Dunkirk to D-Day: A Commando's War

By: Jeff Steel and Linda Adlam

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Synopsis: Another rip-roaring World War II history by prize-winning author Jeff Steel.Bill Adlam&’s hair-raising escape from Dunkirk, his dramatic commando raids and his storming the D-Day beaches reads like fiction. It all happened.Bill escaped the Dunkirk disaster via a bayonet charge into Nazi machine guns. He was presented with the Military Medal &‘for gallantry under fire&’ by King George VI. Bill volunteered for commandos: he thrived on adrenaline. Number 4 commando took him to a surgical strike in the north of Norway. The stated objective: to destroy oil installations. It was a feint. Ian Fleming of the Secret Intelligence Service had masterminded the raid. Its objective: to help break the Enigma Code. Number 4 Commando then sent him on a raid to Dieppe to spike naval guns to enable a landing by Canadian forces. Bill&’s commanding officer was Lord Lovat: cousin to Ian Fleming and (allegedly) template for the fictional James Bond. Bill&’s prowess as a commando saw him headhunted to a top-secret location in the wilds of Scotland. Here he trained others in the dark arts of &‘butcher and bolt&’.On D-Day morning Bill passed over the sands of Normandy in minutes. The next two months saw him up against Hitler&’s elite army and Waffen SS divisions. The reader will ask the same question that Bill asked: how would he ever come out alive?