Cockleshell Heroes honoured on 80th anniversary of daring Second World War mission - and thousands raised for armed forces charities

The commemoration follows the Frankton Trail in a ferry over four to five days, from Portsmouth to Bordeaux, and finally ending in Ruffec in France.

Organiser Stephen Martindale, 42, an Afghanistan and 45 commando veteran, said he and a group of other veterans raised tens of thousands of pounds for charities involved in the event, including the Royal British Legion, Royal Marines Association and Help for Heroes.

He said ‘bringing veterans together, to do something like this, to mark this occasion’ was the catalyst behind this event, following ‘it’s that history of the core. This is where we came from, this is where we all started.’

The event aims to honour the 13 Royal Marine commandos who took part in Operation Frankton, a Second World War Allied commando raid on Axis shipping in the then-occupied French port of Bordeaux.

The 1942 raid set off from the Holy Loch in Scotland upon the submarine HMS Tuna, which carried the raiders and their equipment to the Gironde Estuary in France, where they would then use six kayaks over four days to reach Bordeaux port.

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Frankton Trail seeks to recreate that journey the commandos took, after the raid was completed, from Bordeaux to Ruffec to meet French resistance members who helped them cross the border into Spain.

Expedition leader, Laurence Moore, 41, said: ‘What we wanted to do to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the raid, was go out and try and recreate as closely as possible the route that the commandos took and try and feel the same sort of conditions that they were going to be under. These boats here are a very similar design to the boats they used 80 years ago – we’re using the same folding kayaks for the demonstration.’

As a part of the event in Eastney, Royal Marines attempted to visually recreate what the commandos of Operation Frankton might have looked like in their kayaks, bearing down on the Nazi navy.

Portsmouth ‘born and bred’ Gary Smith, 60, an ex-Royal Marine and Falkland war veteran, said the event was ‘significant because you ask any former Royal Marine and the original film of the Cockleshell Heroes, we watched it over and over again knowing full well that they trained along this very beach here, to make one of the most daring raids of the Second World War, it’s marvellous.’

‘My uncle served in the Second World War and he used to bring me down to the Royal Marines and watch them train on the beach here.’ he continued. ‘He inspired me to join, I had no other wishes apart from joining the Royal Marines.’

Mr Smith said ‘it was an absolutely frightening time’ when he fought on the frontlines of the Falklands war at 19.

One of the only two survivors from the raid in Operation Frankton, Bill Sparks, would have just turned 20 when he landed on the beaches of Bordeaux.