Blood of Honour (Jack Tanner 3) [Hardcover]

'Blood of Honour' is the third Jack Tanner adventure (the previous two involving the retreat from Norway and the Retreat through France to Dunkirk). This time its 1941 and Jack and company are retreating through Greece to Crete with Sgt (now CSM) Tanner getting increasingly angry at spending his entire war going backwards. Sadly with Kurt Students Fallschrimjager heading his way this isn't going to change anytime soon. 'Blood of Honour' is a fast paced adventure story in as the Daily Mail quote says 'the style of the old Commando comics' because of this it has some very good features but also some very bad ones:

The Good: I was fortunate enough to be on Crete for the 50th anniversary of the invasion, visited the battlefields and cemeteries and later was very good friends with some Greeks, including one girl who's grandfather was a leader in the Cretan resistance (and still has a barn full of brand new, 60 year old captured weapons in case the Germans come back.... ). As such I'm a good position to judge Hollands accuracy and he does a very, very good job. Crete is unusual in that the Cretans have made a point of not cleaning up much of the debris of WW2 so a bridge dropped by the Royal Engineers over the Travanites river is still lying where it fell, the hotel I stayed in had a German radar dish lying in the long grass near the beach, old Venetian forts still have bleached wooden signs with 'VERBOTTEN!' written on them and in Heraklion harbour there's a sunken freighter occupying some valuable wharf space with obvious cannon holes in the bridge. The Cretans don't want to forget the battle. The epicentre of the battle was at Malame airfield which was defended primarily by New Zealanders so rather that try to come up with an unlikely scenario to put Tanner at Malame he sensibly deploys the Yorks Rangers around Heraklion. The description of the geography round the city is spot on, the accounts of the incredible losses the Germans suffered well written, the assessment of the weapons used perfect (for instance Holland reckons correctly that a sub machine gun is useless beyond 40 yards). I like the way that periodically the action jumps to Freybergs HQ to explain whats happening beyond Tanner's battlefield which puts the whole battle into context. Basically so far its a very readable history.....

The Bad: .... and this is the problem. Its meant to be fiction. While the events told are 5* Holland is far less skilled at writing fiction. The characters in the book are 2 dimensional at best and the description of the conditions Tanners men experience doesn't convince. A book like Alistair MacLains 'HMS Ullyses' makes you feel cold when you read it. You almost experience the biting howl of an arctic gale. Other historical fiction writers like the great George McDonald Fraser or even Bernard Cornwell can write great descriptive prose and also get the facts right. When Cornwell writes about the sweat, smoke and blood of a battlefield I'm at Talavera. When Holland writes about fighting on Crete I'm not in Crete. Heraklion is a hot, dusty, noisy, smelly city but none of that comes across in the writing. Basic geography apart the action could be set anywhere for all the difference it makes. Likewise the fighting on Crete was some of the nastiest of the war yet there's little suspense, little fear and you know the good guys are going to do O.K. even though the outcome of the battle isn't a suprise. There's a pointless feud with a Greek Partisan that highlights how proud and fierce the Cretans are but it starts and ends in such an unconvincing way that it would have been better edited out. Finally the bit that really let the book down:

The Ugly:.... Crete was unique in that it had major civilian resistance from the start of the invasion. Other nations like France took years before effective partisan groups started fighting but on Crete, men woman & children were waiting for the Germans with old hunting rifles and knives and butchered any German they could get their hands on. In fact it took all the powers of the British and New Zealand commanders to stop some serious massacres being carried out. In reprisal the German paras committed some very nasty war crimes such as the massacres at Kondomari & Kandanos. The german para officer Holland describes is presumably based on Oberleutnant Horst Trebes the officer commanding the firing squad at Kondomari. Holland's German transfered from the SS to the Paras and is indistinguishable from the SS Captain Tanner fought with in the previous book. He's a teutonic beast straight out of the worst 1960's comics. Holland repeatedly uses lines like 'using the techniques he learnt in the SS.... ' 'his time in the SS taught him that.... ' and reinforces the myth that only the SS carried out war crimes. On Crete there were no SS and massacres of civillians were carried out throughout the entire war by regular German soldiers. Worst of all Holland is describing really, really horrible events that are still remembered by many Greeks today in such a way that its little different from Herr Flick in 'Allo 'Allo "torturing" Rene from the cafe. There's no passion, no drama, no suspense and its all very matter of fact. Again comparing it to Bernard Cornwell is falls short.... Cornwell can describe atrocities (Sharpes Gold springs to mind) carried out against civillians in a way that revolts. Holland doesn't.

As a page turner 'Blood of Honour' is O.K, not great but O.K. However compared to the Cretan action in Evelyn Waughs The Sword of Honour Trilogy: Men at Arms, Officers and its very shallow. Its great that someone is writing historical action thrillers set in WW2. We really need a Sharpe or Hornblower from the 1940's but I'm not convinced that Sgt Tanner is that character.

Well, after Norway and France, James Holland has Tanner fighting in Crete. I enjoyed the book, taking into account other reviews I think the story telling was out of the pages of the "Victor" I read as a boy and in this day and age, it was no bad thing for that. Granted some of the Cretans were taken from the film "Ill Met By Moonlight" which incidentally was on telly this afternoon, it is no secret the Cretans carried out the most blood-thirsty resistence of all the occupied territories during the Second World War. Germans do not go on holiday to Crete, when I was there 20 years ago the British were accorded great warmth and respect. The book was formulaic in that Tanner had a nasty German officer bent on revenge in general and him in particular, NOTE: Tanner would have killed the b-stard at the first opportunity, and of course a British officer who knew him as a boy, which was pretty much what went on in book two.
A couple of errors which should have been catered for, first in the book he is a Colour Sergeant Major, when in fact he is a Company Sergeant Major. He shows a medal ribbon for gallantry but we never find out what it was awarded for? Norway or France?
In the next book Tanner should be given that Field Commission I keep harping on about, lets face it the men call him sir already. There were segments I found unconvincing but overall a good read, but not the best in the series. The Odin Mission takes the prize, so far!

As a Military historian I could'nt wait to read this book. The author had immense knowledge of WW2 and it shows throughput this book. Its like the old Commando comics but for adults! I would definately recommend.