place. The raiders then disembark and begin their attack. Following hard routine they now face seventy miles of arduous paddling upriver. After moving by night and hiding by day, only four crews reach the target, where they plant limpet mines on a number of German cargo ships. All this during harsh December weather. The raid is successful, but only Stringer and Clarke manage to escape. Four, including Thompson and Ruddock, are captured while the other four are killed on the way to the docks. When Thompson and the other prisoners refuse to divulge what their mission was, they are shot by firing squad, just as the mines explode. Main cast José Ferrer as Major Stringer RM Trevor Howard as Captain Hugh Thompson RM Christopher Lee as Lieutenant-Commander Greaves, the submarine commander, based on Dick Raikes Dora Bryan as Myrtie Victor Maddern as Sergeant Craig RM Anthony Newley as Marine Clarke David Lodge as Marine George Ruddock Peter Arne as Corporal Stevens RM Percy Herbert as Marine Ted Lomas Graham Stewart as Marine Inness John Fabian as Marine Cooney John Van Eyssen as Marine Bradley Robert Desmond as Marine Paddy Todd Walter Fitzgerald as the Gestapo Commandant Karel Stepanek as Assistant Gestapo Officer Beatrice Campbell as Mrs. Ruddock Sydney Tafler as Policeman Gladys Henson as Barmaid Jacques B. Brunius as French Fisherman Andreas Malandrinos as French Fisherman Judith Furse as WVS driver Patric Doonan as Sailor Claridge Sam Kydd as fish lorry driver (uncredited) Yana as Pub Singer (uncredited) John Blythe as Lodger (uncredited) Development In 1953, it was reported that the Australian author Hugh Hastings was working on a script called "Cockleshell Heroes" for the star Gregory Peck and the director Lewis Milestone. The script was based on a Reader's Digest account of the mission by George Kent. Film rights to the story eventually went to Warwick Films, a new production company based in Britain run by the American producers Albert Broccoli, who would later produce many James Bond films, and Irving Allen. Warwick's first film had been The Red Beret, based on a real-life British commando raid in the Second World War, with an American star in the lead role. It was very popular; The Cockleshell Heroes followed the same formula. It was the company's fourth movie. It was the first independent film shot in Britain to use CinemaScope. (Warwick had secured the use of the process for Cockleshell