April 20, 2013

Finest Hour 153, Winter 2011-12

Page 50

Op. JB

Op. JB, by Christopher Creighton. Simon & Schuster, 1996. Out of print; available on Amazon, hardbound $45, paperbacks from $1.68. Portrayal ★½ Worth Reading ★★★

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By Christopher Creighton


Like the Ciampoli book, Op. JB purports to be based on a true—if equally implausible—story about a Churchill/Special Operations Executive-inspired plot: to spirit Martin Bormann out of Berlin in May 1945. Unlike Berkely Publishing, Simon & Schuster at least had the grace to say they “had not been able to verify [the author’s] account by independent research.” If Berkely had at least done that with the Ciampoli book—and they certainly could have—perhaps no FH readers would have asked about its authenticity, sparing me the chore of reading it.

Op. JB is a novel, make no mistake, even though it is set up as “non-fiction” complete with photos and letters to the author from both Churchill and Ian Fleming, who conceived the Bormann snatch operation. (JB = James Bond, get it?) It even has an index, like a self-respecting non-fiction book, as well as an appendix about the author sinking a Dutch submarine which had sighted the Japanese fleet on its way to Pearl Harbor (a story told at greater length in Brian Garfield’s The Paladin (FH 139: 24), supposedly about the same Christopher Creighton—whose real name is apparently John Ainsworth-Davies.

I gave this Churchill portrayal 1½ stars mostly to set it apart from Ciampoli. I found only two passages about him which didn’t ring true, and neither pegs the laugh-meter like Churchill rising every day before dawn or nodding off while writing. In one, the author notes Churchill’s “fierce” opposition to using women in an operational capacity (which I strongly doubt was the case). He attributes this to “the ultra-conventional upbringing” WSC had received from his American mother. Ultra-conventional is not a word you expect to see in the same sentence with Lady Randolph Churchill.

The other loud clang has Churchill returning a revolver from his waistband to the author with the comment, “If I keep it in my trousers any longer, I’ll probably shoot my [male appendage] off.” It’s not that Churchill would never use such a vulgarity that I find suspect. It is, rather, that Churchill was a skilled marksman who frequently carried firearms on his person, and would have had no such concern.

Unlike Churchill’s Secret Agent, however, Op. JB is worth reading. It is an exciting tale, well-told with a clear plot line and plenty of thrills along the way. I won’t spoil the ending, but the book’s jacket calls it “The last great secret of the Second World War.”

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