ABSTRACT
The nine operations carried out between January and August 1944 to a beach near Plouha, for MI9’s SHELBURNE escape line, were, in Slocum’s estimation, the most interesting work accomplished by his Dartmouth-based 15th MGB Flotilla. SHELBURNE, which collected shot-down airmen from all over northern France and conveyed them to this embarkation point with exemplary efficiency, has been the subject of books in both French and English.1 Bonaparte beach, from which the first five evacuations (code name BONAPARTE) were carried out, has become a tourist attraction and a tunnel has been built to enable it to be visited at all states of the tide without the need to slither down the huge rock-fall by which, in 1944, evaders were led down and heavy suitcases of arms were hauled up. Ironically, none of the detailed naval operation reports of this series appears in the Birkin collection.2
