The Sea Wolves (1980) on Netflix
A radio aboard German ships interned in neutral Goa guides U-boats to British shipping. Captain Gavin Stewart and Colonel Lewis Pugh are sent to spy, then turn to the Calcutta Light Horse.
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- IMDb6.3/106,108 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
During World War II, German U-boats are sinking British merchant shipping across the Indian Ocean. British intelligence in India traces the losses to a radio transmitter, and suspicion falls on three German ships interned in Goa, a colony of Portugal that is neutral. Regular forces cannot touch them, so operations to seize and question two known German agents are authorized, and they come to nothing. An approach is then made to the Calcutta Light Horse, a reserve unit of British expatriates whose members are around sixty, veterans of the First World War. They volunteer and train for the mission, which Colonel Lewis Pugh commands.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sea Wolves (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Euan Lloyd originally planned to reunite Roger Moore with The Wild Geese co-stars Richard Burton and Richard Harris, who were to play Lewis Pugh and W. H. Grice.
- The story comes from Operation Creek, a Second World War mission in which the Calcutta Light Horse, part of the British Indian Army's Cavalry Reserve, sank a German merchant ship in Mormugão Harbour in neutral Portuguese Goa on 9 March 1943; the ship's secret radio was passing Allied shipping information to U-boats in the Indian Ocean.
- In reality the ships were not destroyed by limpet mines as in the film but scuttled by their own crews, and only four German sailors died, the rest swimming ashore.
- The German spy code-named Trumpet was in reality not one person but a couple; they were captured by the raid's leaders and interrogated by British Intelligence, but all trace of them was removed from the records and their fate is unknown.
- The title music was Roy Budd's arrangement of Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto; Budd added lyrics by Leslie Bricusse to make "The Precious Moments", sung by British baritone Matt Monro.
