Paru le 04/08/2005 | Cartonné 205 pages
Tout public
Warriors from the deep
In that book, we have chosen to present three combat swimmer units of mythical proportions.
First of all, and because their glorious past warrants it, the Italian Arditi Incursori. The Descendants of the « torpedo men » and of the Gamma swimmers, the heroes of Alexandria and Gibraltar ; then, the German Kampfschwimmer, made famous by their WW2 operations before they were recreated in the 1950s ; and finally, the French combat swimmers who fought in Indochina and Algeria before being at the forefront of many operations carried out by France from the Sixties until today, in the Balkans, in the Middle East, in Africa and in Afghanistan.
Even if their operations are more and more «land oriented», the combat swimmers have kept alive the skills needed to carry out underwater operations, infiltrate an enemy-held area through a parachute, a swimmer delivery vehicle or submarine insertion or to attack an harbour. Once the explosive charges have been fitted to the hulls of the enemy ships, those men still can change the course of a war in a few hours.
