
The Greatest Raid of All
Operation Chariot and the Mission to Destroy the Normandie Dock at St Nazaire
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Narrated by:
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Stewart Crank
About this listen
A vivid account of the famous St Nazaire Raid that demonstrates the sheer bravery of the British Commandos and the Royal Navy. A must-listen for fans of James Holland, Ant Middleton, and Cornelius Ryan.
St Nazaire, 1.22 a.m. 28th March 1942.
HMS Cambeltown, supported by seventeen wooden motor launches, approached the German-held port intending to smash into the lock gates of the largest dock in the world; the Normandie Dock-Operation Chariot was in full swing.
Against vicious Nazi gunfire, the commandos stormed the docks, and within half an hour, succeeded in their chief demolition objectives, but in the heat of battle, the Royal Navy had lost nearly all of its small vessels intended to carry them back to England. With their route home closed off, the men were forced to fight through the town in a bid to escape German forces.
C. E. Lucas Phillips' The Greatest Raid of All draws upon numerous British, French, and German eyewitness reports to uncover the astounding true story of one of the most daring attacks of World War Two in which no fewer than five Victoria Crosses were awarded.
©1958 The Estate of C.E. Lucas Phillips (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 37 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America's approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations. Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is a must-listen for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.
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Great foreign policy overview!
- By Mikhail on 02-02-20
By: Henry Kissinger
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American Caesar
- Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 31 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Virtually all Americans above a certain age hold strong opinions about Douglas MacArthur. They either worship him or despise him. Now, in this superb book, one of our most outstanding writers, after a meticulous three-year examination of the record, presents his startling insights about the man. The narrative is gripping, because the general's life was fascinating. It is moving, because he was a man of vision. It ends, finally, in tragedy, because his character, though majestic, was tragically flawed.
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A Great American
- By Charlotte A. Hu on 05-19-13
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Just and Unjust Wars
- A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations
- By: Michael Walzer
- Narrated by: Gregory St. John
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Just and Unjust Wars has forever changed how we think about the ethics of conflict. In this modern classic, political philosopher Michael Walzer examines the moral issues that arise before, during, and after the wars we fight. Reaching from the Athenian attack on Melos, to the Mai Lai massacre, to the war in Afghanistan and beyond, Walzer mines historical and contemporary accounts and the testimony of participants, decision makers, and victims to explain when war is justified and what ethical limitations apply to those who wage it.
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Excellent conversation on statecraft and the morality of war
- By Pastor Charles D. Chaney Jr., M.Div. on 12-10-24
By: Michael Walzer
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The Village
- By: Bing West
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Few American battles have been so extended, savage, and personal. A handful of Americans volunteered to live among six thousand Vietnamese, training farmers to defend their village. Such "Combined Action Platoons" (CAPs) are not a lost footnote about how the war could have been fought; only the villagers remain to bear witness. This is the story of 15 resolute young Americans matched against two hundred Viet Cong; how a CAP lived, fought, and died; and why the villagers remember them to this day.
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It is like you were there!
- By Gina on 06-17-21
By: Bing West
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Goodbye, Darkness
- A Memoir of the Pacific War
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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This memoir offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific - what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and most of all, what it felt like to one who underwent all but the ultimate of its experiences.
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The best war memoir ever
- By Doug on 05-31-07
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World Order
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Kissinger offers in World Order a deep meditation on the roots of international harmony and global disorder. Drawing on his experience as one of the foremost statesmen of the modern era Kissinger now reveals his analysis of the ultimate challenge for the 21st century: How to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historical perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.
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More retrospective than future oriented
- By Scott on 10-23-14
By: Henry Kissinger
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The CIA War in Kurdistan
- The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War
- By: Sam Faddis
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2002, Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq to facilitate the deployment of follow-on conventional military forces numbering more than 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division, would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam's army in the North as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground in Iraq within weeks, the entire campaign likely to be over by summer. The 4th Infantry Division never arrived, nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number.
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Highly Recommended Read
- By Bill Brown on 11-11-21
By: Sam Faddis
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A Peace to End All Peace
- The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
- By: David Fromkin
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions. All of these conflicts are rooted in the region's political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War. Author David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all seemed possible, he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time.
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Still A Great Book On The Topic
- By Nostromo on 02-03-19
By: David Fromkin
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Churchill's Band of Brothers
- WWII's Most Daring D-Day Mission and the Hunt to Take Down Hitler's Fugitive War Criminals
- By: Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On the night of June 13th, 1944, a 12-man SAS unit parachuted into occupied France. Their objective: hit German forces deep behind the lines, cutting the rail-tracks linking Central France to the northern coastline. In a country crawling with enemy troops, their mission was to prevent Hitler from rushing his Panzer divisions to the D-Day beaches and driving the Allied troops back into the sea. It was a Herculean task, but no risk was deemed too great to stop the Nazi assault.
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Fascinating story of incredible bravery.
- By William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and capitalized M). on 10-02-21
By: Damien Lewis
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Churchill's Hellraisers
- The Secret Mission to Storm a Forbidden Nazi Fortress
- By: Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Matt Bates
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the winter of 1944. Allied forces have succeeded in liberating most of Axis-occupied Italy - with one crucial exception: the Nazi headquarters north of the Gothic Line. Heavily guarded and surrounded by rugged terrain, the mountain fortress is nearly impenetrable. But British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is determined to drive a dagger into the "soft underbelly of Europe." The Allied's plan: drop two paratroopers into the mountains-and take the fortress by storm....
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Researching the facts and players
- By OBXCO on 12-26-24
By: Damien Lewis
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Delta Force
- A Memoir by the Founder of the U.S. Military's Most Secretive Special-Operations Unit
- By: Charlie A. Beckwith, Donald Knox
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Wanted: Volunteers for Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal. A body bag. Or both. With this call to arms, Charlie Beckwith revolutionized American armed combat. Beckwith's acclaimed memoir tells the story of Delta Force as only its maverick creator could tell it - from the bloody baptism of Vietnam to the top-secret training grounds of North Carolina to political battles in the upper levels of the Pentagon itself. This is the heart-pounding, first-person insider's view of the missions that made Delta Force legendary.
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Good Military History
- By Drew on 02-01-15
By: Charlie A. Beckwith, and others
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Foxtrot in Kandahar
- A Memoir of a CIA Officer in Afghanistan at the Inception of America’s Longest War
- By: Duane Evans
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Kandahar. The ancient desert crossroads and, as of fall of 2001, ground zero for the Taliban and al-Qa'ida in southern Afghanistan. In the northern part of the country, the US-supported Northern Alliance has made progress on the battlefield, but in the south, the country is still under the Taliban's bloody hold and al-Qa'ida continues to operate there. With no "Southern Alliance" for the US to support, a new strategy is needed if victory is to be achieved. Veteran CIA officer Duane Evans is dispatched to Pakistan to "get something going in the South." Foxtrot in Kandahar is his story.
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Fascinating look into CIA ground forces in early Afghanistan
- By Invictus on 09-23-18
By: Duane Evans
What listeners say about The Greatest Raid of All
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- MortonC
- 01-17-25
Extremely detailed account of this daring raid
I had just read the extraordinary tale of the Tobruk raid (SAS Ghost Patrol) and had been astonished at their daring and how gripping the story was. So, when I saw this similar tale of the St. Nazaire raid, I knew that I had to listen to it.
Overall, the details are excellent and you get to really "feel you are there". I appreciate that the author wanted to make the soldiers and sailors into "real people" and make them more than just two-dimensional actors, but there were almost too many details and it slowed down the story somewhat. The author was clearly a rugby jock and I found the continual references to "good looking, athletic, rugger player" to get really tedious.
It would have been nice to have received more details of the Germans and how they felt about the whole adventure, but this book was written in 1958 so that probably wasn't how people felt back then.
I found the "All the Frenchmen loved how the British blew up their premiere facilities" to be a tad... hopeful? I suspect that they were often more than a little peeved about their beloved docks being trashed for a long time. Otherwise, why wouldn't they have blown them up, when they first capitulated to the Germans (as one person notes).
Also, the jolly ruse played on the Germans and the Germans feeling that it has been "well played" is a tad hopeful, I think it's the title "D Day Through German Eyes" where the St. Nazaire Raid is often mentioned as an underhanded trick. I was quite surprised at the time and it reminded me that perspective is everything.
The audiobook starts with "The text refers to many diagrams but we didn't include them". Huh? Would a PDF have been that difficult? So locations are often a bit vague or confusing. But check out the Wikipedia page and the picture of the tiny HMS Cambeltown in the huge dock.
The narrator was 98% excellent; very clear and gave appropriate emphasis throughout. But painfully unfamiliar with military terms. I get that boatswain and coxswain are not obvious, but they only occurred a few times, so that wasn't an issue. And when he said "N.A.A.F.I." I thought "what is the N.A.... oh! the Naafi!" I've never heard anyone spell it out before. But again, it only came up once. But the Oerlikon gun must have been said at least one hundred times and that became really annoying. To me, with a clearly non-English word, the obvious professional choice would have been for the narrator to ask someone "This is an odd word, how should I say it?" Instead, we had to suffer oh-er-lie-kon over and over... frustrating.
So, overall, I would say it's an excellent telling of a dramatic and daring raid. I found a number of times that I was shocked at how selfless and brave the soldiers and sailors were.
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Interesting but labored
Narration is acceptably clear.
Story is interesting and would be more exciting if less weighted by excessive minutiae about combatants’names and personal details.
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- Steven Alpert
- 09-03-23
Top Notch WWII Commando Story
I already knew quite a lot about this story, having years ago played the old Avalon Hill Solitaire Wargame "Raid on St. Nazaire". Like this book, that wargame was also at the squad level, and individually represented most of the actual men that took part in it, their assigned targets such as the Pump House, the Old Mole and the Winding Houses, as well as the approach of the Campbeltown and motor boats under enemy fire.
So it was a pleasure for me to listen to this, as I eagerly heard this detailed retelling of the individual heroics of these very real and heroic men. I thought the narrator's performance was just perfect, with his Patrician British accent and his lively, interested reading. He reads it almost as from memory, as though he had been a member of the team. Stiff upper lip, chaps!
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