Customer Reviews

Boarding Party

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Boarding Party tells the story of a secret British mission during WWII to disable an illegal German transmitter (illegal because the ship the transmitter was aboard was interned in a neutral country) that was sending U-boats exact information about shipping in the Indian Ocean during 1943. The story was good enough that a Hollywood movie was made of the story in 1980, entitled The Sea Wolves.

How destructive was this transmitter? In the 11 days before the attack, German U-boats sank 12 Allied ships in the Indian Ocean, whereas in the rest of the month, they sank only one.

What makes the story especially compelling is that regular soldiers or sailors could not carry out the attack-if they had been captured, the German would have pushed the Portuguese to throw the British out of their harbors and airfields, places essential to the conduct of the war for the allies. Instead, the British relied upon a bunch on business men, bankers, lawyers, accountants, and the like to do the deed, because if they were caught, they could say they did it on their own, without official instructions or knowledge.

I won't give away the rest of the story, about how a party played a crucial role in the attack, and how the prostitutes of the harbor town where the attack took place did their part to win the battle.

An excellent story, well written, and moves at a good pace for a true story.