Roger Courtney

Roger James Allen Courtney MC, known as Jumbo, was influential in the establishment of the Special Boat Section's which saw action in World War II. They would eventually lead to the formation of the UK Special Boat Service.

When World War II began, he travelled from Africa (where he was big-game hunting) to England to join the Army as a "commando folding kayaker". When his ideas were rebuffed, he joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a Rifleman. Soon promoted to Corporal, he was commissioned in November 1939.

Courtney became an Army Commando recruit in mid-1940, and was sent to the Combined Training Center in Scotland. He was unsuccessful in his initial attempts to convince Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes and later Admiral Theodore Hallett, commander of the Combined Training Center, that his idea of a folding kayak brigade would be effective. He decided to infiltrate the HMS Glengyle, a Landing Ship, Infantry anchored in the River Clyde. Courtney paddled to the ship, climbed aboard undetected, wrote his initials on the door to the captain's cabin, and stole a deck gun cover. He presented the soaking cover to a group of high ranking Royal Navy officers meeting at a nearby Inveraray hotel.^[1] He was promoted to Captain, and given command of twelve men, the first Special Boat Section.

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