Fire for Effect

Special Force Orca #24

by Anthony Molloy, Paul Scott (Illustrator), Brenda Molloy (Editor)

It’s August 1944, the breakout from the Normandy beachheads has been accomplished and the Peninsula of Brittany has been completely cut off by Patton’s Third Army.
The Allies still lack an intact port they can use to land the twenty six thousand tons of food and ammunition they need each day to supply their men and machines. One of the two Mulberry Harbours has been destroyed in a summer storm, Cherbourg and Saint Malo have fallen into their hands but their harbours have been destroyed by the German garrisons before they surrendered. It will be months before they can be up and running. In an attempt to remedy the Allies logistical nightmare Patton’s VIII Corp is turned west towards the coast and the vitally strategic port of Brest.
The German troops cut off in Brittany have retreated to the fortified ports in the Peninsula. Brest has been and still is vital to the Third Reich and has been transformed since 1939 into, what German propaganda refers to as ‘Fortress Brest’. It has been put under the command of one of the Third Reich’s most ruthless and successful Afrika Korps Generals. Hermann-Bernard Ramcke has orders to deny the Allies the use of the port for as long as possible. Just how long will depend on their supply situation as much as the Allies depend on theirs.
The Allies have an ace up their sleeve, Pluto, the underwater pipelines that will be able to supply the massive Allied need for fuel. It is about to be laid across the Channel. The English Channel has been made virtually inaccessible to the enemy’s submarines by a wall of anti-submarine vessels at both ends. But the Nazis have their own ace up their sleeves, a mythical dwarf by the name of Alberich. One man is sure he can overcome the Allies mythological and the true-life problems with supply, a man who has been called on before to perform the impossible, Commodore Alexander Barr, Royal Navy.

232 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 19, 2017

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 24th book in the Special Force Orca series. For me it seemed to lack something compared to the other books in the series. Operations in the English Channel I could understand, but then Lt Cdr Ward is sent to help out in Warsaw. It all seemed rather disjointed, and the climax of this book seemed rather rushed and anti-climatic. I felt that certain elements were missing, such as what happened when Sgt Bushell was left in charge of his team? Maybe such questions will be answered in the next book.
Perhaps that after so many books my expectations have been raised, and it makes it a wee bit disappointing when they are not sufficiently met. I shall still carry on with the series tough.

[Mike Whitehouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great story

I am enjoying this series as much as ever, as well as the story the interesting facts that are now emerging show just how ingenious both sides were with their technology.