Hornet Flight
Encyclopedia
Hornet Flight is a World War II
based spy thriller written by British
author Ken Follett
. It was published in 2002 by Macmillan
in the UK and Dutton in the US.
on the Western Front. In the East, the Russian Army was feeling the full force of Operation Barbarossa
. To show solidarity among the unlikely capitalist-communist Alliance, Winston Churchill
and Bomber Command
planned a massive aerial bombardment of German territories. Unfortunately and inexplicably, Bomber Command's planes were getting shot down in record numbers.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Danish schoolboy Harald Olufsen grows increasingly dissatisfied with his country's cooperation with the German invaders. His resentment of the Wehrmacht
leads him to discover the truth about a hidden military installation, a truth known to only a select few in the Nazi organization. Running from the German authorities and an old family enemy, Copenhagen
police
detective Peter Flemming, Harald knows that he must get to Britain. But to do so in time to save the bombers, Harald has one option: flight.
, a former Special Operations Executive
employee, who wrote a brief account in his book, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's Story 1941-1945
about two young Danes who found a derelict de Havilland Hornet Moth biplane, repaired it, and flew it to Britain. While that event inspired the use of two teen-aged Danes as his primary characters, the story of the photographing of the German radar station and flying the film to Britain was actually that of Thomas Christian Sneum, a flight lieutenant in the Danish Naval Air Service, who made the flight to Britain in a Hornet with the mechanic who helped him rebuild it, Keld Peterson, on 21 June 1941. Sneum was arrested as a suspected double agent
before being returned to Denmark as an agent, from which he escaped again in 1942 by crossing the ice to Sweden with a fellow naval aviator.
The German radar installations causing the havoc with the British bombers are historical. The Freya radar
that Harald investigates was part of the Kammhuber Line
, the German night air defense system along the North Sea. The Freya radar, with a range of 100 miles, was used to detect an incoming bombers at long-distance. Then 2 modified Würzburg Riese ("Würzburg Giant") radars
tracked a single British bomber and a German night fighter to bring them together. The RAF tactically countered the line by concentrating all its bombers through a single radar sector in a "bomber stream
", allowing the bulk to escape interception because the system could only concentrate on one bomber at a time.
However the actual events alluded to in Hornet Flight occurred a year later than in the novel, and without connection to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Himmelbett structure of radar installations did not become operational until late 1941. RAF bomber losses increased by 50% in the first months of 1942, but the trend was reversed with the first "thousand bomber raid" on Cologne
on 30 May 1942. The concept of the bomber stream
was not the result of espionage by Resistance operatives in any occupied country, but resulted from statistical analysis of British operations.
The strict Protestant community in which Harald Olufsen grew up and against which he rebels in the earlier part of the book is typical of those dominated by the religious movement known as "The Church Association for the Inner Mission in Denmark
", of which West Jutland is a stronghold.
leads him to regard being a policeman as more than a job - rather, as a Cause and a Mission, almost a religion. In the conditions of 1941 Denmark, it leads him to become a committed Nazi collaborator, indeed sometimes showing more zeal than the Germans themselves.
The struggle which Harald and his friends wage, making enormous sacrifices, is morally ambiguous: they are, in essence, willing to lay their lives on the line so that British planes will be able to bomb the civilian population of the German cities with impunity. Only the vital need to bring down Hitler's monstrous and genocidal regime can justify their actions. Follett brings home the point by having the RAF, using the information which Harald and Karen brought at such high price, set out to bomb Hamburg - where Harald's beloved Jewish aunt and cousin live, who used to come over to merry holidays at Harald's parents' home. At the book's end Harald remains with the gnawing doubt that he may have caused their deaths - and, while not making him doubt the rightness of what he did, it does make him less than jubilant at his well-earned victory.
This novel generated some controversy when a veteran of the Royal Air Force
, Alan Frampton, wrote to Follett to complain about a character in the prologue to the story, "Charles Ford" - a black RAF officer. Frampton, who resides in Zimbabwe
, claimed that there were no black officers in the RAF, and accused Follett of including the character as a "sop" to black people. Ulric Cross, a black former RAF squadron leader
and the man on whom the character of Charles Ford was based, refuted Frampton's claims in an article published in the Trinidad Express. Over 250 Trinidad
ians alone served in the RAF during World War II.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
based spy thriller written by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
author Ken Follett
Ken Follett
Ken Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his works. Four of his books have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, and World Without End.-Early...
. It was published in 2002 by Macmillan
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
in the UK and Dutton in the US.
Plot introduction
By late June 1941, the United Kingdom alone stood against Nazi GermanyNazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
on the Western Front. In the East, the Russian Army was feeling the full force of Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. To show solidarity among the unlikely capitalist-communist Alliance, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
and Bomber Command
RAF Bomber Command
RAF Bomber Command controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s stood at the peak of its postwar military power with the V bombers and a supplemental...
planned a massive aerial bombardment of German territories. Unfortunately and inexplicably, Bomber Command's planes were getting shot down in record numbers.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Danish schoolboy Harald Olufsen grows increasingly dissatisfied with his country's cooperation with the German invaders. His resentment of the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
leads him to discover the truth about a hidden military installation, a truth known to only a select few in the Nazi organization. Running from the German authorities and an old family enemy, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
police
Police of Denmark
The police of Denmark is the interior part of the Danish legitimate force providers...
detective Peter Flemming, Harald knows that he must get to Britain. But to do so in time to save the bombers, Harald has one option: flight.
Historical background to the novel
Hornet Flight is a fictionalized retelling of actual events. Follett's website states that his inspiration for the story came from Leo MarksLeo Marks
Leopold Samuel Marks was an English cryptographer, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:Born the son of an antiquarian bookseller in London, he was first introduced to cryptography when his father showed him a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's story, "The Gold-Bug"...
, a former Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
employee, who wrote a brief account in his book, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's Story 1941-1945
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's Story 1941-1945
Between Silk and Cyanide is the title of a book by former Special Operations Executive cryptographer Leo Marks, describing his work during the Second World War. More fully, its title is Between Silk and Cyanide, The Story of SOE's Code War...
about two young Danes who found a derelict de Havilland Hornet Moth biplane, repaired it, and flew it to Britain. While that event inspired the use of two teen-aged Danes as his primary characters, the story of the photographing of the German radar station and flying the film to Britain was actually that of Thomas Christian Sneum, a flight lieutenant in the Danish Naval Air Service, who made the flight to Britain in a Hornet with the mechanic who helped him rebuild it, Keld Peterson, on 21 June 1941. Sneum was arrested as a suspected double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
before being returned to Denmark as an agent, from which he escaped again in 1942 by crossing the ice to Sweden with a fellow naval aviator.
The German radar installations causing the havoc with the British bombers are historical. The Freya radar
Freya radar
Freya was an early warning radar deployed by Germany during World War II, named after the Norse Goddess Freyja. During the war over a thousand stations were built. A naval version operating on a slightly different wavelength was also developed as Seetakt...
that Harald investigates was part of the Kammhuber Line
Kammhuber Line
The Kammhuber Line was the name given to the German night air defense system established in July 1940 by Colonel Josef Kammhuber.- Description :...
, the German night air defense system along the North Sea. The Freya radar, with a range of 100 miles, was used to detect an incoming bombers at long-distance. Then 2 modified Würzburg Riese ("Würzburg Giant") radars
Würzburg radar
The Würzburg radar was the primary ground-based gun laying radar for both the Luftwaffe and the German Army during World War II. Initial development took place before the war, entering service in 1940. Eventually over 4,000 Würzburgs of various models were produced...
tracked a single British bomber and a German night fighter to bring them together. The RAF tactically countered the line by concentrating all its bombers through a single radar sector in a "bomber stream
Bomber stream
The bomber stream was a tactic developed by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command to overwhelm the German aerial defences of the Kammhuber Line during World War II....
", allowing the bulk to escape interception because the system could only concentrate on one bomber at a time.
However the actual events alluded to in Hornet Flight occurred a year later than in the novel, and without connection to the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Himmelbett structure of radar installations did not become operational until late 1941. RAF bomber losses increased by 50% in the first months of 1942, but the trend was reversed with the first "thousand bomber raid" on Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
on 30 May 1942. The concept of the bomber stream
Bomber stream
The bomber stream was a tactic developed by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command to overwhelm the German aerial defences of the Kammhuber Line during World War II....
was not the result of espionage by Resistance operatives in any occupied country, but resulted from statistical analysis of British operations.
The strict Protestant community in which Harald Olufsen grew up and against which he rebels in the earlier part of the book is typical of those dominated by the religious movement known as "The Church Association for the Inner Mission in Denmark
The Church Association for the Inner Mission in Denmark
The Churchly Association for the Inner Mission in Denmark , or in short Inner Mission is a conservative Lutheran Christian organisation in Denmark. It is the largest revival movement within the Danish National Church. Despite its name, people do not belong to the Inner Mission as members separate...
", of which West Jutland is a stronghold.
Complex characters and motivations
Unlike formula thrillers, the German characters in Hornet Flight are in general quite decent and honourable. Harald's main nemesis, Police Detective Peter Flemming, is a childhood acquaintance, formerly his older brother's best friend turned bitter enemy after a falling out between the families. Detective Flemming, though in some ways quite monstrous, does not lack for psychological depth. An authoritarian personalityAuthoritarian personality
-Historical Origins:Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson and Sanford compiled a large body of research and theory , which attempted to characterize a personality type that described the “potentially fascistic individual”...
leads him to regard being a policeman as more than a job - rather, as a Cause and a Mission, almost a religion. In the conditions of 1941 Denmark, it leads him to become a committed Nazi collaborator, indeed sometimes showing more zeal than the Germans themselves.
The struggle which Harald and his friends wage, making enormous sacrifices, is morally ambiguous: they are, in essence, willing to lay their lives on the line so that British planes will be able to bomb the civilian population of the German cities with impunity. Only the vital need to bring down Hitler's monstrous and genocidal regime can justify their actions. Follett brings home the point by having the RAF, using the information which Harald and Karen brought at such high price, set out to bomb Hamburg - where Harald's beloved Jewish aunt and cousin live, who used to come over to merry holidays at Harald's parents' home. At the book's end Harald remains with the gnawing doubt that he may have caused their deaths - and, while not making him doubt the rightness of what he did, it does make him less than jubilant at his well-earned victory.
This novel generated some controversy when a veteran of the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
, Alan Frampton, wrote to Follett to complain about a character in the prologue to the story, "Charles Ford" - a black RAF officer. Frampton, who resides in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, claimed that there were no black officers in the RAF, and accused Follett of including the character as a "sop" to black people. Ulric Cross, a black former RAF squadron leader
Squadron Leader
Squadron Leader is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure. In these...
and the man on whom the character of Charles Ford was based, refuted Frampton's claims in an article published in the Trinidad Express. Over 250 Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
ians alone served in the RAF during World War II.
List of characters
- Harald Olufsen - an 18-year-old minister's son, engineering student, who loves American jazz and hates Nazis
- Arne Olufsen - older brother of Harald; Danish Army Aviation pilot
- Karen Duchwitz - Jewish twin sister of Harald's schoolmate Tik, with whom Harald falls in love
- Hermia Mount - MI6 agent engaged to Arne Olufsen before the war
- Peter Flemming - Copenhagen detective; enemy of the Olufsens
- Tilde Jespersen - Police colleague of Flemming
- Digby Hoare - advisor to Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, who loves Hermia - Poul Kirke - Danish Army Aviation pilot and member of Hermia's spy network, the Nightwatchmen
- Walter Braun - Nazi General overseeing the Danish police
External links
- Ken Follett's Hornet Flight - official site - A documentary and interview with Thomas Christian Sneum, whose story Follets book is based upon.
- Trinidad News - UK war novel character inspired by Ulric Cross
- See photograph and history of the Hornet Moth