His Majesty’s U-boat, by Douglas Reeman

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Send a Gunboat, by Douglas Reeman

There are many heroes in this delightful old story by Douglas Reeman. HMS Wagtail, one of the heroes, is a river gunboat. She has been designed to run in extremely shallow waters. Now, after World War II, this little ship is seemingly at the end of her useful life. She lies in a Hong Kong dockyard awaiting her last summons to the breakers' yard.

Commander Justin Rolfe, another hero in this book, is also seemingly at the end of his useful naval life. He is an embittered man, brooding and angry from a court-martial verdict and after having been betrayed by his wife. When the offshore island of Santu is threatened with invasion from the Chinese mainland, Commander Rolfe, old Wagtail, and her crew, is assigned the mission of bringing out the British citizens on the island. It is a difficult job, but also a job that offers the chance of a reprieve and a restoration of self respect.

I loved this book! It took a little while before I really got into it, but after a hundred pages or so I had a hard time putting it away. Send a Gunboat tells a very good story about how danger and action draws together, changes, and unites the men involved in it by the skillful and very knowledgeable Reeman!

With Blood and Iron, by Douglas Reeman

This is a very unusual book. Reeman, an English author who fought in World War II himself, wrote this book about a German U-boat and its commander - Rudolf Steiger - in 1964. With Blood and Iron is written entirely from the point of view of the Germans. The fights, the sinking of convoy vessels, event in Germany, the British invasion of France, increasing French resistance to the German occupation, the conflicts between the different branches of the German army – it is all there, all told in a fictionalized, but very emphatic and interesting fashion.

In the beginning of 1944, the balance of power has shifted – in the Atlantic and elsewhere. For Rudolf Steiger, ace U-boat commander, there is a new sense of urgency. Dedicated, ruthless, fanatical, he has become a legend in his own time, a symbol of Germany's greatness. But now, as he takes the U-boat flotilla, Meteor, out into the bitter winter seas, he faces a new and deadly enemy - his own nagging doubts about the outcome of the war. Steiger knows that his destiny may be to court heroic death rather than suffer ignominious defeat.

I was to some extent stunned by this book. It is simply very good and extremely interesting naval historical fiction from World War II. And a very generous book as well, as it is written by a former enemy. If you are interested in this era, go get With Blood and Iron!

Twelve Seconds to Live, by Douglas Reeman

This is a slightly different Douglas Reeman novel than the rest – it deals very little with the Royal Navy in the conventional sense, but rather with a little group of people in a special force that were assigned the task of defusing or otherwise dealing with mines in England during World War II.

Defusing mines, especially the really treacherous ones, requires highly specialized skills as well as good nerves and very steady hands. If the mine goes active any time during the process, for whichever reason, you hear a quiet whirr. That whirr means you have only twelve seconds to live.

Twelve Seconds to Live tells some of the stories of that select and large invisible group of heroes that defused mines dropped over England, in some cases hitting private homes or other random places on shore. We meet Lieutenant-Commander David Masters and others in Special Countermeasures, who defused such beasts and, as well, taught this deadly science to others. The job required a lot of courage, and the mortality rate was very high.

This is an interesting and to some extent exciting thriller about the ongoing battle between man and machine. In my opinion Twelve Seconds to Live is not among the best books Douglas Reeman has written, but the theme is very interesting and I found I liked the book even though it perhaps is not as well structured as some of his best books.

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