Gold From Crete

"Gold from Crete" is a wonderful collection of C.S. Forester's shorter stories about World War II. It was published shortly after his death. Forester is, of course, best known as the creator of Horatio Hornblower, but he also wrote a number of other books, including some excellent stories of war at sea in the 20th century. Eight of the nine pieces in this collection are classic World War II short fiction: the last story in the collection is a well argued counterfactual history called "If Hitler had invaded England." The first five stories, including the title story "Gold from Crete" itself, follow the adventures of Captain George Crowe RN and the flotilla of destroyers under his command. Crowe and his destroyers deal with missions from extracting refugees and treasure under enemy fire to diplomacy, and are opposed by every imaginable enemy from Stukas and U-boats to a very naughty monkey. The next three stories could almost have been put into the book as a tribute to three other groups of people who fought the Nazis at the risk of their lives. "An egg for the Major" is about soldiers at war in the desert; "Eagle Squadron" is about an RAF fighter squadron; and "The Dumb Dutchman" is about an unlikely hero who opposed the nazis in perhaps the most terrifying way of all - as a spy. The final part of the book "If Hitler had invaded England" is a counterfactual history. Forester set out to explore what might have happened if, instead of waiting the Luftwaffe to secure air superiority over the RAF (which of course they never did), Hitler had ordered an invasion immediately after the Dunkirk evacuation on June 4th 1940. Forester wrote this piece because a lot of people had said that if Hitler had invaded England in June 1940 he could have won the war, and Forester set out to analyse whether this was possible. He wrote in the preamble that Hitler "must be given every possible chance, but none of the impossible ones." Counterfactuals are ten a penny these days, but this was an unusual thing to write at the time: it compares very well with the many WWII counterfactuals which have been written over the following forty years. Channel 4 has just (January 2009) screened a documentary, "The Real Dad's Army" which mentions an Anglo-German wargame run some years after the war involving some of the real commanders who would have been involved on both sides and featuring Hitler's real invasion plans, to see what might have happened if Operation Sealion had gone ahead. While the details were not necessarily the same, in overall outline the results of an invasion according to this very detailed wargame based on real information would have been very similar indeed to the analysis which Forester on his own projected in "If Hitler had invaded England." Unless he had heard of the wargame, which I don't think he had (I suspect it took place after his death), that is a tribute to the clarity of C.S. Forester's thinking. I strongly recommend this book. If yo