THE PHANTOM FLOTILLA

Mayflower, London, 1969.  ISBN 0-583-11580-2.  MMPB, 174 pages plus 2 pages of maps.  Wraps show edge and cover wear, sticker remains at upper front corner, some scrapes and age toning, reading creases; binding sound.  Interior clean and unmarked, pages browning but not brittle; 3 map illustrations.  ‘In 1915 Germany dominated Central Africa with its naval control of Lake Tanganyika.  Enter Spicer, an eccentric Royal Navy commander with an equally oddball crew – and two motor boats.  Between Capetown (where they landed) and the Lake were 3000 miles of the world’s most difficult and disease-ridden country.  Among their other adventures, the boats had to be hauled by steam traction engines and ox-trains, floated on barely navigable rivers, carried on rickety narrow-guage railways.  Most amazing of all, this quixotic adventure paid off.  Here is one of the strangest, most exciting passages in the history of the Royal Navy – the true-life adventure which inspired C.S. Forester’s The African Queen.’ (from rear wrap)