This is a re-publication of Pope's first book, an account of the actions of British motor torpedo boats in the Mediterranean during World War II. Based on the eyewitness accounts of the officers and men who served in these perilous actions, it includes contemporary photographs.

British coastal forces were engaged in a wide variety of missions: night attacks on enemy coastal convoys, often engaging ships far more powerfully armed than themselves at point-blank range, minelaying, running supplies to embattled Malta and clandestine operations landing spies and special boat Squadron units in North Africa and Yugoslavia.

Dudley Pope is the author of the "Ramage" series.