Following in the footsteps of the heroic Stockport milkman who helped bring WW2 to an end

Brilliantly simple on paper, but fraught with danger in reality. The successful execution of the plan, Sir Winston Churchill was later to say, disrupted key Nazi supply lines and infrastructure so much it shortened the Second World War by six months.

But the daring and novel raid into occupied France in December, 1942, claimed the life of one of our own - former Stockport milkman and Royal Marine James Conway, who was just one of the 10 famous 'Cockleshell Heroes'. With the fortunes of the war at the time seemingly stacked heavily against the Allies, Royal Marine command devised a plan to attack a strategically vital Nazi port and harbour in Bordeaux. Using small canoes.

In the dead of night the commandos - sitting two apiece in canoes with codenames including 'Cuttlefish' and 'Catfish' - entered the still waters of the Gironde estuary from submarine HMS Tuna and set off to paddle 80 miles upstream to silently plant limpet mines on docked German vessels.

The small, foldable canoes were known by the mission as the 'cockles'. The plan would see them flee the scene on foot afterwards, living off the land and hoping for the best, but only two survived after escaping over the border into Spain. The raid, officially named Operation Frankton, was immortalised on film in the 1955 classic, The Cockleshell Heroes.

Marine Conway, who lived with his mother Mary Ann at Heaton Mersey View, Larkhill, Edgeley, was apparently chosen for the mission after another Marine suffered a sporting injury and had to step down at the last minute.

He was eventually shot by the Gestapo after being captured at the age of just 20. The raid, however, was hailed as a huge success despite the heavy losses. One canoe was damaged before the mission even