A biography of the twentieth-century British Royal Navy officer and Victoria Cross recipient, who fought below, above, and on the waves. Of all the acts of gallantry in World War II few were as audacious as the attack by midget submarines on the pride of the German fleet, the battleship Tirpitz, lying in her heavily fortified lair deep in a Norwegian fjord. Lieutenant Godfrey Place was in command of submarine X7 in September 1943 and travelled over 1,000 miles, negotiating minefields and anti-submarine nets to place four tons of high explosive accurately under the hull of the Tirpitz. For this he was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1944, at the age of twenty-two. Taken prisoner he was repatriated to England at the end of the war, and continued to serve in the Royal Navy for twenty-five years, flying with 801 squadron in the Korean War, and serving on aircraft carriers at Suez, Nigeria and the withdrawal from Aden. On his retirement in 1970 he had the distinction of being the last serving naval officer to hold the Victoria Cross. This overdue biography details Godfrey Place VC's eventful life, from a childhood spent partly in East Africa to being the hugely respected Chairman of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association for over twenty years. Thanks to the author's extensive access to previously unpublished material, including Place's own recollections of the attack, there is unlikely to be a better or more thrilling account of the attack on the Tirpitz.

本書は伝説的英雄ゴドフリー・プレイスの生涯を、単なる戦記を超えた人間ドラマとして描いています。巨大戦艦を小舟同然の艇で狙う無謀さと、静謐な狂気が混在する極限状態。未公開資料に基づく筆致は、鉄の棺桶に等しい艇内の緊張感と、二十二歳で国家の命運を背負った青年の孤独な魂の震えを活写しています。 本書の白眉は戦後の歩みまでを追い、勇気という名の重責に殉じる普遍性を浮き彫りにした点です。栄光の裏にある沈黙、荒波で磨かれた高潔さ。一人の軌跡を通じ、極限下での人間の尊厳を問い直す、魂を揺さぶるノンフィクションの傑作です。