churchill worked to coordinate the pivotal moments that helped secure victory for the allies. This is the defining story of an overlooked unit of ordinary people that played a pivotal role in saving the country and winning the war.