Take the wonderful tale of the X-Craft submariners dispatched to sink the Tirpitz in 1943. I know this quite well, having recently interviewed and written up the adventures of one of the last survivors, Cdr John Lorimer DSO. What fascinated me about Brown’s account, though only for the insight it gave me into the workings of his brain, was his automaton-like inability either to empathise with his subject (Godfrey Place, commander of X-7) or to work out which details needed emphasising and which could be safely excluded.

So, for example, the heart-stopping moment when Place disentangles with his foot the mine that has got caught on the bow of his X-craft is dismissed in one sentence; the scene where the surviving midget submariners are standing on the deck of the Tirpitz waiting for their eight tons of amatol charges to go off beneath them doesn’t even get a mention. Brown does feel compelled to tell you, though, that the base they set off from was codenamed Port HHZ, that the Tirpitz had three high-pressure steam turbines delivering more than 160,000 horsepower, and that Place was once liaison officer with the Polish submarine, Sokol. Like Mr Gradgrind, all the man understands is facts.

His opening and closing essays are waffly, trite and, insofar as they attempt to make political capital from the achievements of people who have nothing whatsoever to do with him or his grisly ideology, offensive. ‘Wartime courage, and the sacrifice it often entails, is something we should continue to recognise and cherish’, he lectures, for it represents ‘not just a noble history but . . . a precious store of moral capital that following generations . . . can draw on in another age.’ Damn right Gordon: we’re going to need all the steely determination we can muster in this new darkest hour of our nation’s history. And who brought about that darkest hour? You, you, you!

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