War Stories – John H Manhold

Operation Afrika. The Destroyers WWII Thriller Series Book One. Published, Copyright Sapere Books. Written by Charles Whiting.

This is the tale of a special group of British raiders led by Mark Crooke, a maverick/idealist born in 1911 and educated at Sandhurst with many changes leading to Lt. Col. 1941 after losing an eye and gaining a Victoria Cross Medal for his participation in an unsuccessful raid to remove the Nazi General Rommel. A year later, Court-martialed for insubordination and demoted to 2^nd Lt. and returned to Egypt to head-up a group of misfits variously including a London Cockney, a Texas drifter who fought against Pancho Villa and in the Spanish War, former members of various Foreign Legions, a German escapee from Dachau and a Muslim, many with earned Military Medals, but most importantly, all had no future beyond their present assignment because all were recipients of military designated misdemeanors including murder. They were a collection similar to one publicized and popular American Cinema that brought forward a move, originally believed to be initiated by Winston Churchill – an offer “deletion of Military records if surviving participation successfully in ‘lost cause’ action against the enemy. Their assignment now was to stop the movement of the Nazis straight across Africa to the Suez Canal and into Egypt, an action that would greatly affect Great Britain’s Empire.

Discussion: a well-written, high-octane Thriller replete with characters who constantly generate empathic understanding. This is a tale that devotees will find difficulty in laying down for even a few moments. It also presents most fascinating material with respect to the huge desert arena in which the action occurs.

5* highly recommended for the devotee plus interesting associated material

Rise of the Tiger a modern air combat novel published, copyright and written by Mike Solyom.

The story is set largely in the eastern Malaysian peninsula ending with the city of Singapore as the Caliphate’s assembled mighty army descends to capture and control the city and eventually entire world. Still worse is his anticipated employment of a potent nerve attacking chemical to effect this ultimate control beginning with Singapore. The only true source of defense against the oncoming monster is the presence of semi-modern military aircraft, and these provide an almost non-existent threat once Lt. Col. Alexander Kui of the Royal Malaysian AF is shot down and captured. At this point, the reader is introduced to American Fighter Pilots Lee Chennard and Danny Hilton, who are assigned to a covert CIA unit where pilots who have made blunders against important controlling individuals in Washington. Lee’s offense was by reporting a clandestine act detrimental to the U.S. by a senior advisor to the President. Other new assignees were because of similar activities. Anyway, it’s a manner of chastisement until the lesson had been learned and they could return to active duty. The trouble with the unit was that they had no planes to fly. That is until Lee Chennard went to work. This material gradually is revealed and a fascinatingly conceived plot with numerous turns and twists begins to be delivered and appears to be on its way to providing the initiation of another series of thrillers now directed toward revelation of the many complicated and spectacular events associated with modern air combat.

Discussion: The author, as a twenty plus Air Force Pilot followed by other stints of government programming for flyers, perhaps has set forth a tale which is a little slow beginning, and retains considerable redundancy and repetition, but appears again to have provided the basis for another fascinatingly enjoyable series.

4* But highly recommended.