WW II Spy Novels discussion

Leon Uris is an oft-overlooked author these days; but he was a workhorse in his day. And he published a good slew of books relating to WWII. How much do you know about him?

I won't say his writing style was my favorite; but he was legendary for the amount of research he applied to his projects.

Have we finished mauling Alistair MacClean? I say the job's not done until we dig him out of his rotten Welsh grave, put his head on a pike, and march into town. (I kid, I kid, as they used to say in the Borscht Belt). Back to the Guns of Navarone. Churchill's weakness for flashy raids that made a lot of noise but didn't accomplish much was responsible for the Dodecanese campaign. It was undertaken against all military advice and over the opposition of the Americans, and made Alan Brooke wonder in his diary if senile dementia explained Churchill's obsession with those useless islands. The Germans easily beat back each attempt to reinforce what was a failure almost from the beginning. It was one of the more woeful chapters of
British arms in WW2.

The Brits and the French are both woeful combatants as far as we're concerned. Yankee muscle saved the world. Foistest an' bestest wit da mostest! We stood toe-to-toe with the mightiest war machines ever produced and slapped 'em down. No country kills human beings better than Americans!

Feliks wrote: "The Brits and the French are both woeful combatants as far as we're concerned. Yankee muscle saved the world. Foistest an' bestest wit da mostest! We stood toe-to-toe with the mightiest war machine..."

Well, ahem, the Soviets killed nine out of ten German soldiers who died in WW2.

Bah. Lightweights and amateurs. When Axis powers messed with the U.S. of A., they got obliterated, humiliated. They never laid-a-glove on our homeland either. We sent our air power right over their territory at will, our planes blackened their skies..we sent their fleets to the sea floor. Never anything like it. A-bombs dropped right on their civilian population centers. We turned them into peaceful nations whether they liked it or not.

America is a clumsy and pathetic joke nowadays but we sure used to deliver the goods! Gotta give credit where credit's due!

In light of the Russian response to Obama's tough sanctions speech today, I have to agree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz_m6...

For more on 'Guns of Navarone', see my posting on the MacLean thread.