Churchill’s Pirates: The Seafaring Heroes Who Helped Win WWII

BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE PATHFINDERSJust after midnight on Saturday, 2 September 1939, under overcast skies at Wilhelmshaven naval base in north-west Germany, a German U-boat quietly slipped out of its berth and into the North Sea.This was the first of a concentrated onslaught of submarines and airplanes determined to win WW2 by transforming the peaceful shipping lanes and fishing spots around Britain into treacherous mine-studded waters. As those first mines found their marks, capsizing innocent shipping vessels just off the coast, the nation called its men and women to join in its defence.The result was a rag-tag group of sailors and volunteers that came to form a ‘navy within a navy’ - the Royal Naval Patrol Service. These motley crews grew into a force of 70,000 men and women manning and supporting a fleet of 6,000 ships.Using converted fishing vessels, pleasure yachts and trawlers, they cleared sea mines, escorted merchant vessels across frozen northern waters, hunted subm