I reviewed the film on, if anyone is interested. A book about the raid by David Mason is much better than the feature film that seems to have been strapped by a low budget. A feature film was made of this venture, with the title "Glory at Sea" and the alternate title, "Gift Horse," to add still more irony. (Another destroyer, traveling the same path, will be standing by to pick up survivors, assuming that it, itself, hasn't been sunk.) And Clarkson keeps a straight face throughout this hair-raising presentation. And only after Clarkson gets to the "eighteen guns - here, here, here, here, here, and here, and here," does it become clear that it's virtually impossible and that all the ships and men will be lost. One after another, the gun emplacements, the floodlights, the submarine nets - all distributed neatly up and down the estuary through which the destroyer must travel. And so we see Clarkson standing before a map of the estuary, using a pointer to indicate the features, and counting out the obstacles the Campbelltown must get past. The goal is to prevent the use of the port by the German battleship Tirpitz. The job of the sailors is to, fill the ship with explosives, slip the ship up the estuary and ram it into the gates protecting the large drydock. A ship, the aging destroyer HMS Campbelltown, is modified to resemble a German destroyer - slightly. Jeremy Clarkson, the unprepossessing host, at times almost turns this story of an impossible and probably lethal war-time task into something comic.
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