John Winton – författare

An anthology of personal experience selected and edited by John Winton.The Second World War produced hundreds of actions and incidents at sea which were packed with drama and suspense, and which evoked the greatest heroism. Here is a generous selection of personal experience written by the men and women who were there: in the British and Commonwealth Navies, the Fleet Air Arm, the Merchant Navy, or ashore. Names which have passed into history - Narvik, Dunkirk, the River Plate, the Bismarck, the Scharnhorst, Crete, Anzio, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Russian convoys - all these and many others are reflected in these gripping eyewitness testimonies.This is the first volume in the unique Freedom's Battle trilogy, which provides intensely vivid accounts of war at sea, in the air and on land. Far better than any single narrative, the extracts build up a complete picture of the War as it was experienced by the men and women who actually fought in it.

As John Winton, the best and most authoritative writer on currant naval matters, says in the foreword to this book 'The Navy has never been well known for its flair for publicity....Again and again during the Falklands War it seemed to me that the chances of giving the Navy a 'chuck-up' were being fumbled...so when the ships began to come home I let it be known that I was going to compile a book on the Navy's part in the Falklands'. The response was overwhelming and this, sadly, is is only a skimming from the cream of the response to his appeals Nevertheless it gives, without a doubt, as vivid an impression as we are likely to have of the feelings and experiences of those of all ranks and trades who served with the Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary on that brief but remarkably successful campaign. Some of the contributors, like the aptly named Sam Salt will be familiar to many; others are not well known. Individuals though it may seem to give pride of place to any one contribution on an anthology such as this, it must be said that the words of Reverend Charles Stewart do stand out. In trying to resolve the virtually insoluble dilemma between 'Love Thy Neighbour' and 'Justifiable War' he succeeds where more famous theologians have often failed. All who served on board any ship which 'went south' in that strange nut epic endeavour in 1982 must be grateful to John Winton for having compiled this lasting tribute to tier bravery, and perhaps more characteristics, their abiding sense of humour.

Naval VCs have been won in places as far apart in time and distance as the Baltic in 1854 and Japan in 1945, in the trenches from the Crimea to the Western Front, in harbours from Dar es Salaam to Zeebrugge, from the Barents to the Java Sea, from New Zealand to the North Atlantic, and from China to the Channel. They have been won in battleships and trawlers, in submarines below the water and aircraft above it, on horseback and on foot.Age and rank meant nothing. Boy Cornwall was not seventeen at Jutland, and Frederick Parslow was in his sixtieth year when he earned his VC on board a horse transport ship. William Hall was the son of a freed slave; Charles Lucas, awarded the Royal Navy’s first VC, became a Rear Admiral. Neither were all the recipients of Britain’s highest gallantry decoration British, and men from Canada, Australia and New Zealand were included in those whose actions were recognised by the awarding of the VC. Yet every one of them had one thing in common – uncommon valour.