Raiders from the Sea

There seems to a mood at the moment to reprint books that have been out of print for years, sometimes many, many years. This reprint of a book first written in the summer of 1945 and printed two years later is a case in point. That said, this book has many fine qualities that perhaps deserve a reprint in the 21st century. Raiders from the Sea tells the often-overlooked story of the foundation and wartime exploits of the Special Boat Squadron, SBS. The SBS rarely gets the fame and attention that the SAS receive, although the two services were born out of the same need in the Second World War to provide ‘unusual warfare’ activities. The author John Lodwick, who later carved out a career as a novelist, joined the SBS during its campaign against the Germans in the Mediterranean. The writing is light and informative and cracks along at quite a pace which you may expect from a novelist. The first section deals with how the SBS was formed before concentrating more on how the SBS conducted sneak raids and sabotage missions across the Greek Islands, often working alongside their SAS colleagues. Throughout the book there are sometimes harrowing depictions of German atrocities and war crimes. The stories behind this book are multi layered and it sometimes took me a second reading to fully understand the importance of Lodwick and his colleagues’ work. This work was often eccentric but clearly highlights the extreme bravery, tenacity and cunning of the men employed by the SBS. This book portrays the men as bold, patriotic and daring but with a heavy dose of laconic, sardonic humour too. There are melancholic moments too when Lodwick reflects on the loss of men he called friends, as he put it ‘the best were always taken’. Photographs in this book are scarce at just 35 images but one must remember that these men were on active service not on a holiday to the Greek Islands and some of the maps are a little hard to read at times. The Special Boat Squadron has for too long been living in the shadow cast by the SAS and this book, although a reprint, goes a long way to redressing this oversight.