The UK Special Forces have a long and illustrious history of using kayaks for their missions. One of the most famous is during WWII when Blondie Hasler (who later invented the self-steering windvane for sailboats and was a primary mover in the single-handed races between the USA and England) led a team of commandos on a raid into France. The story was made into a feature film called "The Cockleshell Heroes". The boats were clearly kayaks although almost all references to them are of "cockleshells" or even "canoes" but they were 2-lace boats in which the paddlers used two-blade paddles. They looked remarkably like the Folboat I paddled in the early 1970s around Bowron Lakes. A cable-tv episode about Great Raids featured a 30-minute segment on this just a few weeks ago. All members of this particular raid died except for Hasler and his boat-partner. Several of the commandos were executed (illegally) on orders from Hitler when they were captured. (They should have been held as prisoners of war since they were in uniform.) If anyone has access to a DVD of this movie or knows where to buy one please get back to me. Craig Jungers Royal City, WA On 5/11/07, John Kirk-Anderson <jka_at_netaccess.co.nz> wrote: > > While looking at kayaks from above, check out: > > 50 42' 45.41 N > 2 01' 13.20 W > > on Google Earth. > > It is the SBS (part of UK Special Forces) compound and amongst all the > military vessels are what appear to be two brightly coloured kayaks. > > Good to see that there is time to play amongst all the serious stuff! (Or, > is it the other way around?) > > Cheers > > JKA *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri May 11 2007 - 14:56:01 PDT
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