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A Dangerous Enterprise: Secret War at Sea
Between 1942 and 1944 a very small, very secret, very successful clandestine unit of the Royal Navy, operated between Dartmouth in Devon, and the Brittany Coast in France. It was a crossing of about 100 miles, every yard of it dangerous. The unit was called the 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla: crewed by 125 officers and men, it became the most highly decorated Royal Naval unit of the Second World War.
The 15th MGBF was an extraordinary group of men thrown together in the most secret of adventures. Very few were regular Royal Naval officers: instead the unit was made up of mostly Royal Naval Volunteer Officers and 'duration only' sailors. Their home was a converted paddle steamer and luxury yacht, but their work could not have been more serious.
Their mission was to ferry agents of SIS and SOE to pinpoint landing sites on the Brittany coast in Occupied France. Once they had landed their agents, together with stores for the Resistance, they picked up evaders, escaped POWs who had had the good fortune to be collected by escape lines run by M19, as well as returning SIS and SOE agents.
It is a story that is inextricably entwined with that of the many agents they were responsible for - Pierre Hentic, Yves Le Tac, Virginia Hall, Albert Hué, Jeannie Rousseau, Suzanne Warengham, François Mitterrand and Mathilde Carré, as well as many others. Without the Flotilla, such intelligence gathering networks as Jade Fitzroy and Alliance would never have developed, and SOE's VAR Line and MI9's Shelburne Escape Line would never have been realised.
Drawing on a huge amount of research on both sides of the Channel, including private archives of many of the families involved, A Dangerous Enterprise brings the story of this most clandestine of operations brilliantly to life.
The 15th MGBF was an extraordinary group of men thrown together in the most secret of adventures. Very few were regular Royal Naval officers: instead the unit was made up of mostly Royal Naval Volunteer Officers and 'duration only' sailors. Their home was a converted paddle steamer and luxury yacht, but their work could not have been more serious.
Their mission was to ferry agents of SIS and SOE to pinpoint landing sites on the Brittany coast in Occupied France. Once they had landed their agents, together with stores for the Resistance, they picked up evaders, escaped POWs who had had the good fortune to be collected by escape lines run by M19, as well as returning SIS and SOE agents.
It is a story that is inextricably entwined with that of the many agents they were responsible for - Pierre Hentic, Yves Le Tac, Virginia Hall, Albert Hué, Jeannie Rousseau, Suzanne Warengham, François Mitterrand and Mathilde Carré, as well as many others. Without the Flotilla, such intelligence gathering networks as Jade Fitzroy and Alliance would never have developed, and SOE's VAR Line and MI9's Shelburne Escape Line would never have been realised.
Drawing on a huge amount of research on both sides of the Channel, including private archives of many of the families involved, A Dangerous Enterprise brings the story of this most clandestine of operations brilliantly to life.
- GenresEspionage
294 pages, Hardcover
First published September 7, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 8, 2026
I’ve read enough about WW2 to know the broad outline of the conflict, at least insofar as anyone can understand it by reading about it. If I read a book about the war now it’s usually one like this, covering a particular angle.
This one looks at the activities of the 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla, which made regular trips between the south-west of England and Brittany, dropping off and collecting agents and also picking up British and American aircrew from aircraft that had been shot down over France. Its activities were co-ordinated by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the organisation colloquially known as M.I.6. At the outset though, the Special Operations Executive also organised journeys for their agents, and did so separately. The author is critical of this arrangement, arguing that it was at best wasteful duplication, and that inter-service rivalry actively harmed the effectiveness of operations. In 1943 the cross-Channel journeys were all brought under SIS control. From the autumn of 1943 onwards, the missions became much more successful.
The peak of the flotilla’s activity was from January to August 1944 – missions continued after D-Day as Brittany was not liberated until some time after the initial landings in Normandy. Indeed pockets of German control apparently continued right up to the end of the war. In October 1944 the flotilla was moved to Scotland to carry out missions in Norway, something briefly covered in the book’s last chapter.
This book is extremely detailed and is at times a bit dry. This is particularly true of the opening chapters. It features a great many individuals, both RN officers and ratings, and the SIS/SOE agents. The latter are often referred to by codenames, adding to the difficulty of me remembering who was who. I got the impression that the author didn’t want to leave anyone out, which is fair enough, as their deeds deserve to be remembered.
There were mentions of some individuals I have read about elsewhere, such as Mathilde Carré and Maurice Buckmaster. The latter gets a more favourable assessment than in the last book I read about SOE.
The individual missions were excitingly described, and these being real-life stories, the reader can’t necessarily assume a happy ending to each. These missions were extremely dangerous, being carried out under the noses of the occupying forces. They were only undertaken on moonless nights, and navigating the coves of Brittany under such conditions must have taken great skill.
The SIS agents, and their counterparts in the French resistance, must have been extraordinarily courageous people. They lived under constant threat of capture, torture and death, every minute of every day. The book is an appropriate tribute to them.
This one looks at the activities of the 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla, which made regular trips between the south-west of England and Brittany, dropping off and collecting agents and also picking up British and American aircrew from aircraft that had been shot down over France. Its activities were co-ordinated by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the organisation colloquially known as M.I.6. At the outset though, the Special Operations Executive also organised journeys for their agents, and did so separately. The author is critical of this arrangement, arguing that it was at best wasteful duplication, and that inter-service rivalry actively harmed the effectiveness of operations. In 1943 the cross-Channel journeys were all brought under SIS control. From the autumn of 1943 onwards, the missions became much more successful.
The peak of the flotilla’s activity was from January to August 1944 – missions continued after D-Day as Brittany was not liberated until some time after the initial landings in Normandy. Indeed pockets of German control apparently continued right up to the end of the war. In October 1944 the flotilla was moved to Scotland to carry out missions in Norway, something briefly covered in the book’s last chapter.
This book is extremely detailed and is at times a bit dry. This is particularly true of the opening chapters. It features a great many individuals, both RN officers and ratings, and the SIS/SOE agents. The latter are often referred to by codenames, adding to the difficulty of me remembering who was who. I got the impression that the author didn’t want to leave anyone out, which is fair enough, as their deeds deserve to be remembered.
There were mentions of some individuals I have read about elsewhere, such as Mathilde Carré and Maurice Buckmaster. The latter gets a more favourable assessment than in the last book I read about SOE.
The individual missions were excitingly described, and these being real-life stories, the reader can’t necessarily assume a happy ending to each. These missions were extremely dangerous, being carried out under the noses of the occupying forces. They were only undertaken on moonless nights, and navigating the coves of Brittany under such conditions must have taken great skill.
The SIS agents, and their counterparts in the French resistance, must have been extraordinarily courageous people. They lived under constant threat of capture, torture and death, every minute of every day. The book is an appropriate tribute to them.
November 9, 2023
An excellent account of a little known enterprise in WWII. A must read for anyone interested in SOE and the French Resistance.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews