This was a rare novel that depicts life in the WRENs in WWII in fictional form but without melodrama or cliches. The author used three women protagonists, each very different and doing different jobs. The Swordfish pilot in the title is important to one of the three female protagonists, but not dominant. In fact the title is moderately misleading. (Probably someone along the way insisted the author's original title wasn't insufficiently "sexy"!) The point is that this book is predominantly about the women and how they cope with challenges, loss, success and grief. It is not a romance, although the young women naturally do have their romantic attachments. The book has a strong authenticity about it, despite some unusual plot twists, that created genuine excitement. All three main characters were engaging and attractive, making me anxious to discover their fate.
Three women set sail for adventure in a man's world - the Royal NavyWhen Cathy’s twin brother is called to serve in the Royal Navy, Cathy feels lost without him. She leaps at the chance to join the Wrens, which by 1942, has grown into a strong force of over sixty thousand women. It's an exciting world but she longs to be at sea and prove herself – to fight alongside her brother. Already working her way up through the ranks is Wren Officer Anne Foxton, who takes command of a ‘stone frigate’ in the traditional man’s world of the…
This is a biography, not a novel, told by a man towards the end of his military career by chance stumbled upon a little mystery that triggered his curiousity. He set off to find the story behind the episode and uncovers bit by bit an entire world -- Malta in the war years. At its heart, this is a memorial to an exceptional woman and her tragic love for a wartime hero. It pieces together through primary sources and the memories of people who met her a remarkable life that spanned being a showgirl (dancer/entertainer) in North Africa in the 30s to being a Fighter Controller in Malta during the most intense air raids in the Second World War. However, it also encompasses her contemporaries, particularly the famous flier who cast a shadow of her life, and other women struggling to survive in wartime Malta. What I found particularly moving was the sensitive way he reflects on her subsequent loneliness, her death undiscovered until weeks later, and her choices in life. I had read about Christina Ratcliff in other sources, but McDonald gave her depth and made me like her as none of the other accounts had done. It made me rethink some of my own prejudices -- and decide to include her in my forthcoming novel set in Malta during WWII!
The world premiere of the musical stage play Star of Strait Street took place in Valletta on 4 April 2017\. It celebrates the life of Christina Ratcliffe, an English singer and dancer who became an aircraft plotter in Malta in the Second World War. She worked in the underground Royal Air Force operational headquarters beneath Lascaris Bastion in Valletta.
This is Christina's story and that of other British and Maltese girls employed by the RAF. It is also the story of Philip Glassborow's hit musical Star of Strait Street.
In June 1942 fifty-three female civilian plotters worked at Lascaris, some…
I read this book because I knew and respected the author for his academic work on the Crusader States. WWI had never been a topic that particularly grabbed my interest and Australia is a country I've never visited and whose people I don't know. So I was sceptical -- and all the more delighted to be drawn into a world I had not known and to be carried along on a story that I had not chosen but which held my interest because of the power of the author's voice. This is an intelligent, sensitive, and at times lyrical exploration of the "Great War." It shuns cliches, cheap judgments, and melodrama. It traces a single Australian soldier's journey from enthusiastic enlistment through training, battle, boredom, despair, and grief. While some younger readers might find its narrative style "old-fashioned," this allows for profound reflection and the integration of tiny but powerful observations—fragments often missed in plot-driven narratives. These scattered mosaics, capturing a moment, a place, or a death, are what truly enrich this tapestry of human experience. The book isn't "about" WWI in a traditional sense, yet it conveys the lived experience of the war more effectively than countless other novels or history texts, which often regurgitate tropes or focus solely on cause and effect. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the human condition and our tragic resort to violence.
1914. When Percy Soul joins the Australian Imperial Force, he believes he’s about to embark on a grand adventure. War has broken out in Europe, and this is his chance to prove himself while fighting for a noble cause. His only concerns: looking after the reckless younger brother who’s enlisted with him, being separated from the woman he loves, and missing out on the action if the hostilities end too quickly.Percy’s dreams of glory evaporate when he confronts the horrors of trench warfare. Members of his platoon meet gruesome ends. His brother is sent back into battle despite suffering from…
As the Allies desperately fight to keep the city alive against a relentless Soviet blockade, the Soviets turn to dirty tricks that don't stop short of murder. Meanwhile, former Nazis have regained control of the judiciary. When a young woman, a victim of gang-rape, is charged with murder, her trial becomes a cause célèbre. A high-stakes legal drama unfolds against a backdrop of escalating Cold War tensions.
Cold Victory takes you beyond the spotlights and into the shadows of the Berlin Airlift. It explores the social and psychological aspects of the first battle of the Cold War, while reminding us that victory often comes at an extraordinary price. Ultimately, there can be no peace without justice—and no compromise with tyranny.
