SBS – Silent Warriors

From award-winning historian Saul David, the first authorised history of the SBS. Britain's SBS – or Special Boat Section – was the world's first maritime special operations unit. Founded in the dark days of 1940, it started as a small and inexperienced outfit that leaned heavily on volunteers' raw courage and boyish enthusiasm. It would become one of the most effective fighting forces of the Second World War – and has served as a model for Special Forces ever since. Its first mission was a daring beach reconnaissance of Rhodes in the spring of 1941. Over the next four years, the SBS and its affiliates would carry out many more spectacular operations in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Channel and the Far East: they included the destruction of enemy ships, railways and bridges; the rescue of fugitive Allied soldiers; the support of Commando operations; the survey of coastal landing zones in North Africa, Italy and France; and the use of midget submarines to signpost the...