Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war that he was part of, and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
Force 10 from Navarone is the sequel to the highly successful Guns Of Navarone. Guns of Navarone had featured the doughty heroes of MacLean, Mallory, the resourceful mountaineer, Miller, the the explosives expert, Andrea Stavros, the brooding cool Greek resistance fighter, Brown, the engineer and radio expert and Stevens the medic. Brown and Stevens were martyred in their last mission to silence the German guns in Navarone. After the Aegean war Andrea stays over to marry the Greek resistance fighter,Maria and Mallory and Miller return to the war in Europe.
Force 10 picks up the threads right after the war. Miller and Mallory are ordered to return to Navarone and fetch Stavros for a mission in Yugoslavia. Stavros after much resistance comes with them. They are joined by Royal Marine Commando’s who fill up the vacancies of Brown and Steven’s. But one of them, Reynolds is less than pleased to be a reserve. But a team they must be, to fight the Germans in eastern Europe. They are briefed by Colonel Jensen about the mission. They are supposed to go to the Neretva region in Bosnia and check out why all allied agents have been kidnapped and if possible undertake a rescue mission.

They meet general Vuckovic the commander of the partisan forces supporting the allies in Yugoslavia. He informs them that the partisan forces are trapped against the river with German Panzer forces moving in on them. He indicates that if the partisans are defeated the German Army will control all of Yugoslavia and asks for help from the allies to prevent the slaughtering.
The mission starts as soon as they are air dropped down to Neretva and are captured by Drozhny, a huge partisan Bosnian. They tell him that they are allied deserters who are being tried by the army for selling Penicillin. Drozhny produces them before a German captain Neufeld who informs a stunned Miller that Drozhny and group are German collaborators called the Chetniks. Thus the mystery of the continuous capture of allied agents become clear.
Now in the hands of the enemy they have to engage them with lies and deception. They meet the singing blind minstrel Peter and his sister Maria who have secrets of their own. After a series of twists and action the heroes manage to rescue the captured Allied Prisoners and outwit the Germans. The ending is phenomenal with a dam burst and washing away of the Panzer divisions.
This book was also adapted to become a movie, directed by Guy Hamilton and starring Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford, Barbara Bach, Edward Fox and Franco Nero and was a moderate success. But the movie has little in common with the book apart from the principle characters and the title. So grab your copy and enjoy the action packed thriller.

What can you say about a war which killed and robbed the young men of their most valued possession, their future? The Longest Day is the story about that day where men and women gave their lives for peace. It tells you about the intrigues, planning, objectives, military strikes which leads to the ultimate Normandy landings to defeat the Germans.
Longest day is adapted from the book by Cornelius Ryan who did the screen play for the movie. Directed by a series of directors like Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki and Darryl F Zanuck, the movie boasts of a stellar cast of John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Sean Connery, Rod Steiger, Mel Ferrer, Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert, Edmond O’Brien, Richard Burton, Kenneth More, Peter Lawford, George Segal, Richard Todd, Red Buttons, John Gregson, Leslie Phillips, and many more.
The opening scene of the film shows us the young soldiers indulging in a play of cards and the camera pans to reveal the large number of them concentrated in the barracks ready for the fighting. Then you can see the German soldiers and officers debating the possibility of the attack. Many Germans do not anticipate the attack on Normandy. Then comes the scene where a German soldier distributing tea to the officers looks up to the horizon seeing almost five thousand ships and just gasps. And then the ships start firing.

The Paratroopers are airdropped into the enemy territory with of them stuck on a steeple forced to watch the battle from above. Long shots of French troops running in to battle with German planes mowing them down is one cinematic spectacle. There are real poignant situations where allied and German troops march side by side with out even knowing and the murdered and wounded in the streets of Normandy helped by the locals.
This movie also shows the German point of view, with their war preparedness as well as their Bureaucratic wrangles and indecisiveness. The Germans expecting an attack on Calais (Hitler was expecting an attack there based on a skilled program of deception), are caught unawares at Normandy. The film depicts the desperation of German officers like Rommel who understands that the war is fought and won on the beaches.
All the officers like General Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt Jr, Norman Cota, John Howard and all soldiers are almost accurately pictured. Another interesting feature is that all the soldiers speak their own mother tongue which is delivered to the audience through subtitles. I feel that this is more of an anti-war film because it does not show the battle but the men who sacrifice a lot through battle. At the end of the movie you are overcome with respect for the dead irrespective of the nationality for they did what you wouldn’t do.
This movie is shot entirely in black and white to give you the stark picture of the war. It was one of the box office successes too. It won the Oscars for best cinematography and special effects. Also nominated for 5 other awards including the best picture it has raked up numerous other awards too. See it for the men who fought for to keep civilization from going under the rule of tyranny.

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
MacLean’s characters are men who fight against all odds. They are ordinary men who are thrown in to situations which are physically and emotionally demanding. Many of them never think about surviving, and their only instinct is to fight the odds. Some succeed, some redeem themselves and some sacrifice. But in the end all are heroes. This story is based on the battle of Leros during world war two. This is one of the most successful of MacLean’s books which was made in to a successful motion picture.

The battle takes place in the year 1943 during the the world war two (based on the battle of Leros) where more than 2000 English troops are holed up. Their evacuation is possible only if the route through the island of Navarone is opened up, but this is not possible till the route is made safe from the huge guns overlooking the route which threaten any ship trying to pass through. It is needed to remove these guns, something which seems incredible, and this impossible task is put to a crack team is put together to neutralize the guns of Navarone.
The team is led by Captain Keith Mallory, a mountaineer from New Zealand who is also a commando, Andrea Stavros, a Greek colonel, Corporal Dusty Miller (an American explosives expert), Petty Officer Casey Brown (a Royal Navy personnel, from the Special Boat Service), and many others. They ultimately set sail to Navarone disguised as Greek fisherman.
Their boat has to fight the ever present enemy – the water and the sea, but eventually they reach the foot of the cliff and have to climb the sheer cliff in a storm, where the experience of Mallory proves invaluable.
They are one step ahead of the Germans, but just, and they have a timeframe whereby they have to blow up the guns to give the trapped men a chance through a relief convoy; in addition, like you would expect from such a book, one of the people supporting them is also betraying them. How do they manage to get into the fortress, and destroy the guns ?

Alistair MacLean is a Scottish writer who specialized in writing thrillers and crime stories. He was third son of a Scottish minister and joined the Royal Navy during the world war two. He was a senior torpedo operator at the height of his career. He was in the thick of the war theater during the world war and saw action on many fronts especially the arctic north. After retiring he started penning his novels based on the war he saw and many of them became best sellers. Maclean never looked back as a writer until his death in 1987.
Because of his war experiences, his novels are also high on the action content. The emotional and the romantic angle is not very much touched upon by Maclean. His characters are highly cynical men who are always part of the high octane action and push themselves against all odds with out any thought for their safety. The elements also play a very important in MacLean’s writings. Most of the time his men are pitted against harsh unforgiving surroundings which brings out the innate nature hidden inside, be it a devil or a hero.
HMS Ulysses is Alistair MacLean’s first novel and is largely drawn upon his war experiences. The true story about the ill-fated convoy PQ-17 provided the basis for this story. It tells us the story of ordinary men who fight against seemingly unsurmountable odds just to prove their loyalty. HMS Ulysses is Captained by Richard Vallery, who commands unflinching loyalty from his men.

The story begins with Ulysses at Anchor in Scapa Flow after a grueling mission as an escort ship in the arctic north. The men are exhausted and tired battling the harshest of climates coupled with low food rations. They are emotionally exhausted because of the battle of nerves against the U-boats, enemy aircraft and ships. These men learn upon weighing the anchor that the higher authorities are planning to send them back in to battle and are ready to put them through the same grind with out any concerns for their well being. A mini mutiny spreads across the ship and only their loyalty towards Richard Vallery prevents them from deserting.
Now a much soothed crew find that the trust in their abilities is eroded and orders are very clear, – escort a convoy through the battle field of Murmansk and on return will be rewarded with a draft to the Mediterranean. HMS Ulysses is to use to bait German Destroyer Tirpitz and help her destruction. The Captain and the crew accepts the terms for the sake of redemption.
But a fierce storm is raging in the Arctic, coupled with death stalking Ulysses in the form of U-boats and fighter planes above. Men have to fight against bone chilling cold and the waters toss the Ulysses with no mercy with the specter of tuberculosis among them. In the last pages Alistair Maclean graphically describes the hopelessness of the expendable men battling everything stacked up against them and sacrificing their lives for honor. Glory is for them for ever because the mind numbing hopelessness brings the men to give the battle everything they have, not to survive but to sacrifice and win.