Gavin Mortimer is the author of Stirling's Men (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004), a ground-breaking history of the early operations of the SAS, The SAS in World War II (Osprey, 2015) and The Daring Dozen (Osprey, 2012). An award-winning writer whose books have been published on both sides of the Atlantic, Gavin has previously written for The Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and Esquire magazine. His most recent book is The Men Who Made the SAS: The History of the Long Range Desert Group (Constable, 2015).

The Special Boat Squadron was Britain's most exclusive Special Forces unit during World War II. Highly trained, totally secretive and utterly ruthless, the SBS was established as an entity in its own right in early 1943. Unlike its sister unit, which numbered more than 1,000 men, the SBS never comprised more than 100. Led by men such as the famed Victoria Cross recipient Anders Lassen, the SBS went from island to island in the Mediterranean, landing in the dead of night in small fishing boats and launching savage hit and run raids on the Germans. Through unrivalled access to the SBS archives and interviews with the surviving members of the unit, Gavin Mortimer has pieced together the largely forgotten dramatic exploits of this elite fighting force. In this new and updated paperback edition, featuring additional content including new text and photographs, the unit and its members are finally granted the recognition that they so richly deserve.