A Bitter Wind by James R. Benn
A Bitter Wind is author and former librarian James R. Benn’s 20th WWII based action-packed mystery novel in his grippingly realistic Billy Boyle series. This quote from Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1917 short story His Last Bow set on the eve of WWI serves as its preface:
“There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter. Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But its’ God’s own wind none the less and a cleaner, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”
The Shadow of War Over Dover
The Boston native ex-cop detective Billy Boyle tangled with Nazi art thieves before plunging into the Battle of the Bulge in The Phantom Patrol and is more than ready for a holiday. His distant cousin General Dwight David Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, has granted him a few days leave to celebrate Christmas with his girlfriend Diana Seaton whose base is near the White Cliffs of Dover. Her current SOE assignment involving radio interception operations is highly confidential. The Special Operations Executive was a secret wartime organization that performed reconnaissance surveys behind enemy lines, gathered intelligence and organized or participated in sabotage.
The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) was engaged with recruiting native German speaking Jewish refugees, some from the Kindertransport rescue, to participate in Operation Corona. These women impersonated German Air Defense officers, and communicated via radio with Luftwaffe pilots to countermand orders. Speaking letter perfect German, they could convincingly redirect enemy planes to distant locations or give them orders to land immediately. This initiative became an effective means of confusing German night fighters during RAF and Allies bombing raids on German cities. Code-breaking and radio jamming were adjunct components of this operation.
A Discovery on the Cliffs
In A Bitter Wind, Billy and Diana’s romantic walk along the cliffside is interrupted when they stumble upon the dead body of an American Air Force officer whose pockets contain top secret information about the project. Enemy or worse yet, internal spies are an ever present danger and one airman is suspected of collaboration. Close friend and comrade-in-arms Lieutenant Piotr Augustus “Kaz” Kazimierz, Polish Baron, member of his home country’s government in exile and multi-lingual translator on General Eisenhower’s staff, is called in when a second body is found on the airbase. His sister Angelika accompanies him and based on her language skills and keen intelligence is quickly recruited, to assist with code breaking and communications. Only recently rescued from incarceration in a Nazi prison camp, Angelika is still rebuilding her strength but is nevertheless eager to resume fighting the enemy. Billy will soon be dispatched to Yugoslavia to undertake a daring assignment to rescue Johnny Adler, a British POW who with several other airmen escaped their German captors, and is crucial to the unraveling of the identity of the killer of the two men at RAF Hawkinge.
Author James R.Benn ventures into less well known territory with Billy Boyle’s life-threatening assignment in Yugoslavia. He writes “The war in Yugoslavia was a confusing mix of German and Italian occupation troops, local fascist allies, monarchists, Communists and Chetnicks. Tito’s Partisans were aligned with Stalin and the Soviet Union and atrocities on all sides were common.” Billy Boyle quickly discovered it was essential to trust his gut instincts as allegiances were difficult to discern and neither Partisans nor Chetnicks took prisoners.
These riveting works are characterized by a deft blending of fiction and often little known facts about various battles fought, intelligence operations in previously undisclosed places and the delightful presence of real people written in as characters in each of the novels. The Sherlock Holmes quote is certainly apt as the author’s second daughter and youngest of his five children (Lena Annette) Jean Conan Doyle served 30 years as a British Women’s Royal Air Force officer working in top secret Military Intelligence during WWII. As Squadron Officer she managed the “Y” or Wireless Interception Service at RAF Kingsdown near London.
A Legacy Woven Into Fiction
She achieved the rank of Air Commandant, the highest rank in the Women’s Royal Air Force, roughly equivalent to Brigadier General. She received many honors during her 84 years including an OBE in 1949 (Officer of the Order of the British Empire). This was elevated in 1963 to DBE, Military Division (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the highest of five levels for this honor), and thence forth to be known as Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Post war, by appointment, she became an honorary Aide-de-Camp to Queen Elizabeth II. Following marriage Air Vice-Marshall Sir Geoffrey Rhodes Bromet in 1966, she was officially addressed as Lady Bromet. After elder brother Adrian’s death in 1970 she became her father’s literary executor and the legal copyright holder to some of the rights to the Sherlock Holmes character.
In A Bitter Wind, James Benn shifted Jean Conan Doyle’s assigned base to RAF Hawkinge, the base closest to France, nearest to the White Cliffs of Dover where she directly supervises the fictional Diana Seaton. There are other real figures from history with significant roles in this book that readers will be pleased to encounter.
Previously a kingdom, Yugoslavia was invaded in early April 1941 and conquered by the Axis forces consisting of Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria, occupied by troops from those countries, then partitioned with puppet governments. Multiple atrocities including widespread genocide and massacres were soon carried out. There was vigorous resistance but vicious internal conflicts erupted between the Chetnicks, the largely Serbian royalist and nationalist guerrilla movement led by Colonel Draža Mihailović and the Communist Partisans led by revolutionary and later political leader Josip Broz Tito. Colonel Mihailović allegiances were mixed as his troops began fighting the partisans more than the fascist occupier. Significantly, he helped bring about the rescue of 417 Allied airmen including 343 Americans who were airlifted out of Chetnik Territory in the midst of the war. However, postwar he was tried for war crimes and high treason and executed in 1946 along with several other high-ranking Chetnik commanders. Political divisions and infighting continued to fester contributing greatly to the ethnic conflicts, insurgencies and wars that occurred between 1991-2001 until division of this misbegotten country into separate nations.
Once again, James R. Benn has demonstrated his strength as an exceptional writer who can combine actual historical events with appropriately well-imagined, richly developed and sympathetic characters. A Bitter Wind is a must-read for established fans and anyone who savors thrilling historical mysteries.
About James R. Benn:
