Salisbury & District U3A Press Report
February 2008
Members were treated to a lively account of a daring wartime attack on enemy shipping. Named the 'Cockleshell Heroes' in a reference to the canoes (cockleshells) that carried them up the mouth of the Gironde on France’s Atlantic coast, a small team of commandos set out in December 1942 to sabotage German ships docked in the port of Bordeaux. Roger and Sandra Downton’s description of this courageous mission was made all the more exciting and immediate because they had themselves in 2004 set out to retrace the course of the heroes in their own canoe. Roger had met one of only two men to survive the mission and so was well briefed on the course the commandos had taken over the five days as they paddled up the estuary and where they had bedded down during the daytime often under the nose of the enemy. Roger and Sandra did not have to contemplate the extreme dangers of the Cockleshell Heroes, six of whom were captured, interrogated under torture and then shot, yet they too faced great fear and danger in the vast and unpredictable fast flowing tidal waters of the Gironde river. What impelled the Downtons to embark on such a perilous escapade? It was, said Roger, in homage to the bravery of those fearless men, whose mission, according to Churchill, shortened the war by six months. They have published a journal of their journey interwoven with an account of the mission of the Cockleshell Heroes in their book In War Heroes Wake published by Traveller’s Joy. |
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Secretary's Notes Local Please remember the date of the AGM is Weds 5th March. Entrance by membership card only. Any completed nominations must be with me 14 days before the meeting. Barbara Coulson, John Ewington and Jack Leeming have to retire under our Constitution rules. I have nominations for these positions and John Ewington is willing to be co-opted as Outings Organiser. The Agenda is listed in the December Newsletter. Our Treasurer Tony Rea will be away until 26th March. Please contact me on U3A financial matters whilst Tony is away. Central (via January package) See the notices relating to the following subjects: Language study day at the U3A national Office, Bromley on Thursday 10 April. 2008 U3A Photography Competition. Summer Schools 2008 |
| Details of future outings can be found under Outings News. |
