OP JB – Christopher Creighton’s Last Great WWII Secret – Book Review

This book tries to tell a plan by British intelligence to kidnap Martin Bormann and take him out of the ashes of Berlin in 1945, just as the war was coming to an end.

In fact, the writer insists that this is precisely what he did, accompanied by the late Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, who supposedly gave his name to this operation.

You must forgive my skepticism, but the book is so full of surprising and outlandish claims that it makes it hard to take anything too seriously.

Mr Crieghton claimed to be a personal friend of Winston Churchill, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, and if that wasn’t enough add the King and good old Adolf, with whom he stood on the French cliffs watching to the allied military. being sacrificed during the Dieppe raid. Creighton had provided the Germans with information from that raid to prove that he was a genuine German double agent. Hmm.

Conspiracy theories and outlandish claims abound throughout the 256 pages, such as the fact that the Germans were using Donegal as an active U-boat base, that many of the Battle of Britain pilots were only sixteen years old, and , in some cases fifteen, and that he personally represented (even murdered?) the entire crew of an Allied Dutch submarine that had seen the Japanese fleet on its way to attack the Americans at Pearl Harbor, to ensure that they The United States entered the war.

The book opens with our Biggles-type hero diving from a British motor torpedo boat in heavy surf, carrying an incredible amount of equipment and weaponry, and swimming to Dublin Harbor in the dead of night. Surely any British agent entering the Republic of Ireland would have done so by taking the ferry to Belfast and crossing the unmarked border, or better yet, flying in half an hour, and the job is done.

There are some bizarre quasi-sexual references peppered throughout the work, such as the WRENS in his unit being regularly beaten with bamboo poles on men’s bare buttocks in full view to harden them.

My mother was in an intelligence unit at WRENS during the war and afterward wrote her memoirs, a book I recently reviewed. Strangely, she does not refer to such peculiar practices.

The book culminates in Bormann’s successful hijacking of Berlin, while apparently dozens of Allied agents flew in and out in light Lysander planes without a care in the world, while the Red Army was tearing Berlin to pieces.

If you like conspiracy theory books, this is your path. You will be surprised at what you did not know.

As an afterthought, the man became a film director, working in Prague in the 1960s, when all along he was truly engaged in vital NATO work. No. This book purports to tell about a plan by British intelligence to kidnap Martin Bormann and raise him from the ashes of Berlin in 1945, just as the war was coming to an end.

In fact, the writer insists that this is precisely what he did, accompanied by the late Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, who supposedly gave his name to this operation.

You must forgive my skepticism, but the book is so full of surprising and outlandish claims that it makes it hard to take anything too seriously.

Mr Crieghton claimed to be a personal friend of Winston Churchill, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, and if that wasn’t enough add the King and good old Adolf, with whom he stood on the French cliffs watching to the allied military. being sacrificed during the Dieppe raid. Creighton had provided the Germans with information from that raid to prove that he was a genuine German double agent. Hmm.

Conspiracy theories and outlandish claims abound throughout the 256 pages, such as the fact that the Germans were using Donegal as an active U-boat base, that many of the Battle of Britain pilots were only sixteen years old, and , in some cases fifteen, and that he personally represented (even murdered?) the entire crew of an Allied Dutch submarine that had seen the Japanese fleet on its way to attack the Americans at Pearl Harbor, to ensure that they The United States entered the war.

The book opens with our Biggles-type hero diving from a British motor torpedo boat in heavy surf, carrying an incredible amount of equipment and weaponry, and swimming to Dublin Harbor in the dead of night. Surely any British agent entering the Republic of Ireland would have done so by taking the ferry to Belfast and crossing the unmarked border, or better yet, flying in half an hour, and the job is done.

There are some bizarre quasi-sexual references peppered throughout the work, such as the WRENS in his unit being regularly beaten with bamboo poles on men’s bare buttocks in full view to harden them.

My mother was in an intelligence unit at WRENS during the war and afterward wrote her memoirs, a book I recently reviewed. Strangely, she does not refer to such peculiar practices.

The book culminates in Bormann’s successful hijacking of Berlin, while apparently dozens of Allied agents flew in and out in light Lysander planes without a care in the world, while the Red Army was tearing Berlin to pieces.

If you like conspiracy theory books, this is your path. You will be surprised at what you did not know.

As an afterthought, the man became a film director, working in Prague in the 1960s, when all along he was truly engaged in vital NATO work. There is no surprise then.

As proof of the story, library photographs of Bormann, Hitler, Mountbatten and Churchill are reprinted, but none show the writer along with any of his so-called friends, not even Ian Fleming, and they were as close as possible if the book is for be believed

One of the most surprising things about this book is that Simon and Shuster should have published it, but even they did so with some reservations, stating rather shamefacedly that I thought, “We have not been able to verify the writer’s account through independent research.” Yes, quite.

File it as fiction, treat it for what it is, and you just might enjoy it. Anything more than that, and I’d be surprised, but then again… surprise, then.

As proof of the story, library photographs of Bormann, Hitler, Mountbatten and Churchill are reprinted, but none show the writer along with any of his so-called friends, not even Ian Fleming, and they were as close as possible if the book is for be believed

One of the most surprising things about this book is that Simon and Shuster should have published it, but even they did so with some reservations, stating rather shamefacedly that I thought, “We have not been able to verify the writer’s account through independent research.” Yes, quite.

File it as fiction, treat it for what it is, and you just might enjoy it. Any more than that, and I’d be surprised, but then again…