The Destroyers

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As I gather material and do research for each new book I am quite frequently asked how I continue to unearth themes for the next manuscript, and the one after that.

In fact, the breadth of sea history, both ancient and contemporary, the many experiences of ships and sailors, never fail to awe me. Far from being denied plots for future stories, I sometimes seem unable to keep pace with those which I discover in my endless search.

Small but incredible acts of courage and endurance seem to rise up from the grander records of campaigns and barely remembered wars. When I was writing this book it was hard to accept that such deeds were in fact carried out by British warships in the Second World War, not least by the old destroyer Cambeltown at St. Nazaire.

My story, like the title, is double-edged. It is about a flotilla of out-of-date warships, destroyers, which because of the war’s incessant demands and greed were pushed against terrible odds, almost without regard to losses. But it also concerns the men who controlled their destinies. Men driven to the edge of endurance who in turn became the destroyers. Forced by various reasons to face each hazard, they still retained their more personal standards. Duty, fear, the need to destroy the enemy, each other if so ordered, these men were a part of history. Of war itself.

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