No Stars to Guide - Running the Axis Blockade

by Adrian Seligman

A true account of naval operations in the Aegean during WW2.

Paperback

First published November 1, 1958

Reviews

[JD · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of the smuggling of merchant ships along the neutral Turkish coastline in early World War 2 past the Axis occupied Greek islands by Royal Naval officers in command. And though this is the man line of the story, the author goes of track a lot by talking of his social life and his run-ins with axis and allied agents all across Turkey. The book is drawn out by all these little misadventures around the main event, that makes this book become a bit of a drag to read in the end.

[Kryptonian Fletch · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got about halfway through this book and it just wasn’t for me. It’s one of those WWII memoirs written by officers from that era, and this is actually the third one I’ve read that feels similar in tone. They’re describing real wartime situations—moving ships through the Turkish Straits, getting past Nazi patrols, all of that—but the way it’s told feels like they’re looking back on it as a grand adventure they would choose to do again in they could.... tricking nazi spies.... drinking parties.... foreign girls... whereas the vast majority of war participants, such as the men fighting on the front lines, infantrymen, or people flying bomber missions, were people who would never, ever want to live even a single day of that experience again, or even an hour or a minute of it.