It is June 1941 and the war is not going well for England. Across the North Sea, eighteen-year-old Harald Olufsen takes a shortcut on the German-occupied Danish island of Sande an discovers an astonishing sight that will change the momentum of the war. He must get word to England-except that he has no way to get there. He has only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane rusting away in a ruined church: a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground...even if Harald knew how to fly it.
It is June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Lufwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies – indeed the war itself – seem to belong to Hitler.
But on a small Danish island across the North Sea, Harald Olufsen, a bright eighteen-year-old with a talent for engineering, stumbles across a secret German installation. Its machinery is like nothing he has ever seen before and he knows he must tell someone – if he can only figure out who.
With England preparing its largest aerial assault ever, what Harald has discovered may turn the course of the war – but the race to convey the information could have terrible consequences for everyone close to him.
For his older brother Arne, a pilot in the grounded Danish Air Force and already under suspicion of the authorities. For Arne’s fiancee, Hermia, an MI6 intelligence analyst desperate to resurrect the foundering Danish resistance. And most of all for Harald himself – because as the hour of the assault approaches, it will all fall to him and his friend Karen to get the word to England.
And the only means available to them is a derelict Hornet Moth biplane abandoned in a ruined church, a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground.
Pursued by the enemy; hunted by collaborators; with almost no training, limited fuel, and no way of knowing if they will survive the six-hundred mile flight, the two will carry with them England’s best – perhaps only – hope of avoiding disaster.
Ken Follett’s view
I came across an extraordinary story about two Danes who wanted to escape from German-occupied Denmark in 1941. They wanted to get to England, but of course would have to cross the Channel. They decided to do this in a delapidated Hornet Moth – a small fabric-and-wood biplane. So they fixed it up, stole parts and petrol for it, and eventually took off and flew across the Channel, which was a very hazardous journey in such a small plane… Needless to say, several RAF fighters were scrambled to investigate, but the young men hung a white towel out of the window, and managed to land safely in a field.
Hornet Flight is loosely based on this tremendous “Boy’s Own”-type adventure, but the characters are different: it’s a young man and a young woman. They have a reason for wanting to get to England – they have information about a German radar system that will be vital to the Allies, who were losing bombers at an alarming rate. So I’ve really combined two real elements from history to create a novel.
Editorial Reviews.
Amazon.com Review
An old-fashioned tale of ordinary people thrown into the drama and danger of war, Hornet Flight is a rippingly good read. The time is 1941, and British bombers attacking Germany are being blown out of the sky in horrific numbers. How do the Nazis know they're coming? The answer is an infant technology called radar, and the Brits--with help from the Danish Resistance--must figure out how and where the German radar stations operate.
Follett, an old pro at World War II storytelling, vividly evokes the period, creating a sense not of historical re-creation but of urgently unfolding news. His cast of characters is memorable, including Harald Olufsen, a brainy 18-year-old pulled into the Resistance half against his will, and--typically for Follett--several central, well-drawn women. The plot does have some predictable elements: for example, from the time Harald first encounters a tiny wood-and-linen biplane called a Hornet Moth, half-rotted and stored away in a Danish barn, we know that it will heroically take to the skies. Then, when the very outcome of the war begins to turn on Harald getting a certain roll of film from Denmark to England, well... you can see where things are headed. But it's great fun to watch them develop, and Follett throws in just enough unexpected shocks to keep you off balance. Though it lacks the intensity of Eye of the Needle, Follett's finest and best-known book, Hornet Flight offers generous helpings of suspense and a climax that could hardly be more satisfying. --Nicholas H. Allison
From Publishers Weekly
Bestselling Welsh author Follett has made a career out of the WWII suspense thriller (Eye of the Needle; Jackdaws), and he hits the mark again with this dramatic and tragic tale of amateur spies pursued by Nazi collaborators in occupied Denmark in 1941. Harald Olufsen is an 18-year-old physics student who stumbles into espionage when he accidentally discovers a secret German radar installation on the island where he lives. The British do not know the Germans have radar and cannot understand why British nighttime bomber losses are so high. When Harald learns there is a fledgling Danish resistance group called the Nightwatchmen, he becomes involved through his older brother, Arne, a happy-go-lucky Danish army pilot. Harald photographs the secret radar site, but the spy group quickly unravels under the pressure of Danish police detective Peter Flemming, an officious, ruthless, and arrogant cop who hates the Olufsen family for a public humiliation his father suffered years before. The amateur spy network underestimates the police with tragic and deadly results, and soon Harald and his Jewish girlfriend, Karen, must plan a desperate aerial escape to get the photographs to England. Follett starts out fast and keeps up the pace, revealing how ordinary people who want to do the right thing are undone by their own enthusiasm and inexperience. He also paints a vivid and convincing picture of life in occupied Denmark, of easy collaboration with the Nazis and of the insidious, creeping persecution of the Jews.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Have the Nazis perfected radar? Intelligence analyst Hermia Mount thinks so, but a Danish teenager named Harald Olufsen has proof. If only he could figure out how to fly the creaky old Hornet Moth biplane to England.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Popular suspense writer Follett understandably gravitates to the inherently exciting world of international intrigue that all of Europe devolved into as a result of Germany's over-land-and-sea aggression, which began in 1939. In all German-occupied countries, collaboration versus resistance was on the mind of everyone, from government official to provincial farmer. That life-or-death predicament is at the core of Follett's new novel, in which a vastly crucial military question is plaguing British strategists, including none other than Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The question is, Why are so many British airplanes being shot from the skies as they approach Continental targets? Digby Hoare, Churchill's assistant, has been assigned the task of finding out the answer. As Hoare states the difficult problem before him, "When we get to Germany, they're ready for us. They know we're coming." Hoare turns to Hermia, a young woman working as an analyst in charge of British intelligence's "Denmark desk." She was the founder of a small spy network in Denmark which passed military information to British intelligence. Hermia is engaged to a Danish fighter pilot grounded by the German occupation, and he has a younger brother still in school, preparing for college but seething with indignation over Denmark's quick surrender after the German invasion. The individual and collective roles these individuals play in supplying an answer to why Germany is aware in advance of British air raids are woven into the tense fabric of this consistently compelling novel. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Follett...hits the mark again with this dramatic and tragic tale...[He] starts out fast and keeps up the pace." -Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Ken Follett is the international bestselling author of suspense thrillers and the nonfiction title On Wings of Eagles. He lives in England. Visit his official website at: ken-follett.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PROLOGUE
A man with a wooden leg walked along a hospital corridor.
He was a short, vigorous type with an athletic build, thirty years old, dressed in a plain charcoal gray suit and black toe-capped shoes. He walked briskly, but you could tell he was lame by the slight irregularity in his step: tap-tap, tap-tap. His face was fixed in a grim expression, as if he were suppressing some profound emotion.
He reached the end of the corridor and stopped at the nurse's desk. "Flight Lieutenant Hoare?" he said.
The nurse looked up from a register. She was a pretty girl with black hair, and she spoke with the soft accent of County Cork. "You'll be a relation, I'm thinking," she said with a friendly smile.
Her charm had no effect. "Brother," said the visitor. "Which bed?"
"Last on the left."
He turned on his heel and strode along the aisle to the end of the ward. In a chair beside the bed, a figure in a brown dressing gown sat with his back to the room, looking out of the window, smoking.
The visitor hesitated. "Bart?"
The man in the chair stood up and turned around. There was a bandage on his head and his left arm was in a sling, but he was smiling. He was younger and taller than the visitor. "Hello, Digby."
Digby put his arms around his brother and hugged him hard. "I thought you were dead," he said.
Then he began to cry.
"I was flying a Whitley," Bart said. The Armstrong Whitworth Whitley was a cumbersome long-tailed bomber that flew in an odd nose-down attitude. In the spring of 1941, Bomber Command had a hundred of them, out of a total strength of about seven hundred aircraft. "A Messerschmitt fired on us and we took several hits," Bart continued. "But he must have been running out of fuel, because he peeled off without finishing us. I thought it was my lucky day. Then we started to lose altitude. The Messerschmitt must have damaged both engines. We chucked out everything that wasn't bolted down, to reduce our weight, but it was no good, and I realized we'd have to ditch in the North Sea."
Digby sat on the edge of the hospital bed, dry-eyed now, watching his brother's face, seeing the thousand-yard-stare as Bart remembered.
"I told the crew to jettison the rear hatch then get into ditching position, braced against the bulkhead." The Whitley had a crew of five, Digby recalled. "When we reached zero altitude I heaved back on the stick and opened the throttles, but the aircraft refused to level out, and we hit the water with a terrific smash. I was knocked out."
They were step brothers, eight years apart. Digby's mother had died when he was thirteen, and his father had married a widow with a boy of her own. From the start, Digby had looked after his little brother, protecting him from bullies and helping him with his schoolwork. They had both been mad about airplanes, and dreamed of being pilots. Digby lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident, studied engineering, and went into aircraft design; but Bart lived the dream.
"When I came to, I could smell smoke. The aircraft was floating and the starboard wing was on fire. The night was dark as the grave, but I could see by the light of the flames. I crawled along the fuselage and found the dinghy pack. I bunged it through the hatch and jumped. Jesus, that water was cold."
His voice was low and calm, but he took hard pulls on his cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs and blowing it out between tight-pursed lips in a long jet. "I was wearing a life jacket and I came to the surface like a cork. There was quite a swell, and I was going up and down like a tart's knickers. Luckily, the dinghy pack was in front of my nose. I pulled the string and it inflated itself, but I couldn't get in. I didn't have the strength to heave myself out of the water. I couldn't understand it-didn't realize I had a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist and three cracked ribs and all that. So I just stayed there, holding on, freezing to death."
There had been a time, Digby recalled, when he thought Bart had been the lucky one.
"Eventually Jones and Croft appeared. They'd held on to the tail until it went down. Neither could swim, but their Mae Wests saved them, and they managed to scramble into the dinghy and pull me in." He lit a fresh cigarette. "I never saw Pickering. I don't know what happened to him, but I assume he's at the bottom of the sea."
He fell silent. There was one crew member unaccounted for, Digby realized. After a pause, he said, "What about the fifth man?"
"John Rowley, the bomb-aimer, was alive. We heard him call out. I was in a bit of a daze, but Jones and Croft tried to row toward the voice." He shook his head in a gesture of hopelessness. "You can't imagine how difficult it was. The swell must have been three or four feet, the flames were dying down so we couldn't see much, and the wind was howling like a bloody banshee. Jones yelled, and he's got a strong voice. Rowley would shout back, then the dinghy would go up one side of a wave and down the other and spin around at the same time, and when he called out again his voice seemed to come from a completely different direction. I don't know how long it went on. Rowley kept shouting, but his voice became weaker as the cold got to him." Bart's face stiffened. "He started to sound a bit pathetic, calling to God and his mother and that sort of rot. Eventually he went quiet."
Digby found he was holding his breath, as if the mere sound of breathing would be an intrusion on such a dreadful memory.
"We were found soon after dawn, by a destroyer on U-boat patrol. They dropped a cutter and hauled us in." Bart looked out of the window, blind to the green Hertfordshire landscape, seeing a different scene, far away. "Bloody lucky, really," he said.
They sat in silence for a while, then Bart said, "Was the raid a success? No one will tell me how many came home."
"Disastrous," Digby said.
"What about my squadron?"
"Sergeant Jenkins and his crew got back safely." Digby drew a slip of paper from his pocket. "So did Pilot Officer Arasaratnam. Where's he from?"
"Ceylon."
"And Sergeant Riley's aircraft took a hit but made it back."
"Luck of the Irish," said Bart. "What about the rest?"
Digby just shook his head.
"But there were six aircraft from my squadron on that raid!" Bart protested.
"I know. As well as you, two more were shot down. No apparent survivors."
"So Creighton-Smith is dead. And Billy Shaw. And...Oh, God." He turned away.
"I'm sorry."
Bart's mood changed from despair to anger. "It's not enough to be sorry," he said. "We're being sent out there to die!"
"I know."
"For Christ's sake, Digby, you're part of the bloody government."
"I work for the Prime Minister, yes." Churchill liked to bring people from private industry into the government and Digby, a successful aircraft designer before the war, was one of his troubleshooters.
"Then this is your fault as much as anyone's. You shouldn't be wasting your time visiting the sick. Get the hell out of here and do something about it."
"I am doing something," Digby said calmly. "I've been given the task of finding out why this is happening. We lost fifty percent of the aircraft on that raid."
"Bloody treachery at the top, I suspect. Or some fool air marshal boasting in his club about tomorrow's raid, and a Nazi barman taking notes behind the beer pumps."
"That's one possibility."
Bart sighed. "I'm sorry, Diggers," he said, using a childhood nickname. "It's not your fault, I'm just blowing my top."
"Seriously, have you any idea why so many are being shot down? You've flown more than a dozen missions. What's your hunch?"
Bart looked thoughtful. "I wasn't just sounding off about spies. When we get to Germany, they're ready for us. They know we're coming."
"What makes you say that?"
"Their fighters are in the air, waiting for us. You know how difficult it is for defensive forces to time that right. The fighter squadron has to be scrambled at just the right moment; they must navigate from their airfield to the area where they think we might be, then they have to climb above our ceiling, and when they've done all that they have to find us in the moonlight. The whole process takes so much time that we should be able to drop our ordnance and get clear before they catch us. But it isn't happening that way."
Digby nodded. Bart's experience matched that of other pilots he had questioned. He was about to say so when Bart looked up and smiled over Digby's shoulder. Digby turned to see a Negro in the uniform of a squadron leader. Like Bart, he was young for his rank, and Digby guessed he had received the automatic promotions that came with combat experience-flight lieutenant after twelve sorties, squadron leader after fifteen.
Bart said, "Hello, Charles."
"You had us all worried, Bartlett. How are you?" The newcomer's accent was Caribbean overlaid with an Oxbridge drawl.
"I may live, they say."
With a fingertip, Charles touched the back of Bart's hand where it emerged from his sling. It was a curiously affectionate gesture, Digby thought. "I'm jolly glad to hear it," Charles said.
"Charles, meet my brother Digby. Digby, this is Charles Ford. We were together at Trinity until we left to join the air force."
"It was the only way to avoid taking our exams," Charles said, shaking Digby's hand.
Bart said, "How are the Africans treating you?"
Charles smiled and explained to Digby, "There's a squadron of Rhodesians at our airfield. First class flyers, but they find it difficult to deal with an officer of my color. We call them the Africans, which seems to irritate them slightly. I can't think why."
Digby said, "Obviously you're not letting it get you down."
"I believe that with patience and improved education we may eventually be able to civilize such people, primitive though they seem now." Charles looked away, and Digby caught a glimpse of the anger beneath his good humor.
"I was just asking Bart why he thinks we're losing so many bombers," Digby said. "What's your opinion?"
...
From AudioFile
This is truly everything one would want in an audio presentation. Suspenseful writing by Follett and a superb delivery by Byron Jennings combine with a sophisticated background orchestra that unobtrusively adds emotion, intensity, and texture. Follett writes this novel of spies and intrigue in Denmark following the country's capitulation to Hitler. Harald Olufsen is unintentionally drawn into the resistance movement when he discovers a secret German radar installation that enables them to strike down the nighttime British bombers. Jennings thoughtfully portrays personal moments that complement the main storyline. Strong female characters and the enthusiasm of youth add to this fast-paced story of ordinary people facing the adversity and struggles of wartime. F.L.F. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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