Alistair MacLean's War
eBook - ePub

Alistair MacLean's War

How the Royal Navy Shaped his Bestsellers

  1. 208 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Alistair MacLean's War

How the Royal Navy Shaped his Bestsellers

About this book

It is no coincidence that many of Alistair MacLean's most successful novels were sea stories. In 1941, he was called up after volunteering for the Royal Navy and served as Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator. For the majority of his service, he was on HMS Royalist, a modified Dido-class light cruiser, seeing action in the Arctic, and operations against the German battleship Tirpitz . The ship then deployed to the Mediterranean taking part in Operation Dragoon the invasion of the South of France and later in operations against German occupied Greek Islands in the Aegean. After which MacLean and Royalist were deployed to the Indian Ocean and operations against the Japanese in Malaya, Burma, and Sumatra. His wartime experiences coupled with exceptional literary skill resulted in the runaway success of his first novel HMS Ulysses (1955) followed by The Guns of Navarone (1957) and South by Java Head (1958). These three blockbusters cemented his position as one of the most successful and highly paid authors of the era. While not a whole life biography, Mark Simmon's book provides a fascinating insight into Maclean's war service and subsequent works, which deserve enduring popularity.

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Yes, you can access Alistair MacLean's War by Mark Simmons in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword
  6. Introduction
  7. Glossary and Acronyms
  8. Chapter 1 Life before the Navy
  9. Chapter 2 Joining Up
  10. Chapter 3 HMS Royalist
  11. Chapter 4 March–May 1944, Northern Waters
  12. Chapter 5 July–September 1944, Western Mediterranean
  13. Chapter 6 Churchill’s Folly
  14. Chapter 7 September–October 1944, The Aegean
  15. Chapter 8 Navarone
  16. Chapter 9 Portsmouth, November 1944
  17. Chapter 10 Alexandria, December 1944–February 1945
  18. Chapter 11 March–August 1945, Far East
  19. Chapter 12 September–November 1945, Singapore
  20. Chapter 13 Demob
  21. Chapter 14 The Short Stories 1954
  22. Chapter 15 The First Three War Novels 1955–1958
  23. Chapter 16 At the Crossroads 1959–1963
  24. Chapter 17 The Hotelier 1963–1966
  25. Chapter 18 Back to the War 1966–1968
  26. Chapter 19 Switzerland 1969–1972
  27. Chapter 20 All is Chaos 1973–1977
  28. Chapter 21 The Last Decade 1978–1987
  29. Appendix 1: Alistair MacLean’s books and their Second World War Content
  30. Appendix 2: Short Stories
  31. Notes
  32. Bibliography
  33. Acknowledgements
  34. Plate Section