[BITList] Cockleshell hero

[John Feltham]

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Hasler,  Herbert George  (1914-1987), inventor of sailing equipment and Royal Marines officer, was born in Dublin on 27 February 1914, the younger child and younger son of Lieutenant Arthur Thomas Hasler, quartermaster, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and his wife, Annie Georgina Andrews. His father was drowned when the troopship Transylvania was torpedoed on 4 May 1917, leaving his mother to bring up the young boys on her own. She sent Herbert, with a bursary, to Wellington College, where he distinguished himself at cross-country running, rugby football, and as captain of swimming. He also boxed but, according to him, with rather less distinction.

Blondie Hasler, as he became known, except to his family, because of his (thinning) blond hair and fair moustache, combined remarkable powers of physical endurance with above average strength and fitness (he was about 6 feet tall). Yet, throughout his subsequent career, he was loath to take advantage of these attributes, although they stood him in good stead in war and peace, preferring a well-reasoned, calm, and quietly conducted discussion to make his case. He also hated punishing men under his command, believing that their failure was the result of his lack of leadership. He had a totally original mind.

Hasler was commissioned into the Royal Marines on 1 September 1932, and by 1935 had already achieved yachting distinction by sailing a 12 foot dinghy single-handed from Plymouth to Portsmouth and back again. It was then that he began expounding advanced nautical theories through illustrated articles in the international press-a hobby that he pursued until his death. After the Second World War broke out, as fleet landing officer in Scapa Flow in 1940, he was sent to Narvik in support of the French Foreign Legion. In just a few weeks he was appointed OBE, mentioned in dispatches, and awarded the Croix de Guerre.

On his return he wrote a paper suggesting the use of canoes and underwater swimmers to attack enemy shipping, but this was rejected by combined operations as being too radical and impracticable. However, in January 1942 Hasler was appointed to the combined operations development centre where, after the Italians had severely damaged HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant in Alexandria harbour by the use of 'human torpedoes', his paper was immediately resurrected. He was ordered to form the Royal Marines boom patrol detachment (later to be dubbed the 'Cockleshell heroes'-an expression of which he disapproved). When the problem of blockade-runners operating out of Bordeaux was identified in September, Hasler had his solution ready the next day. The submarine HMS Tuna launched a raid on the night of 7 December 1942. Four men out of the original twelve reached the target in tiny two-man canoes, and only two, Hasler and Corporal Bill Sparks (1922-2002), returned, having made their way overland to Spain. Hasler was recommended for the VC, but was technically ineligible, having not been fired on. He was appointed DSO. The episode was turned into a film, Cockleshell Heroes (1955), which was only loosely based on fact; it starred Jose Ferrer and Trevor Howard.

Subsequently, Hasler experimented with different methods of attack, employing some of these ideas between 1944 and 1945 while serving as training and development officer with 385 Royal Marines detachment in the small operations group (Ceylon), planning submarine- and flying boat-launched raids into Burma.

In 1946 Hasler won the Royal Ocean Racing Club's class three championships in his unconventional yacht, the 30 square-metre Tre Sang. This was a remarkable achievement for a young officer. Hasler was invalided out of the Royal Marines in 1948 with the wartime rank of lieutenant-colonel. Retirement now allowed him time to concentrate on exploring, writing (in 1957 he wrote a play with Rosamund Pilcher, The Tulip Major, which was performed in Dundee), inventing, and developing a wide range of ideas, many of which are still in daily use. They included a floating breakwater and towed dracones (Hasler developed an earlier idea into a feasible design for transporting bulk oil).

In 1952 Hasler published Harbours and Anchorages of the North Coast of Brittany (rev. 1965), which set the standard for the genre, but his greatest civilian triumphs of invention-and quiet, gentlemanly persuasion-were yet to come. In 1953 he conceived and built Jester, based on a modified 26 foot Folkboat design, as a test bed for various sail plans (he eventually settled on the junk rig), and the internationally acclaimed, and first commercially successful, Hasler self-steering gear. Jester was a radical advance in British yacht design and she was not the last yacht to come from his drawing-board.

In 1957 Hasler proposed the idea of a quadrennial single-handed transatlantic race for yachts and after many set-backs this was sailed in 1960 by five yachts; Hasler came second in Jester. He followed this in 1962 with a search for the Loch Ness monster and in 1966 by the first quadrennial two-handed round-Britain and Ireland race, in which Hasler (again, the instigator) was crewed by his wife in the equally radical Sumner. These two races spawned almost all modern, short-handed racing worldwide, with Hasler acknowledged as the founding father: he received a number of international awards. In his later years he moved to the west of Scotland, where he farmed organically and wrote Practical Junk Rig with J. K. McLeod (1988). His most important invention had been the self-steering gear, which became standard equipment and revolutionized sailing.

Hasler was married in 1965, when in his early fifties, to Bridget Mary Lindsay Fisher, then in her mid-twenties, the daughter of Rear-Admiral Ralph Lindsay Fisher, and herself an experienced yachtswoman. Despite the age difference the marriage brought them immense happiness and a son and a daughter. Hasler died of a heart attack in Glasgow on 5 May 1987.

Ewen Southby-Tailyour 

H. C. G. Matthew 

Sources  U. Southampton, Mountbatten MSS + C. E. L. Phillips, Cockleshell heroes (1956) + L. Foster, OSTAR (1989) + E. Southby-Tailyour, Blondie Hasler: a biography (1996) + personal knowledge (1996) + private information (1996) + J. Thompson, The Royal Marines: from sea soldiers to a special force (2000) + J. D. Ladd, The royal marines, 1919-1980: an authorised history (1980) + J. Thompson, The Imperial War Museum book of war behind enemy lines (1996) + CCI (1987)
Archives Royal Marines Museum, Eastney barracks, Southsea, Hampshire, archives | U. Southampton, Hartley Library, Mountbatten MSS FILM BBC TV South-west
Likenesses  E. Ramsay, photograph, c.1960, PPL Library [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £48,613.39: confirmation, 1987, CCI




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