During the Second World War, Royal Navy motor torpedo boats, motor gunboats and motor launches performed a multitude of dangerous tasks in the English Channel and North Sea. Ferocious close-quarter combat with their German E- and R-boat counterparts could result in glory – or sudden death. This fascinating history tells the story of not just the many and varied operations in which the little ships of Britain and her allies were involved, in what became known as ‘the war in the narrow seas’, but also of the vessels and the men who crewed them.