Notes

1. It was not until early in November that the Chiefs of Staff considered this proposition in relation to others against the Dodecanese.

2. Henceforward I adopt the abbreviations used for landing craft later in the war, although until 1943 LCT were known as TLCs, LCMs as MLCs, LCAs as ALCs, and so on.

3. A matter which the Admiralty had failed to tackle and did not resolve until the first such vessel, HMS Bulolo, began conversion six months later.

4. Not until October 1943 did King and Marshall agree to the formation of the Joint Amphibious Warfare Committee, and it was April 1944 before it was given jurisdiction over certain amphibious projects.

5. The need for the engine to be running was paramount; starting an unfamiliar, cold engine would have been impossible.

6. Long after the war the Makin raid was blamed for alerting the Japanese to the threat to the Gilbert and Marshall islands, causing them to strengthen the defences. The same critics did not mention the valuable lessons learned concerning the impracticability of paddling rubber boats in island surf nor that Amtracks (LVT) would be needed to cross the reefs. Nor did they examine the Japanese records which showed how weak the defences were and why. In fact they did not reinforce the islands substantially until a year later and only then because they wanted to buy time in order to complete their newly designated main defences in the Kuriles, Marianas and Carolines.

7. This account, like that of Major Page below, is edited into the first person from a statement made in 1943 to the Canadian Historical Officer after Fleming and Page had been repatriated as Prisoners of War.

8. M. R. D. Foot is mistaken in SOE in France when he says that, ‘SSRF never recovered from the death of March-Phillipps’. As will be seen, it went from strength to strength.

9. The Rangers concerned were from 29th Ranger Battalion which was formed from volunteers from the National Guard 29th Infantry Division and activated on 20 December 1942. Known by the British as 2nd Ranger Battalion and sometimes by the Americans as 2nd Provisional Ranger Battalion, its identity always caused confusion, particularly since North Force operation orders sometimes name it 2nd and at other times 29th.

10. It should be noted, however, that at Tarawa on 20 November 1943 Turner, deprived of adequate reconnaissance of the beaches, reverted to the original bull-headed direct daylight assault supported by heavy bombardment against strong defences – but at a cost of 980 Marines killed out of the 5,000 put ashore.

11. The vast majority of the Norwegian population remained as bitterly anti-German as the day the Germans invaded in 1940, with only a handful collaborating with Quisling at any time. But fear of reprisals for failing to report knowledge of partisans or Commandos made its imprint in a region of Festung Europa where strong German forces were retained to deal with an expected Allied invasion.