Exhibition highlights history of Navy ‘Night Hunters’
THE story of the stealth Coastal Forces which carried out daring night-time raids on enemy navy ships in small high-speed attack boats is being told for the first time in a new permanent exhibition.
The display, entitled The Night Hunters: The Royal Navy’s Coastal Forces at War, tells the history of the small band of young, courageous men who took part in the “closest thing to hand-to-hand fighting” experienced within the Royal Navy.
The Coastal Forces were established in 1916 with the aim of carrying out torpedo raids and during the First World War they were involved in anti-submarine operations, intercepting suspect merchant ships, rescue work and the destruction of floating mines.
They were deployed at the Zeebrugge raid in 1918, laying smoke screens to cover the cruiser HMS Vindictive and block ships while they entered the heavily defended harbour.
By the end of the Second World War, 1,850 vessels had been built for the Coastal Forces which had fired more torpedoes than the submarine service and laid more mines than the Navy’s dedicated minelayers.
They took part in more than 900 operations all over the world, including the St Nazaire Raid, the Dieppe Raid and D-Day and sank more than 500 enemy vessels.
At the centre of the gallery in the Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower in Gosport, Hampshire, are two of the Second World War historic boats, Coastal Motor Boat CMB331 and Motor Torpedo Boat MTB71.
Immortalised as “Spitfires of the Seas”, they were often deployed in the dark, at speeds of up to 35 knots.