Hornet Flight
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Hornet Flight is a World War II based spy thriller written by British author Ken Follett. The U.S. hardcover edition was published by Dutton Books in 2002; the paperback printing (ISBN 0-451-21074-3) from Signet Books followed in 2003.
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[edit] Plot teaser
By late spring/early summer 1941, England alone stood against Nazi Germany on the Western Front. In the East, the Russian Army was feeling the full force of Operation Barbarossa. To show solidarity among the unlikely capitalist-communist Alliance, Winston Churchill and Bomber Command planned a massive aerial bombardment of German territories. Unfortunately and inexplicably, Bomber Command's planes were getting shot down in record numbers.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Danish citizen Harald Olufsen grows increasingly dissatified with his country's cooperation with the German invaders. His resentment of the Wehrmacht leads him to discover the truth about a hidden military installation, a truth known to only a select few in the Nazi organization. Running from the German authorities and an old enemy, Copenhagen police detective Peter Flemming, Harald knows that he must get to England. But to do so in time to save the bombers, Harald has one option: flight.
[edit] Novel based on real events
Hornet Flight is a fictionalized retelling of a real event. Specifically, Follett has stated that he got the idea for the story from Leo Marks, a former Special Operations Executive employee, who wrote a brief account in his book, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's Story 1941-1945 about two young Danes who found a derelict De Havilland Hornet Moth biplane, repaired it, and flew it to England.
The German radar installations causing the havoc with the English bombers are historical. The Freya radar that Harald investigates was part of the Kammhuber Line, the German night air defense system along the North Sea. Harald realizes that the Freya radar was used to detect an incoming flight of bombers at long-distance. Then 2 modified Würzburg radars tracked a single English bomber and a German night fighter to bring them together. Harald realizes that the solution is to fly all the bombers over a single radar installation in a "bomber stream".
[edit] Complex Characters and motivations
Unlike formula thrillers, the German characters in Hornet Flight are in general quite decent and honourable. Harald's main nemesis, Police Detective Peter Flemming, is a childhood aquaintance, formerly his older brother's best friend turned bitter enemy after a falling out between the families. Detective Flemming, though in some ways quite monstrous, does not lack for psychological depth. An authoritarian personality leads him to regard being a policeman as more than a job - rather, as a Cause and a Mission, almost a religion. In the conditions of 1941 Denmark, it leads him to become a committed Nazi collaborator, indeed sometimes showing more zeal than the Germans themselves.
The struggle which Harald and his friends wage, making enormous sacrifices, is morally ambiguous: they are, in essence, willing to lay their lives on the line so that British planes will be able to bomb the civilian population of the German cities with impunity. Only the vital need to bring down Hitler's monstrous and genocidal regime can justify their actions. Follett brings home the point by having the RAF, using the information which Harald and Karen brought at such high price, set out to bomb Hamburg - where Harald's beloved uncle, aunt and cousin live, who used to come over to merry holidays at Harald's parents' home. At the book's end Harald remains with the gnawing doubt that he may have caused their deaths - and, while not making him doubt the rightness of what he did, it does make him less than jubilant at his well-earned victory.
This novel generated some controversy when a veteran of the Royal Air Force, Alan Frampton, wrote to Follett to complain about a character in the prologue to the story, "Charles Ford" - a black RAF officer. Frampton, who resides in Zimbabwe, claimed that there were no black officers in the RAF, and accused Follett of including the character as a "sop" to black people. Ulric Cross, a black former RAF squadron leader and the man on whom the character of Charles Ford was based, refuted Frampton's claims in an article published in the Trinidad Express. Over 250 Trinidadians alone served in the RAF during World War II.
[edit] List of characters
- Harald Olufsen
- Karen Duchwitz
- Hermia Mount - MI6 agent
- Arne Olufsen - brother of Harald; Danish air force pilot
- Peter Flemming - Copenhagen detective; enemy of the Olufsens
- Tilde Jespersen - Police inspector
- Digby Hoare - aide to Winston Churchill
- Poul Kirke - Danish air force pilot
- Walter Braun - Nazi General
