A TAVISTOCK author and broadcaster has won a prestigious award from the Royal Marines for a wartime documentary recreated on the River Tamar. Last weekend Tom Keene of Chollacott Lane, Tavistock, who runs Longbow Productions, was presented with the Royal Marines Historical Society award for 2006 after writing, researching and producing Frankton?s Shadows, a documentary networked on BBC Television. The award was made in the presence of the Commandant General, Royal Marines, by Major General Julian Thompson, president of the society and former commander of 3 Commando Brigade during the Falklands War. Frankton?s Shadows, praised as a documentary of ?excellent quality? told for the first time the real story behind the Cockleshell Heroes? the famous Royal Marines canoe raid on Bordeaux docks during 1942, from which only two Marines returned. The raid was sanctioned as the only way German shipping could be attacked in harbour. But it wasn?t. At the same time the raiders were paddling 120 miles deep into enemy territory to plant limpet mines on enemy shipping, secret agents of the Special Operations Executive were simply walking into the same docks on the very same mission. Tom said: ?We went to a lot of trouble to get the details right and to unveil the true story behind one of the most famous raids of the Second World War. Our fog of war discoveries in no way diminished the courage of those who took part, but it did set the record straight. ?To have that recognised by the Royal Marines themselves was the finest compliment we could hope for.? Frankton?s Shadows revealed that, though both Combined Operations and SOE had sat and planned at the same table, SOE had never breathed a word of their own plans to parachute agents into France to attack the same target ? and so eight men had gone to their deaths on a raid by canoe that need never have been mounted. During filming, Longbow Productions obtained the original plans of boats used on the raid, built two kayaks and recreated the approach to Bordeaux on the Tamar one cold February night, using four volunteer canoeists from Duchy College at Stoke Climsland. ?I wanted them to look tired, cold and soaked to the bone,? said Tom. ?After a few hours paddling in lumpy seas on the Tamar in February, their performance required no acting ability at all. ?They were brilliant. They really looked the part. ?
