8:50am Thursday 29th July 2010
By Colin Gardiner
The Pursuit Peter Smalley (Century, £18.99) As sea adventurers go, Captain James Rennie is a fathom ahead of most heroes serving before the mast. His ship, HMS Expedient, has already survived many actions and now he is headed for the Norwegian fjords and stormy Atlantic in pursuit of an armed vessel connected with revolutionary France. Always on a secret voyage at the behest of his Georgian spymasters, Rennie is pretty much like Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe on land. Smalley has created a character born to the sea, always jousting with his friend Lieutenant James Hayter, but forming a formidable duo with him when it comes to action.
Blood of Honour James Holland (Bantam Press, £14.99) Holland is a military historian who moves successfully between fact and fiction. His fictional hero is a tough, uncompromising colour sergeant major who is always on a mission to defy the might of Germany. Jack Tanner is now in Crete in 1941 amid one of the most intensive paratroop drops in history. He collects enemies like some people collect stamps and this time he is not only battling Germans but also a Greek leader who has sworn to kill him. As always, Holland gives an authentic voice to the action, based on his deep knowledge of warfare and specifically the regions in which it was fought during the Second World War.
Deathly Deception Denis Smyth (Oxford, £16.99) The invasion of Sicily, which ultimately led to the capture of Rome and downfall of Mussolini, was enabled to a great degree by one of the most exotic deceptions in British military history. Most people have heard of the Man Who Never Was, but this story of Operation Mincemeat, the code name for this audacious plan, has never been so graphically detailed. It involved the transformation of the corpse of a Welsh labourer into a ‘drowned’ Royal Marine major. The body was discharged into the waters off the Spanish coast by submarine. On his person were forged documents suggesting Greece as the likely destination for Allied troops instead of Sicily. Smyth revels in every facet of the macabre operation, designed to fool Hitler and pave the way for the liberation of Europe.
The Pacific Hugh Ambrose (Canongate, £20) The Pacific War was like no other, a series of stepping stones towards the conquest of Japan. Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa — battlegrounds seared in the minds of all US marines. Ambrose, who served as historical consultant on the current hit TV saga, has written a book of formidable power in its coverage of the attacks on suicidal Japanese forces after the infamy of Pearl Harbor. As with Band of Brothers, concerning the war in Europe (written by his late father Stephen), Ambrose personalises the experience of war through five men who fought in many of the major battles in the Pacific. The reality of this dangerous island-hopping war is one of horror and hope in foxhole or POW camp or aviation combat. It is a story of intense brutality, with so many paying the full price so far away from home.
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