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| Artwork by Geoffrey Huband RSMA |
My Fighting Sail series was launched over ten years ago
and currently consists of twelve books set during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars. Most are based around the Royal Navy of the time although I have also
touched upon the Honourable East India Company and the merchant service in
general. I strayed twice to write two books that concentrated more on the work
of the revenue service but, until now, my entire output has focused on the turn of the nineteenth-century. However the urge to explore a later period,
and navy, has always been strong.
I was born in the ‘fifties and amongst my school friends
there was much talk of World War Two, then a recent conflict. Most of our
parents had been in the services or working for the war effort in some way and
Southern England still held many reminders in the shape of pill boxes, bomb
shelters and anti-invasion measures for youngsters to seek out and explore.
Even then my main interest was maritime history, and I began to
read accounts of twentieth-century naval actions as avidly as those from a
hundred and fifty years before. It soon became obvious that, once again, the
Royal Navy was pivotal in securing peace in Europe and equally major warships had
not been responsible for every victory.
The Battle of the Atlantic, surely one of WW2’s longest
and most punishing campaigns was arguably won by convoys of merchant shipping,
often made up from elderly, dilapidated vessels and frequently escorted by
equally aged destroyers and underpowered corvettes. And Dunkirk, though by no
means a victory, could still be considered a success due mainly to Royal Naval
small craft backed by civilian owned and manned “little ships”. Together the
two unlikely allies brought about a rescue as remarkable as it was audacious.
Even the immediate defence of Britain’s home waters lay very much in the hands
of lighter vessels and I quickly found myself concentrating all my attention on
this aspect of WW2 sea power.
During the course of my reading I also noticed a
similarity between the Royal Navy of 1939-45 and that of the Georgian era. In both
periods Britain placed little emphasis on preparing for conflict and the sudden
building programme that saw hastily constructed fleets of warships take to the
water demanded an equivalent increase in manpower to sail them. As a result,
the relatively few professional seamen available were quickly swamped by untrained
civilians brought in to fill the gaps.
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| 6th MGB Flotilla, Robert Peverell Hichens' MGB 64 leading |
Thankfully measures such as the quota act and press-gangs
were unnecessary during the later conflict, although conscription was exhaustive
and not all those called for naval service came willingly. But, as in
the past, a good proportion took to the life and prospered with the many news skills that would set them up in well-paid jobs at the end of hostilities. Some even went so far as to volunteer for special service in divisions such as
Naval Intelligence, the Submarine Service, the Fleet Air Arm or Coastal Forces,
and it was the latter that drew my attention.
Originally formed during World War One, Coastal Forces
administered the Royal Navy’s high-speed launches; the Motor Gun Boats, Torpedo
Boats and Motor Launches whose role in the defence of home waters was later
extended to cover many other areas of conflict. Small, fast and eminently
vulnerable, Coastal Forces’ craft undertook a multitude of tasks ranging from
convoy and minesweeper protection, through the clandestine delivery and recovery
of SOE agents or escaping airmen, to direct attacks on enemy merchant shipping
and coastal targets. Their crews were exclusively volunteers drawn from both
the regular Royal Navy and ‘hostilities only’ recruits – many of the latter
having been in civilian occupations barely months before. And they were
supervised in the main by officers equally fresh to Service life, being drawn
from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
Much of Coastal Forces’ work was undertaken at night, in the worst of weathers and their main opponents were the Kriegsmarine’s
own small craft. These included the heavily armoured VPs that carried far
greater weaponry, minesweepers which could be the size of small destroyers and
the vastly more powerful E-Boats.
Most of the early British vessels were small indeed, the
majority being between sixty-three to just over seventy feet in length, and
there could be little formal naval discipline on craft of such a size – something
the few regular officers were quick to realise if not always understand. With
crews regularly consisting of under ten men, it was not unusual for entire
departments in larger vessels to be represented by a single rating aboard a
high-speed launch. Inevitably something close to a family environment evolved and, although attention might be paid to the courtesies of rank and uniform ashore, when
at sea the attitude was considerably more relaxed.
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| MGB
66 at speed with the crew at action stations, off the coast at Fort William |
Despite what some maintained to be a dangerously casual
approach, Coastal Forces was to become a major influence in the outcome of
World War Two. Some of their successes might not have attracted public
attention although a few, such as the daring raid on the dry docks at Saint-Nazaire, did come to prominence and all
undoubtedly affected the outcome of the war.
Serious research for my Coastal Forces series began over
four years ago and the first instalment, Hellfire Corner, is due for
release during the early part of 2020. I hope to follow it with another
although further Fighting Sail books are also planned.
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| Outside the Lord Warden Hotel, the building that became the Coastal Forces base HMS Wasp during WW2 |
Hellfire Corner contains many aspects of what
quickly became a private war, including conditions on land. My fictitious MGB
flotilla is based at Dover, an English town that suffered more than most from intensive
air raids and was also subject to long-range artillery bombardment from the
nearby French coast. Investigating civilian social history can be as
fascinating as the military aspect, although the focus is very much on time
spent at sea and naval action.
Launching a new series has brought back many feelings of
trepidation experienced when starting Fighting Sail (I actually began writing His
Majesty’s Ship over twenty years ago), but this is definitely not the end
of my Georgian naval saga. The next Fighting Sail book has been outlined in
rough and there are at least two more to follow. Ideally, I’d like to alternate
between the two subjects and eras; there is a massive amount of material in
each and many more stories to tell.
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