The SBS in World War II: An Illustrated History

By Gavin Mortimer

The Special Boat Squadron (SBS) was Britain's most exclusive Special Forces unit, similar to US Navy SEALS. Highly trained, highly secretive and utterly ruthless, the SBS was established as an entity in its own right in early 1943 having previously operated under the auspices of the SAS during the war in North Africa.

Though the movie Guns of Navarrone was inspired by SBS exploits, most people know little about them. Unlike its sister unit, which numbered more than 1,000, the SBS never comprised more than 100.
These men were mostly former commandos of guardsmen, cherry-picked by the unit's leader Lord George Jellicoe for their daring, initiative, and proficiency in killing Germans. The new unit was first committed to action on the islands of Crete and Sardinia, before spending much of the war fighting in the islands of the Aegean.
Led by men such as the famed Victoria Cross winner Anders Lassen, the SBS went from island to island, landing in the dead of night in small fishing boats and launching savage hit and run raids on the Germans. Sometimes they blew up a telegraph station, other times they cratered the airstrip, and more often than not they laid waste to a barrack room of sleeping soldiers. Like modern-day Vikings or pirates, they terrorised the German garrisons and were even described in the House of Commons as a band of "murderous, renegade cut-throats".
By the end of the war they had served in Italy, the Balkans, and mainland Greece, and following the cessation of hostilities their deeds were airbrushed out of history by an establishment that had never warmed to their piratical exploits. Gavin Mortimer, with his unrivalled access to the SBS and through interviews with the surviving members of the unit, has pieced together the dramatic exploits of this elite fighting force.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781472804815

Gavin Mortimer

Gavin Mortimer is a writer, historian and television consultant whose groundbreaking book Stirling's Men remains the definitive history of the wartime SAS. Drawing on interviews with more than 60 veterans, most of whom had never spoken publicly, the book was the first comprehensive account of the SAS Brigade. He has also written histories of the SBS, Merrill's Marauders and the LRDG, again drawing heavily on veteran interviews. He has published a variety of titles with Osprey including The Long Range Desert Group in World War II and The SAS in World War II.

Reviews for The SBS in World War II

[kathrynatwood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Blitz - the German attempt to gain a voluntary surrender from Great Britain by bombing her cities during WWII – has long been a symbol of British stubbornness and resilience. Gavin Mortimer’s new (and oversized) book on the subject is riveting in that it brings the time and place to life with descriptive narrative, firsthand accounts and, above all, photographs: one on nearly every page and some of them never before published. Wartime censors were apparently responsible for keeping some of these photos a secret for the purposes of morale (though why they were kept secret for decades after the war is puzzling). Mortimer points out that the wartime editorial board of the Daily Mirror – the archive from which these photos emanated – was initially responsible for creating the image of the stiff, undefeatable Briton who would never surrender to the Nazi destruction. However, it is patently obvious from this book that the British stiff upper lip was not merely the creation of an editorial board. Mortimer illuminates this clearly while describing the effects on the populace of the bombing of London: “Remarkably, far from demoralizing Londoners such horrific incidents unified them, bringing them closer together. By the end of October [1940]... the only social division that existed after a month of continual bombing was between those who had remained in the capital, defiant in the face of the bombing, and those who had fled to the safety of the countryside... All those who carried on as normal, all those who could ‘Take It,’ experienced a camaraderie the like of which London had never before known. The Blitz, literally and metaphorically, was a great leveler. A person’s wealth or accent no longer mattered..” But how the wartime Brits maintained that legendary spine is quite amazing, especially as the bombing continued with wearying regularity and even more so when the sprees became terrifyingly sporadic. Throughout, Mortimer describes in detail the different types of bombs (i.e. firebombs, then later in the timeline, V-1 buzz bombs and V-2 rockets) and their effects on the structures and people of Britain. Covering in detail all the major bombing sprees geographically and chronologically, The Blitz: An Illustrated History combines compelling prose, reams of personal testimony, and most importantly photographs, to bring the reader nearly into the experience and will leave them with a deep respect for WWII-era city-dwelling Britons.