Military forces and sectors

“Provides an excellent overview of the development of parachute troops as well as an exciting battle narrative and gripping human interest story.

Despite a supreme belief in itself, the Royal Navy of the early eighteenth century was becoming over-confident and outdated, and it had more than its share of disasters and miscarriages including the devastating sickness in Admiral Hosier’s fleet in 1727; failure at Cartagena, and an embarrassing action off Toulon in 1744\.

Always marked out for high rank, Robert Laycock came into his own when selected to raise 8 Commando, a new ‘crack’ unit early in the Second World War.