Twin brothers Romulus and Remus Hutchinson grew up in a proud seafaring Liverpool family. So when war breaks out in Europe, they are both keen to sign up and do their part.
With their parents’ consent, both boys join up on their 16th birthday in October 1939 – Romulus as an RNVR sub-lieutenant on a Royal Navy destroyer and his brother as a deck hand with their father’s employer, John Holt & Company.
But with Romulus’s sadistic training officer seemingly intent on breaking the cadets’ spirits before their careers have even set sail, he struggles with the intense training.
There is no time for doubts, however, as the two brothers are quickly thrown into combat.
With Operation Dynamo around the corner, will the Hutchinson brothers both make it out alive…? Can they make their mark as their forefathers did before them?
Or will the bottomless deep claim yet more victims…?
After fourteen months of flying, John Noble is now a capable and experienced Fighter Pilot.
His squadron has successfully survived the intense period of aerial warfare over Dunkirk, but now new challenges are facing them from the Luftwaffe.
And there is a major issue with their leadership.
415 Squadron’s CO, Wing Commander Christopher Bland has shown that he is clearly not up to the task he’s been given. And if Bland is the one to lead them in the Battle of Britain, John knows the outcome could be disastrous.
But with waves of inbound hostile aircraft relentlessly attacking, there is limited time to raise the issue.
The Battle of Britain is underway and if nothing changes, the outcome for the pilots could be nothing short of a slaughter…
Can the 415s defy the odds, or will this battle be their last…?
SOE pilot Gus ‘Bouncer’ Beaumont is beginning to feel the effects of an exhausting war. After making a bad navigational error he is taken off piloting duties and posted as liaison officer to a Free French bomber squadron.
But the pressure on him continues to build.
First there is the moral dilemma of bombing civilians, then the suicide of a comrade. And, to top off everything, he is accused of murdering a fellow RAF officer.
The murder investigation is dropped, but a cloud of suspicion hangs over Gus and the only way to clear his name is by tracking down the real killer.
Can Gus clear his name and mend his reputation? Will he return to fight in the skies?
We are delighted to announce that we have signed a new naval fiction novel set during the Second World War by Anthony Palmiotti.
Anthony Palmiotti
In Anthony’s words:
“When searching for subjects to write about, I look for little-known stories or actions within bigger events that emphasize the strength of character and the contributions made by ordinary people — the individuals that make a difference to the outcome. Invariably, it is the strength of character of the common man or woman that determines the outcome — that makes the difference between winning and losing. It could be a single heroic action or simply a steadfast stubbornness. It might be the will to go on when common sense says this is not a good idea. They are the unknown people who make the seemingly impossible, possible.
“Operation Pedestal was just one convoy in a war that saw hundreds of convoys. Malta was just one island in a sea of islands. What makes these two different is that they faced extreme odds and yet, through a steadfast perseverance, they beat the odds. The citizens of Malta and the common men on the convoys showed an uncommon resolve. They simply did not give up, even when giving up was the smart thing to do.
“My take on Malta during the summer of 1942 and Operation Pedestal is not a history but a novel. A novel allows the writer to get personal. It not only offers the facts, but, hopefully, a feel for what it’s like when ordinary people are asked to do extraordinary things.”
Sisters Anna and Jennifer Nightingale have been flying in top missions with the Secret Sirens all-female RAF unit for nearly a year.
Their squadron of twelve Mosquitos stages a raid on Rouen to divert the enemy’s attention from the Lancasters which are coming in to bomb the marshalling yards and port.
But while Jennifer makes it through the mission safely, Anna and her navigator, Maria, are forced to ditch into the Channel.
Luckily they are picked up by a British Destroyer. And on board is none other than Winston Churchill himself.
Impressed by the skill-level and bravery of the female pilots, Churchill is keen to learn more about their training.
He escorts them back to base where they are given a new mission: to attack the Nazi-occupied Mimoyecques Fortress.
The Allies know that the Fortress is being armed with high calibre guns capable of reaching London in a massive, unending bombardment. The Sirens need to drop bombs into the railway tunnel entrance of the Fortress as soon as possible before the unthinkable happens.
But with very little time to train, will the Sirens be able to pull off the task? Can they reach the Fortress unscathed?
Or will these Fire Maidens join the many thousands who have already lost their lives in this brutal war…?
Between 1940 and 1944, Donald Macintyre was among the most successful submarine hunters in any Allied navy, transforming the Battle of the Atlantic with his successes against the U-boat menace. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, Donald’s daughter, Dani, shares a personal memory from her father’s life after the conflict.
In 1960, when Dad was employed by MGM as Nautical Advisor on Mutiny on the Bounty starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard, he left my mother in charge of the pig farm. I can only suppose that she felt annoyed to be left with this responsibility, because she sold all the pigs and demanded a flight to California!
Dad complied, and I was able to join them for a fascinating holiday, mainly spent in Culver City’s MGM Studios every day. I watched the crew film scenes of a half replica of the Bounty on rollers, with wind and water machines simulating a storm on the high seas. To my joy I also spent time with the crew of Rawhide, a Western TV series. They made a fourteen-year-old girl feel very welcome!
If you have ever watched Mutiny on the Bounty, you might have noticed that in one scene Marlon Brando comes out of his cabin wearing a ridiculous red velvet smoking jacket. When Dad was asked to approve this costume change, he said it would never have been acceptable in those days. Hollywood being Hollywood thought it made handsome Marlon irresistible, so they kept it in. This made Dad wonder what he was being paid for, apart from sitting and playing cards with Gordon Jackson in Tahiti!
Canadian paratrooper Leo Heaps (1923–1995) was seconded to the British Army during the Second World War and participated in the Battle of Arnhem. He was captured by the Germans and upon his escape, his work with the Dutch Resistance to help rescue hundreds of Allied soldiers behind enemy lines resulted in his being awarded the Royal Military Cross for “outstanding gallantry”. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Leo’s son Adrian reflects on his father’s life in 1945.
Leo Heaps
In 1945, Leo Heaps was just twenty-two, a young Canadian whose experiences in the Second World War shaped him into the complex figure I knew.
Born in Winnipeg in 1923, growing up as the son of Abraham Albert Heaps, a prominent Parliamentarian, wasn’t easy, but Leo forged his own path. Educated at Queen’s University, the University of California, and McGill, he was restless by 1944, bored with the Canadian Infantry Holding Unit. His commanders underestimated him, calling him “not of officer caliber, no initiative, not aggressive enough.” Sarcastic and defiant, he failed to qualify for the Infantry. His father urged him to work on his aunt’s farm, an exemption from service, but Leo sought action. He volunteered for the CANLOAN program, seconding Canadian officers to the British Army, a choice that plunged him into Operation Market Garden.
Leo (upper right) before his first jump into Arnhem
In September 1944, Leo joined the British 1st Airborne Division, commanding the 1st Parachute Battalion’s Transport — without ever having jumped before. He described his first drop on 17 September 1944 with vivid clarity: “I floated down gently from heaven at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday… The sun shone, the fields of Wolfheze were bathed in warm light and the green meadow bloomed with large bursts of yellow sunflowers.” That beauty was short-lived. The Battle of Arnhem, part of a failed plan to seize Rhine bridges, ended in defeat. Captured by the Germans, Leo didn’t stay a prisoner for long. With the help of the Dutch Resistance, he escaped, hiding in a chicken coop at Ennyshoeve. There, he met members of the Resistance risking their lives for Allied evaders.
Leo with his father and brother David
His work with the Dutch Resistance earned him the Military Cross, a rare honour for a Canadian in British service. His brother, David, also received the Military Cross, making them the only Jewish brothers during the Second World War to win the decoration. Leo’s role in Operation Pegasus, the escape of over 100 Allied soldiers across the Rhine, was a triumph he chronicled in his book The Grey Goose of Arnhem. He called it “the most amazing mass escape of World War II.”
But some memories were harder to share. In April 1945, Leo was among the first to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after the Germans fled, leaving behind a typhoid outbreak and unimaginable suffering. As a Jewish soldier, the sight of skeletal survivors, the stench of death, and the chaos of the camp struck him profoundly. In Escape from Arnhem (1945) he described the eerie silence broken by the groans of the starving, the piles of unburied bodies, and the desperate eyes of those clinging to life. The scale of the horror overwhelmed him. He rarely spoke of Belsen, but when he did, his voice was subdued. I can picture him there, a young man of twenty-two, confronting a darkness that no one could fully process.
Leo with his father following his decoration
By May 1945, Leo was no longer the kid who frustrated his commanders, but a decorated veteran, a survivor of capture, combat, and collaborator with the Dutch underground. However, the war left its mark on Leo in what we now recognise as PTSD. The loss of friends killed by the Germans ushered a quiet guilt for those surviving when so many didn’t. Yet Leo channelled his unease into action, as if movement could keep the ghosts at bay. His writing, his adventures, his relentless drive — they were, in part, his way of coping with a war that never fully left him.
In 1994, my son and I accompanied Leo to Arnhem for the fiftieth anniversary, as one of forty Canadian veterans. I often wonder what he felt in those sunflower fields, thinking of his lost comrades and his own life’s pursuits. Some of these feelings can be found in his records and letters in the Ontario (Canada) Jewish Archives, which offer a glimpse of the man and the many moments beyond his stories.
Leo died in 1995, leaving a legacy I’m still unravelling. In 1945, he emerged from the war not just as a survivor but as a storyteller who gave voice to the unsung. His books are a testament to a war that left its scars, but also of the man who became my father.
Keith Panter-Brick joined the Territorial Army in March 1939, at the age of eighteen. When war broke out six months later, he was sent to France, where he was entrenched ahead of the Maginot Line in spring 1940. Following the devastating German blitzkrieg, he was captured in May 1940 and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, Keith’s daughter Catherine —Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs at Yale University — shares her memories of her father below.
“Each day life is hanging in the balance.” That was the phrase with which my father ended his book, Years Not Wasted. I think that everyone with a lived experience of war will understand that sentence: the notion that you may or may not live, may or may not be free, may or may not return.
Keith Panter-Brick was a prisoner of war in Poland from 1940 to 1945. He was captured at Isières when he was just nineteen. Under the Geneva Convention, ordinary soldiers were obliged to work — and were put to hard labour in POW camps. If he ever survived the cold, hunger, exhaustion, and brutality of war, Keith promised himself that he would study philosophy and go to university, the first of his family to do so. Admitted to Keble College, Oxford, he joined a postwar student delegation to Heidelberg for cultural exchange and reconciliation. There he met my mother, a student from Alsace-Lorraine on a French delegation to Heidelberg. The two fell in love — my father courted in German, their only common language at the time — and in that short week, they decided to marry. They built a family, rooted in the practice of non-violence and cross-cultural understanding.
My father’s book began decades later, assembled from scraps of his diary, postcards, and letters sent through the Red Cross, all of which he had kept hidden away in a shoebox. On page seven of the first edition, you’ll find his death certificate — the Office of the Cheshire Regiment officially reported him killed in action in May 1940. It took months for news of his survival to reach home. That certificate became for me the most vivid proof that life indeed is hanging in the balance.
Years Not Wasted isn’t a grand officer’s tale. It’s a soldier’s story, grounded in hard labour, frostbitten marches, and everyday endurance. Because he learnt passable German, Keith was once included in an escape attempt with RAF officers, only to be recaptured in Gdansk, at the dockside when attempting to board a Swedish vessel. He survived the Great March out of Poland in the most brutal of winters, thanks to a pair of good boots made in his father’s bootmaker shop. Even years later, my sister Brigitte, now a regular walker in the forests of Lorraine, measures distances in fractions of “Great March kilometres.” In my own teaching and research, I focus on the biological and social signatures of war across generations, and on pathways to peace. My son Jannik chose to study POW trade and barter systems for his Masters’ dissertation at Cambridge. Each of us carries a trace of my father’s war experience.
My father was impetuous. Once, while we were travelling from Nigeria to Cameroon, he filmed a bull elephant that decided to charge us on a dusty road. He stood in front of the car with the hand-held camera, while we huddled in the back. He once flagged down the pilot of a plane by running onto the runway, not wanting to miss his actual flight. But he became, over the years, immensely patient. Whilst a professor at the London School of Economics, he turned to gardening, building stone walls, and restructuring the house we purchased in Lorraine — a house that still has “2 OFF” (“must house two German officers”) carved in the front doorway. My father taught me to value ordinary things in everyday life: raking leaves, washing dishes, being attentive to other people. He never forgot what it meant to be hungry. He told me that being alive is a gift from God, and that good health is a blessing one can only really understand after one has lost it.
In 2025, we republished Years Not Wasted. It’s more than a memoir — it’s a witness statement. It honours ordinary soldiers who endured extraordinary hardship. It is a uniquely authentic book, told in the way it was recorded in letters and a diary at the time, rather than reconstructed from fallible memory. It was written to share the knowledge “soon acquired once war has started that the cost, in lives, in grief, in suffering, is immeasurable, and unacceptable however much one did accept it at the time.” It’s a call to remember how people like my father built their lives after war, choosing patience over bitterness, solidarity over division, peace over conflict. For my father, it was always about taking one step at a time, drawing from patience and reflection. That is the lesson I carry forward.
Air Commodore Roderick Chisholm, CBE, DSO, DFC & Bar (1911–1994), author of Cover of Darkness, was a night fighter pilot, flying ace and a highly decorated British airman of the Second World War. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, his son Julian reflects on his father’s life in 1945.
Roderick Aeneas Chisholm by Sir William Rothenstein. Image used with permission from Museums Sheffield
In 1930 Roderick Chisholm joined 604 Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. He learnt to fly and was commissioned as an officer. He left the squadron in 1935 when his work took him to Iran. Before rejoining his squadron in late June 1940, he took a refresher course to become a night fighter pilot and fly the squadron’s Blenheims. During the war, while flying Beaufighters and Mosquitos, he shot down nine enemy aircraft with the assistance of his airborne observers and the ground controllers, he commanded the Night Fighter Interception Unit at Ford, and was the second-in-command of Bomber Command’s 100 Group, which was charged with defending RAF bombers over enemy territory. He recorded his wartime experiences in Cover of Darkness, which was first published in 1953.
Immediately after hostilities ended, Roderick led a team of twelve charged with gaining as much intelligence as possible about the impact of 100 Group’s radar-assisted night fighters, Mosquitos, and Radio Counter Measures. The team did their work at the final base of the Luftwaffe in Schleswig, just before it was disbanded and its personnel transferred to POW camps. They carried out interrogations of Luftwaffe night fighter commanders and pilots, observers, flight controllers and technicians, held technical discussions, and examined the vast number of German aircraft parked on the airfields. The team gained confirmation of the effectiveness of 100 Group’s efforts, and had the satisfaction that as a result RAF losses were significantly reduced. The Mosquito had an awesome reputation amongst the German airmen.
Major Schnauffer was one of the pilots whose interrogation Roderick witnessed. Schnauffer was a brave and skilful night fighter pilot who was credited with shooting down no less than 124 bombers in defence of his country. He wore uniform, and on the last day the Germans were allowed to wear medals, he wore the highest order of the Iron Cross around his neck. The exchanges with the Germans were generally civilised and friendly, but my father could not ignore that they were Nazis, and that nearby were camps for Russian prisoners living in ghastly conditions, and mini-Belsens for Jews and other displaced persons.
Roderick’s mission complete, he flew back to Norfolk. While doing so, he envisioned a future Europe in which frontiers would mean no more and individual nationalities were less important, as per the multi-national squadrons of the Battle of Britain. After the collapse of France in 1940, British, French, Belgian, Czech, Polish and other nationalities had flown in harmony in polyglot fighter squadrons. Their aims were identical, and their understanding effective thanks to the basic English of the radio. Sadly, later, as national squadrons were formed, national identities asserted themselves and the unity achieved in the Battle of Britain became compromised.
In September 1939 the twenty-year-old John Wooldridge, then a Sergeant Pilot, took part in the British air raid on Kiel, the first raid of World War Two. Having brought his damaged aircraft home safely, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. Commissioned in August 1940, he rapidly rose to the rank of Flight Commander, flying Lancasters as a Flight Lieutenant. In the middle of 1942, for his part in the 1,000-bomber raid on Cologne, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.By the end of the War, he had flown 97 missions over enemy territory. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, John’s daughter and son, Susan and Hugh, share their memories of him below.
John Wooldridge
On 9th and 10th May 1944, our father, Wing Commander John Wooldridge DSO, DFC*, DFM, returning from New York where his music was being performed at Carnegie Hall, flew over the Atlantic in a Mosquito, taking off from Goose Bay, Canada and landing six and a half hours later in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland. In so doing, he broke the then speed record for crossing the Atlantic.
The Air Ministry, unsure what to do with this daring twenty-five-year-old, told him to lie low but, within a couple of days, they’d been outflanked by the Press and the story was all over the newspapers. As our father writes in his diary for Sunday 14th May: Ye gods, what a splash! Headlines, pictures…
Meanwhile, on Monday 15th May in a London hairdresser, our mother, the distinguished British actress Margaretta Scott, was having her hair done. Whilst under the dryer, she read the story in the London Evening Standard of this amazing trans-Atlantic flight. But what really caught her eye was that the pilot was also a composer of serious music, who had composed a work for Narrator and Orchestra called The Constellations.
‘That’s my boy!’ she cried, as Sir Henry Wood had recently asked her to find a new work for Narrator and Orchestra for his upcoming Promenade Concerts, and she felt that The Constellations might be just the job.
Our mother immediately approached the Air Ministry, but they refused to give out the personal details of the record-breaking flyer.
The story would have ended there if, a couple of days later, at Denham Film Studios where she was making the film Fanny by Gaslight, our mother had not given a lift to a film publicist who, on their journey back to London, had boasted that he’d just been given a camembert cheese flown across the Atlantic by a friend, one John Wooldridge.
‘Bring him to tea!’ she cried. And the next Sunday, there was our father on her doorstep — and that was it! For the next fourteen years until our father’s sudden death in a car crash in 1958, our mother and father were as inseparable as their young family and busy work schedules would allow.
In the 1950s, Margaretta Scott continued to star in plays and films whilst John Wooldridge wrote his music and plays and films. One of his most important films was the 1953 film starring Dirk Bogarde, Appointment in London, about a Royal Air Force Bomber Command squadron, for which he wrote both the screenplay and the music score. To this day it continues to be screened to great acclaim and serves as a memorial to Bomber Command by one of their own.
Major-General Hubert Essame, CBE, DSO, MC (1896–1976) was a British Army officer who fought in the First and Second World Wars. Following his retirement from the army, Hubert lectured in military history at King’s College London, and published several books and articles. He was also an advisor to television producers for military programmes. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, his granddaughter Antonia shares her memories of him below.
Hubert Essame
Brigadier, later Major-General, Hubert Essame led 214 Independent Infantry Brigade, part of 43rd Wessex Division, in the capture of Mont Pincon, the key to Normandy, as well as of Hill 112, the successful yet most costly single battalion action of the Overlord campaign.
He was a sharp-witted and determined man remembered by the actor and raconteur Dirk Bogarde, his one-time liaison officer, for his “brilliant blue eyes and tongue like a whip”. He had a caustic sense of humour and was a formidable leader from the front.
Soon after the war, Hubert wrote the Division’s official history, The 43rd Wessex Division at War, 1944-45, and later Battle for Normandy, Normandy Bridgehead, The Battle for Germany, and a biography of General Patton. His perspective as a leader of troops into battle, alongside his use of a wide-ranging variety of sources as a historian, makes for a great read even for those who know about Operation Overlord.
His 214 Independent Infantry Brigade, which together with 129 and 130 Brigade and their supporting arms formed Major General Ivor Thomas’s 43rd Wessex Division, were in turn part of the XXX Corps commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks all the way from Normandy to Bremerhaven.
The Wessex Division story spans the stormy Overlord crossing and later the crucial Battle for Hill 112. This point south-west of Caen was defined by Eberbach, commander of Panzer Group West, as the “pivotal point of the whole position” and it saw the first of the grim battles of attrition immediately following Caen’s fall. The battle involved heavy casualties and tested the 43rd Division against some of the most seasoned German divisions, well dug in and skilfully hidden.
Road and rail lines lay at right angles to the direction of advance. The bocage of tiny, often boggy fields with sunken lanes and thick hedges reduced visibility for artillery and impeded all movement. And it was high summer. Hubert describes vividly how he crawled forward in the August heat to assess Mont Pincon’s southern slopes before its eventual capture by the Division and 8th Armoured Brigade.
Hubert was a writer whose extraordinarily immediate account includes, for example, the information he gained from German prisoners, subsequent revelations about Hitler’s orders to his generals, and his own point of view at the head of 214 Brigade. His perspective sheds light on some of the huge challenges of the campaign, such as that of establishing a key bridgehead over the Seine at Vernon despite the civilian population’s determination to celebrate as though the campaign was already won.
214 Brigade fought on through northern France and the Netherlands, including Operation Market Garden, and were among the first Allied troops to enter Germany. They played a key part in the turning of the tide in the Reichswald. I am proud that ‘Brigadier Twinkletoes’ was my grandfather and attempt to read across from his high standards of resolve and determination to the greyer demands of the here and now.
Jeremy Howard-Williams DFC (1922–1995), author of Night Intruder, had a distinguished career in the RAF as a night-fighter pilot during the Second World War and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Jeremy’s son, Anthony Inglis Howard-Williams, reflects on the arrival of peace in 1945 and how it influenced his father’s life.
Jeremy Howard-Williams warming up the engines of a clipped wing Spitfire
When peace came to Europe in May 1945, Flight Lieutenant Jeremy Howard-Williams DFC was stationed at HQ, 11 Group Uxbridge. Three days before Germany’s unconditional surrender, a party was held to celebrate peace. Jeremy and his brother Peter did so by marching a guest — Flight Lieutenant Andrew from RAF Intelligence — between them up and down an anteroom. The junior flight lieutenant just happened to have been their pre-war boarding school housemaster, and the brothers had found it too good an opportunity to miss. When, years later, he was asked how the lieutenant had taken the ribbing, Jeremy replied, “with remarkable good humour!”
Jeremy at his wedding in 1951
Like so many in 1945, Jeremy was headed for an uncertain future. With peace came the pressing question: what happens now? For most, life outside of the forces beckoned. With millions demobilising, the assimilation of those who had been at war back into civilian society became one of the new post-war government’s biggest challenges. For those who did not want to leave the forces came a different challenge. With Jeremy’s father a retired RAF pilot, Peter a Battle of Britain day-fighter pilot and Jeremy a night-fighter pilot with the Fighter Interception Unit — an elite force at the forefront of the RAF’s early experiments with radar equipment — both brothers understandably wished to remain serving.
With the Royal Air Force downsizing, deployment meant less flying — not a very exciting prospect for a twenty-three-year-old war veteran. Jeremy had specifically joined the RAF in order to fly when the Nazis had tried to seize control of Western Europe. However, in the new modern era of the jet engine, aircraft were flying ever faster and higher. Now that was exciting!
In the end, both brothers remained in the RAF. Jeremy was first posted in an admin job to Singapore during the Malayan Emergency, where he met his wife, uniting two distinguished RAF families. He later worked as an assistant air attaché in the Paris and Berlin embassies. He did fly during these postings, but mainly a desk. He resigned in 1957.
Ultimately, Jeremy’s parents divorced and his father remarried into the Ratsey family, where Jeremy became sales manager for the famous sail-making firm Ratsey & Lapthorn in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. After leaving the company, he wrote many authoritative books on sailing, as well as Night Intruder, republished by Sapere Books, a personal account of his wartime service as a pilot and the radar war between the RAF and Luftwaffe night-fighter forces.
Sir Frank Whittle, author of Jet: The Story of a Pioneer, was a Royal Air Force pilot and aviation engineer known as the inventor of the jet engine. He obtained his first patent for a turbo-jet engine in 1930, and in 1936 co-founded Power Jets Ltd. In May 1941, his engine was fitted to a Gloster E.28/39 airframe — the plane’s maiden flight from RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire heralded the beginning of the jet age. Frank retired from the RAF in 1948 with the rank of air commodore, and that same year he was knighted. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1986. To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, his son Ian reflects on Sir Frank’s life in 1945.
Frank as a junior officer in 1929, when he proposed the turbojet
My father’s company, Power Jets, was nationalised in 1944. From then until 1946, he was on the board of the government company that emerged under a slightly different name. At the time, he was working on the design for the aft-fan engine that also incorporated the after-burner system he had patented in 1936 — the modified W2/700. This was expected to propel the experimental Miles aircraft (M52) intended to be the first in the world to go supersonic. He was also working on the development of what would have been the world’s first hi-bypass turbo-fan engine — the LR1. Both projects were cancelled by the government in 1946 — as was the M52. These decisions resulted in Frank resigning from the board and putting himself in the hands of the RAF to do whatever they would wish him to do.
Frank holding his slide rule
1945 was a year of change for my father. He was still a serving officer in the RAF, but Power Jets had become publicly owned and entirely dependent on government funding. He found himself subject to the needs of the large independent aero-engine manufacturers who objected to a government company in competition. However, on three occasions he briefly got away from it all and flew the Meteor jet fighter. Apart from the Wright brothers, he was the first person to pilot an aeroplane powered by an engine of his own design. At other times, he found himself sent off to deliver lectures at various venues to describe the impact and differences when changing from piston engine/propeller propulsion to jet propulsion.
As a little boy, I remember him coming home after flying the Meteor along the high-speed run at Herne Bay. “How fast did you go, Daddy?” I asked. “Oh, about 450,” he replied. “Is that all?” I said with some disgust, and turned away to do whatever it was that I was doing. I had expected him to tell me 600 miles per hour. When I asked him about this, many years later, he said he was quite crestfallen by my reaction. He also explained that, as he was flying at about 50 feet above the surface of the sea, he really was unable to pay much attention to his airspeed indicator — his attention was focussed on keeping the aeroplane steady and level. And anyway, he would have been speaking of knots, not mph!
Sir Peter Gretton DSO** OBE DSC (1912–1992) was an officer in the Royal Navy. He was active in the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War, and was a successful convoy escort commander. He eventually rose to become Fifth Sea Lord and retired as a Vice-Admiral before entering university life as a bursar and academic.To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two, Sir Peter’s son, Vice-Admiral Mike Gretton, shares his memories of him below.
Lieutenant Commander Peter Gretton with the Ship’s Company of HMS Wolverine
On 8 May 1945 — Victory in Europe Day — Peter Gretton was thirty-three years old and utterly exhausted. He had been continuously in seagoing appointments since the outbreak of war in September 1939. He had married Wren Judy Du Vivier in 1943 during a short break between convoys, and they had had their first child, Anne, who was not yet one year old. They were renting a flat in Kensington so that he could readily get to work: his job at the time was in the Joint Planning Staff in the Cabinet Office working on strategic plans to end the war in Europe and then in the Far East — not exactly a rest cure.
Peter had served continuously in seagoing ships from September 1939 until he came ashore in March 1944 — still only thirty-one years old. He had served in five ships during that time, starting as a First Lieutenant, including HMS Cossack in which he was mentioned in Dispatches for his performance during the Second Battle of Narvik under the very demanding Captain Philip Vian VC. From February 1941, he was in command of destroyers, starting with HMS Sabre in which he was awarded an OBE, and then HMS Wolverine (March to November 1942) when his ship was an escort for Operation Pedestal, the relief of Malta. He was awarded his first DSO for ramming and sinking an Italian submarine at the expense of wrecking his bows and having to proceed astern to port at Gibraltar.
Commander Peter Gretton with the Commanding Officers of ships in B7 Escort Group
From there, he was recalled to the UK as a Commander to become the Senior Officer of Escort Group B7, to be based in Derry, and he initially embarked on HMS Duncan. The Escort Group supported Atlantic convoys for two years and five months. He was awarded the two bars to his DSO during that time, the first of which reflected the successful battle for convoy ONS5, which historians regard as the tipping point in Allied fortunes in the Atlantic convoy campaign.
Peter with wife Judy in 1965
In March 1944, Peter dedicated himself to writing a new book — The Admiralty Convoy Instructions — based on his and others’ experience at war, with a readership in the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Merchant Navy. This became the bible for convoy protection and the same book, with minor amendments, was the basis of my own training as a naval officer in the 1970s.
Peter and my mother rejoiced exuberantly at the victory in Europe: he writes that they ‘walked up Picadilly and thence to St James’ Park … remarkable scenes’. They would have reflected proudly on their own contribution to the outcome: my father at sea and my mother as a Wren in the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU), which developed and taught tactics for the Atlantic battle. I was born nine months after VE Day, in March 1946.
1943
Sisters Anna and Jennifer Nightingale are recruits in the top-secret Siren Squadron: a group of women trained in the RAF to fight against the enemy.
The Sirens are tasked with flying a series of night stealth missions as part of Operation Scorpion. The first mission is successful, and on returning to base they are told that new members will be joining their ranks.
Hopeful that this means the all-female squadron has been deemed a success, the sisters welcome the new recruits and start training them on the Mosquitos.
They head out on another night mission. But this time not everyone returns.
With a downed plane found empty off the English coast, fears grow that one of the Sirens hasn’t survived.
But the show must go on. And Anna Nightingale has to destroy the crashed plane so the Sirens can remain classified.
As their night missions continue, increased skirmishes with enemy pilots suggest someone may be leaking information to the Germans.
Have the Sirens been compromised? Can they find the mole?
Or will these daring female agents be forced out of the war…?
Congratulations to Justin Fox, whose thrilling military adventure, Hell Run Tobruk, is out now!
Hell Run Tobruk is the third book in the Jack Pembroke Naval Thriller series: authentic British Navy war stories set during the Second World War.
December, 1941
Lieutenant Jack Pembroke is ordered to join a convoy and sail his small escort ship, HMSAS Gannet, from the Royal Navy base in Simon’s Town, South Africa, to Egypt.
With the Mediterranean all but closed to maritime traffic, and Rommel’s forces rampaging through North Africa, it seems unlikely that Gannet will survive the coming battles.
Jack arrives in Alexandria and is soon thrust into the action, escorting ships running supplies to the beleaguered town of Tobruk in Libya.
With the pressure building and ships around him being sunk by enemy bombers, Jack must deal with his own PTSD while leading his men to safety.
And with Tobruk surrounded, about to fall to Axis forces, Gannet is still trapped in the port…
Can Jack lead his men to safety? Will he make it out of Tobruk in one piece?
We are delighted to announce that we have signed Anthony Palmiotti’s American Merchant Marine series set during World War II.
Anthony Palmiotti
In Anthony’s words:
“Thank you, Sapere Books, for allowing my series to sail on.
“World War II was, perhaps, the most dangerous of all times for American Merchant Marines and British Merchant Navy seamen. Particularly in the early years, these civilian seamen had less chance of surviving the war than their comrades in the traditional military services. The series starts just as things are heating up when a young third mate, Patrick Welch, joins the tramp freighter Arrow. Throughout the first three books in the series, Patrick, and the crew of the Arrow, deal with Nazi U-boats, unforgiving weather and are part of a little-known rescue of Norwegian civilians from the far north.
“The goal of these novels is to highlight the contribution and sacrifice of these civilian warriors. And, of course, tell a good sea story!”
Congratulations to Patrick Larsimont, whose thrilling wartime adventure, The Vulcan and the Straits, is out now!
The Vulcan and the Straits is the fourth book in the Jox McNabb Aviation Thrillers series: action-packed, authentic historical adventures following a young RAF pilot during the Second World War.
Autumn, 1942
Fighter pilot, Jox McNabb has survived the desert and the second battle of El Alamein, but now No. 111 Squadron is heading into a fresh new storm.
They embark on Operation Torch, the invasion of Vichy North Africa, but adverse weather conditions make flying almost impossible.
And their Commanding Officer, Tony Bartley is losing control as he becomes more and more dependent on alcohol.
After a rocky few months, and a final disastrous mission, it is decided that Jox should step up to Squadron Leader.
But as the North African campaign worsens and Bartley becomes increasingly erratic, Jox finds himself fighting an uphill battle.
Is Jox up for the challenge of command? Can he lead his men to victory?
Congratulations to D. R. Bailey, whose exciting wartime thriller, Tides of Change, is out now!
Tides of Change is the fifth book in the Spitfire Mavericks Thrillers series: action-packed aviation adventures set during the second world war and featuring a team of vigilante pilots.
December, 1941
After a tense encounter with attacking Focke-Wulfs, Flying Officer Angus Mackennelly returns to base to find Squadron Leader Bentley announcing the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
US forces are being drafted in as war is declared on Japan and an American airbase is to be established next to the RAF Banley base used by the Maverick Squadron.
Angus is promoted to Flight Lieutenant and is given orders to lead a squadron escorting the American bombers on short-range missions until they have their own escort fighters.
But after the US bombers have landed, the Germans stage an attack on the airbase and rumours start to circulate that there may be an enemy spy on base.
As Angus and the Mavericks prepare for more intense air battles over Europe, suspicion between the team grows.
Is there a spy? Are they only targeting the Americans?
And can Maverick Squadron prepare their new allies for the realities of war…?
We are delighted to announce that the first three books in D. R. Bailey’s absorbing World War II adventure series, the Spitfire Mavericks Thrillers, will be released as audiobooks by Tantor Media.
The books follow the progress of RAF officer Angus Mackennelly as he flies into battle while becoming embroiled in a series of mysteries.
In David’s words:
“I am very excited to be working with Tantor to bring my books to the audio platform. This is a tremendous boost for any author, and I’m pleased that it will take the Spitfire Mavericks series to a new audience. Working with Sapere has been an excellent experience and I’m very happy that the series is set to continue.
“The Spitfire Mavericks was born out of a love for Spitfires, plus the feeling of wanting to write something new and different about the air war. The series is a mixture of action, love, romance, thriller, mystery and all of the things I like to put into my writing. It is of course fictional, set within the historical context of World War II. As an author, I love to explore the ‘what if’ and weave a story from that. I am very attached to my characters too, in spite of the tribulations I put them through. Joining Sapere has been everything I had hoped. It has taken my writing career to new heights, and I’m eternally grateful for all of the support from Amy, Caoimhe, Richard and Natalie, and the opportunity to bring my work to a wider audience.”
We are thrilled to announce that the first three books in Patrick Larsimont’s page-turning wartime adventure series, the Jox McNabb Aviation Thrillers, will be released as audiobooks by Tantor Media.
The series follows the progress of Jox McNabb, a young RAF officer, as he fights his way through the fiery skies of the Second World War.
In Patrick’s words:
“I’m delighted that Tantor Media has agreed to publish the first three novels in my Jox McNabb series. It is testament to my growing number of readers, who have already demonstrated remarkable loyalty to Jox and his comrades, and to the skill and support of Sapere Books and its family of authors.
“Going from being a debut writer, who started scribbling during lockdown, to having a five-book deal with Sapere and a three-book audio deal with Tantor is very gratifying. Much of that is down to Sapere recognising that I might have some talent, for which I’m very grateful.
“I’m very intrigued to discover who will be cast as the narrator of Jox McNabb’s stories. He is loosely based on a dear old friend, a softly spoken Scotsman, so I’m hoping we can do justice to that and the many other accents in my books. I can’t wait.”
Congratulations to D. R. Bailey, whose page-turning World War II adventure, A Fool’s Errand, is published today!
A Fool’s Errand is the second book in the Spitfire Mavericks Thrillers series: action-packed aviation adventures set during the second world war and featuring a team of vigilante pilots.
1941
The Battle of Britain is over, and RAF Fighter Command turns its attention to France.
Flying Officer Angus Mackennelly and the rest of ‘Maverick’ Squadron 696 are engaged in tactics to lure the Luftwaffe into battle.
But Angus has grave misgivings about the orders he has been given, which are justified when he loses a brand-new pilot on their first incursion.
And the squadron is dealt another blow when one of their pilot officers is discovered dead in the hangar.
The inquest rules the death a suicide, but Angus is certain something more sinister has happened.
In between bouts of furious dogfights in the skies, Angus and his good friend Flying Officer Tomas Jezek work tirelessly to investigate the murder.
While they risk their lives fighting a deadly foe, could the real threat be coming from an enemy within? Are the Spitfire Mavericks being targeted by someone who is supposed to be on their side…?
Congratulations to D. R. Bailey, whose gripping military adventure, Dawn of Hope, is out now!
Dawn of Hope is the first book in the Spitfire Mavericks Thrillers series: action-packed aviation adventures set during the Second World War and featuring a team of vigilante pilots.
1940, England
After a series of run-ins with his superiors, Flying Officer Angus Mackennelly is posted to Squadron 696 – the Maverick unit full of misfits and outsiders.
Angus has just returned from gunning down enemy aircraft when he is given a shocking top-secret mission.
A spy is in their midst, feeding information to the Germans, and Angus is tasked with exposing him.
MI6 pin their suspicions on one of the squadron’s foreign pilots, but Angus is not convinced. He needs to get closer to the men in his unit to try and unravel their secrets.
As the fight in the skies intensifies, it is clear the Germans are anticipating their every move, putting the lives of the pilots in the Maverick squadron at a deadly risk.
Can Angus unmask the traitor? Will he save the men in his squadron?
Congratulations to Patrick Larsimont, whose thrilling World War II adventure, The Raiders and the Cross, is out now!
The Raiders and the Cross is the second book in the Jox McNabb Aviation Thrillers series: action-packed, authentic historical adventures following a young RAF pilot during the Second World War.
Winter, 1940
Enemy raiders are bombing Britain’s cities relentlessly. Casualties are high and morale is at an all-time low.
Jox McNabb and the rest of No.111 Squadron train to become night fighters to take on the raiders inflicting such carnage on Britain’s cities.
But then tragedy strikes and Jox is devastated by the loss of those close to him.
Scarred physically and emotionally, he recovers slowly. Seeking a fresh start, he volunteers to serve in the turbulent skies of besieged Malta.
But this new location quickly becomes just as dangerous as the last.
Can Jox forget the tragedy that haunts him? Will he survive the murderous assault of the Luftwaffe?
And can a desperate Malta withstand the relentless onslaught?
Congratulations to Patrick Larsimont, whose thrilling wartime adventure, The Lightning and the Few, is published today!
The Lightning and the Fewis the first book in the Jox McNabb Aviation Thrillers series: action-packed, authentic historical adventures following a RAF pilot during the second world war.
Scotland, 1939
When Jox McNabb is expelled from school he is forced to look to his future.
Inspired by the sight of a Hurricane flying over him, he becomes determined to join the RAF.
And after basic training, Jox is posted to RAF Montrose with the growing group of other recruits he has met along the way.
Battling the bleak Scottish elements and finding themselves immediately thrown in at the deep end, the lads struggle to keep up with the training.
Many are deemed unfit for service, and after tragedy strikes, Jox questions if he’s got what it takes.
Can Jox earn his wings to face Blitzkrieg and defend his country in its hour of need? Does he have the courage and skill to become one of The Few? Will he beat the odds to survive his first battle?
Justin Fox is the author of the Jack Pembroke Naval Thriller series: authentic British Navy war stories set during the Second World War.
I grew up around boats and the sea has always been an important part of my life and my writing. Our family spent holidays in an old house in Simon’s Town, the former Royal Navy base in South Africa, and from an early age I knocked about in anything that floats: rowing boats, sailing dinghies, windsurfers and yachts. My reading as a boy was also nautically orientated, particularly naval yarns by the likes of Douglas Reeman, Patrick O’Brian, Nicholas Monsarrat and CS Forester.
Midshipman Justin Fox, aged 17.
After leaving school, my two years of national service in the South African Defence Force were spent in the navy, based in Simon’s Town. During that period, I had six months at sea on a replica medieval caravel sailing down the Atlantic from Portugal to South Africa in a re-enactment of the voyage of Bartholomew Dias in 1487. The first book I ever wrote (never published) was the story of that voyage.
When I later joined Getaway travel magazine as a photojournalist, I volunteered for any boating assignment: sailing a brigantine around the Seychelles, a felucca down the Nile, a pirogue to Timbuktu, island-hopping by catamaran around Madagascar, taking the mail ship to St Helena Island and sailing a dhow up the Kenyan coast (which provided material for my Somali pirate novel, Whoever Fears the Sea, published by Sapere).
My Jack Pembroke series is inspired by my love of history and the sea, but I also aimed to bring to the fore a theatre of World War II that is not well known and is little written about: the fighting off the South African coast that resulted in the loss of more than 150 Allied ships.
View from Justin’s flat in Cape Town.
I live in a flat in Cape Town and my desk overlooks the city’s anchorage. Watching the ships come and go each day, I often think of the war years when thousands of vessels were routed around the Cape. When a convoy was in town, Table Bay would be crammed with more than fifty ships, all of them needing protection. In place of today’s yachts and pleasure craft puttering jauntily out of the V&A Waterfront, minesweepers and anti-submarine vessels would make their daily round of the bay.
During the war, the Cape of Good Hope became a vital strategic point on the sea route around the continent and was particularly important during the North African campaign. Once Italy entered the war in 1940, the Mediterranean became too dangerous for Allied convoys, and most were diverted around the Cape. Much preparation was needed before Nazi warships made their way to Africa’s southern tip. The Royal Navy base in Simon’s Town had to be expanded and reinforced, and a fledgling South African Navy created almost from scratch.
First came the German surface raiders, then the U-boats. They attacked within sight of the coast and near the entrance to the harbours of Cape Town and Durban. There are incredible stories of heroism and cloak-and-dagger raids around our coast. For instance, one U-boat slipped into Table Bay and its captain allowed his crew on deck to see the bright lights of Sea Point (of course, all German cities were blacked out at the time). There are many apocryphal stories that surfaced in the folklore of coastal towns, such as German sailors coming ashore and playing soccer with Nazi-sympathising locals, spies passing on information about Allied ship movements and farmers replenishing U-boats around Cape Agulhas.
Cape Town minesweepers during WWII.
Like many South African children of my generation, I had a fascination with World War II. I built model ships and aeroplanes, played war games in our suburban garden and devoured books about the great campaigns. But I was always mildly disappointed that most of the stories were about the North, and that South Africa seldom featured in the accounts.
During my time in the navy, I began to learn a little bit about the battles fought in local waters and became interested in the exploits of South Africa’s ‘little ships’. If the actions of raiders, U-boats and convoys were soon forgotten by the general public after the war, the exploits of minesweepers and anti-submarine vessels hardly received mention at all. Yet the industrious, daily patrols by these ships kept South African ports open and took the fight to the U-boat wolf packs. It is that story that forms the backdrop to the first two Jack Pembroke adventure novels, The Cape Raider and The Wolf Hunt.
Congratulations to Justin Fox, whose thrilling wartime adventure, The Wolf Hunt, is out now! The Wolf Hunt is the second book in the Jack Pembroke Naval Thriller series.
1941
Lieutenant Jack Pembroke has found a new home and new love at the Cape, but it will all hang in the balance with the arrival of the enemy in South African waters.
With the Mediterranean all but closed to maritime traffic, and Rommel’s forces rampaging through North Africa, this sea route is vital to supplying the Allied forces in Egypt.
But German U-boats have been sent by Admiral Donitz from their bases on the west coast of France to cripple the convoy route.
Jack is put in command of a small anti-submarine flotilla in the Royal Navy base of Simon’s Town, South Africa.
But he has very little time to train his officers and men, and prepare his ships, for the arrival of the Nazi wolf packs.
With the Cape under attack, Jack has to escort a vital convoy from Cape Town to Durban.
But with the enemy U-boats lying in wait in the storm-ravaged waters, he’ll be luck to make it out alive…
Congratulations to Tim Chant, whose exhilarating nautical action novel, Mutiny on the Potemkin, is published today!
Mutiny on the Potemkin is the second book in the Marcus Baxter naval thriller series: action-packed, authentic historical adventures following former Royal Navy officer Marcus Baxter during the early 1900s.
Marcus Baxter may have survived one naval battle, but his troubles are far from over.
Despite serving with the Russian navy aboard the Yaroslovich, he is arrested by the Tsarist secret police for conspiracy and sent west on the Trans-Siberian railway to St. Petersburg. Competing factions within the secret police disrupt his journey and he finds himself in Odessa.
Odessa, though, is in the grip of revolutionary riots and Baxter finds himself trapped in the city as violence and anarchy spreads.
The crew of the Potemkin has mutinied, killing most of the officers and bringing the battleship into port.
When Baxter realises a friend is trapped in the carnage, he is determined to get onboard the battleship.
Congratulations to Ros Rendle, whose moving romantic saga, Resistance of Love, is published today!
Resistance of Love is set in England and France before and during World War II, and is the second book in The Strong Family Historical Saga series.
After spending ten years in Australia, Delphi Strong is on a ship back to England with her daughter, Flora.
While on board, Delphi meets Rainier, a charming vineyard owner on his way home to France. Forming an instant mutual attraction, the two share a whirlwind romance before disembarking.
Unable to forget her, Rainier crosses the channel a few months later and asks Delphi to marry him. Equally lovestruck, Delphi accepts, and she and Flora join Rainier in France.
However, their idyllic lifestyle is shattered when war breaks out and the Nazis begin to occupy the country. Forced to flee to the Free Zone in the south, the family must now pull together to resist the enemy…
My father’s book began decades later, assembled from scraps of his diary, postcards, and letters sent through the Red Cross, all of which he had kept hidden away in a shoebox. On page seven of the first edition, you’ll find his death certificate — the Office of the Cheshire Regiment officially reported him killed in action in May 1940. It took months for news of his survival to reach home. That certificate became for me the most vivid proof that life indeed is hanging in the balance.
In 2025, we republished Years Not Wasted. It’s more than a memoir — it’s a witness statement. It honours ordinary soldiers who endured extraordinary hardship. It is a uniquely authentic book, told in the way it was recorded in letters and a diary at the time, rather than reconstructed from fallible memory. It was written to share the knowledge “soon acquired once war has started that the cost, in lives, in grief, in suffering, is immeasurable, and unacceptable however much one did accept it at the time.” It’s a call to remember how people like my father built their lives after war, choosing patience over bitterness, solidarity over division, peace over conflict. For my father, it was always about taking one step at a time, drawing from patience and reflection. That is the lesson I carry forward.
