The Sea Wolves

The Sea Wolves
based on the book Boarding Party by James Leasor

This movie celebrates the exploits of the Calcutta Light Horse during World War II. It is March 1943 and Allied ships are being torpedoed by German U-boats at an alarming rate. British intelligence officers, Colonel Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Captain Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) learn that three German radio ships docked in neutral waters in the Portuguese colony of Goa are transmitting information about Allied ship movements to the U-boats. Military forces cannot breach Portugal's neutrality and attack the boats, so Pugh and Stewart devise a daring plot to destroy these radio ships. They turn to the Calcutta Light Horse led by retired officer Colonel Bill Grice (David Niven) to carry out the operation. The Calcutta Light Horse is part of the British Indian Army. These men last saw action forty years before during the Boer War and there are some funny moments when they get ready to go to war after so many years. In this movie they are described as "a mixed bag of boozing, middle-aged, pot bellied businessmen," The plan for is these men to sail a rickety old barge from Calcutta around the tip of India to Mormugao, Goa. In Mormugao they will sabotage the ships. If they are caught, their story is that they are drunken businessmen who boarded the ships as a lark. The end credits state "during the first 11 days of March 1943, U-boats sank 12 Allied ships in the Indian Ocean. After the Light Horse raid on Goa, only one ship was lost in the remainder of the month." -- recommended by Donna G. - Virtual Services Department

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ]

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