The Eagle Has Landed (novel)
| 1976 UK second edition 1976 UK second edition paperback | |
| Author | Jack Higgins |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | War, Thriller Novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
Publication date | 8 September 1975 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Pages | 352 pp (hardcover edition)) 356 pp (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | [[Special:BookSources/ISBN+0-00-221208-0+%28hardcover+edition%29%3Cbr%2F%3EISBN+0-671-01934-1+%28paperback+edition%29 |ISBN 0-00-221208-0 (hardcover edition) ISBN 0-671-01934-1 (paperback edition)]] Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| OCLC | 1993343 |
| 823/.9/14 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.H6367 Eag PR6058.I343 |
The Eagle Has Landed is a book by Jack Higgins set during World War II. It first published in 1975. It was made into a film of the same name in 1976 starring Michael Caine. The plot has some similarities with that of Went the Day Well?, a film made during World War II itself.
The book is still in print, being reissued in New York by Berkley Books in 2000 with ISBN 0-425-17718-1.
Plot summary
The book makes use of the false document technique, and opens with Higgins describing his discovery of the grave of thirteen German paratroopers in an English graveyard. What follows was inspired by the real life rescue of Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini by Otto Skorzeny, a similar idea is considered by Hitler, with the strong support of Himmler. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (German military intelligence), is ordered to make a feasibility study of the seemingly impossible task of capturing Prime Minister Winston Churchill and bringing him to the Reich.
Canaris considers the idea a joke, but realizes that although Hitler will soon forget the matter, Himmler will not. Fearing Himmler may try to discredit him, Canaris orders one of his officers, Oberst Radl to undertake the study, despite feeling that it is all just a waste of time.
An Unteroffizier on Radl's staff finds that one of their spies, code named Starling, has provided a tantalizing piece of intelligence. "At any other time, in any other place, this information would be useless", Radl said. "And then synchronicity rears its disturbing head." Winston Churchill is scheduled to spend a weekend at a country house near the village of Studley Constable, Norfolk. There Joanna Grey, an Afrikaner woman and longtime Abwehr agent, lives. She detests England because she was tortured and raped by British soldiers during the Anglo-Boer War. As a result of her reports, Radl devises a detailed plan to intercept Churchill and return with him to Germany. Although he is certain the plan is foolproof, Admiral Canaris orders him to abandon it.
Himmler, however, has already learned of the scheme and summons Radl, ordering him to proceed, but without notifying Canaris. In response, Radl arranges for Liam Devlin, a member of the Anti-Treaty IRA, to be smuggled to Norfolk by way of Northern Ireland. Posing as a wounded veteran of the British Army, he contacts Mrs. Grey, who arranges a position for him as game warden to the estate of Studley Grange. While awaiting further developments, Devlin romances Molly Prior, a girl from the village.
Meanwhile, Radl selects of a team of commandos to carry out the operation, led by a disgraced Fallschirmjäger commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kurt Steiner. While returning from the Eastern Front, Steiner had intervened when SS soldiers were rounding up Jews at a railway station in Poland. To the outrage of the SS and Polizei, he took one of their men hostage and helped a teenage Jewess to escape on a passing freight train. For this, he was court-martialled, along with his men, who assisted his actions. Too highly decorated to face a firing squad, Steiner and his men were allowed to transfer to a penal unit in the Channel Islands. There they are forced to make suicidal attacks with manned torpedoes against British Channel convoys.
Radl travels to Alderney and recruits the disgraced Colonel and his surviving men. Steiner's father, General Steiner, who is being tortured by the Gestapo for his ties to the German Resistance, serves as an additional incentive for the Colonel to accept the mission. Radl relocates Steiner and his men to an airfield on the north western coast of Holland, there they familiarise themselves with the British weapons and equipment will be using. The team will be air dropped into Norfolk via a captured C-47 Dakota with Allied markings. The commandos outfit themselves as Free Polish troops, as few of them speak English; the plan is to infiltrate Studley Constable, complete their mission, rendezvous with an E-boat at the nearby coast and make their escape.
At first, the plan seems to go off without a hitch. Then, however, one of Steiner's men rescues two local children who have fallen in a water wheel. He is killed and his German uniform (worn, by Himmler's order, under the Polish uniforms, as protection against being executed as spies) is seen by Fr. Verecker, the local Roman Catholic priest. Determined to continue the mission, Steiner arranges for the locals to be rounded up, but the sister of Father Vereker, escapes and alerts a local unit of British Commandos. Colonel Robert Shafto, an inexperienced but headstrong officer, rallies his forces to retake the hostages. The assault on the church fails, with many Americans killed in a foolhardy assault ordered by Shafto. After the Colonel is shot in the head by Mrs. Grey, however, Major Kane organizes a second, successful attack.
Steiner, his second-in-command Ritter von Neumann, and Devlin manage to escape with the aid of a local girl, Molly Prior, who had become romantically involved with the Irishman. Determined to finish the mission, Steiner allows Devlin and Neumann to escape without him and decides to make one last attempt at Churchill. He succeeds in reaching Churchill, but hesitates and is shot and is supposedly killed. (However, Steiner reappears alive in The Eagle Has Flown, a sequel.) Radl has a heart attack, implied to be fatal, although at about the same time, Himmler, upon discovering that the mission has failed, orders Radl's arrest for high treason.
As in many novels of Higgins, this story is surrounded by a 'frame story' with a prologue and epilogue. The author, whilst doing historical research in Norfolk, supposedly meets various surviving characters. Some paperback editions have more historical backstory than others, including a meeting with an older Liam Devlin in a Belfast hotel. The final revelation comes from an aged and terminally ill Father Vereker: "Churchill" had been an impersonator and even if the mission had succeeded, it would not have mattered.
Sequel
- After the success of The Eagle Has Landed, Higgins wrote a quasi-sequel called The Eagle Has Flown, which was published in 1991.
Characters
- Liam Devlin seems to be a compilation of several IRA veterans who collaborated with the Abwehr, especially Frank Ryan. Like Devlin, Ryan was an IRA man who served in the Republican Connolly Column during the Spanish Civil War. In addition, Ryan was also captured by the Franco forces. Ryan was "released" to Germany under house arrest. The real Ryan did not, however, participate in any German commando raids and his deteriorating health would have made this impossible - he remained committed to his original politics.[1] Frank Ryan died in 1944 in a Dresden hospital and was later reburied in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery. The character of Liam Devlin, however, is featured in a later Jack Higgins book, older and allied with British Intelligence in preventing a renegade KGB agent from assassinating Pope John Paul II.
- The S.S. British Free Corps unit is described in the book. In the novel, a British S.S. Officer named Harvey Preston is attached to Steiner's unit to add credibility. A convicted Nazi and petty criminal, Preston is viewed with disgust by Steiner, Devlin, and their fellow commandos. After Steiner, Neumannn, and Devlin escape, Preston is lynched inside the village's Roman Catholic Church by a mentally ill resident of Studley Constable.
- Lt. Colonel Kurt Steiner is not a Nazi archetype. His character was based mainly on Fallschirmjaeger officers Oberst Freiherr Von Der Heydte and Major Walter Koch. Koch himself was rumoured to have been murdered by the Gestapo. Steiner is a veteran of the Invasion of Norway, Albert Canal, Maleme Airfield, Leningrad, Stalingrad and the Ukraine.
- Leutnant Ritter von Neumann
- Hauptstabfeldwebel Otto Brandt
- Feldwebel Hans Altmann
- Gefreiter Werner Briegel
- Joanna Grey is a German Fifth Columnist living in Studley Constable.
- Molly Prior
References
- ^ Frank Ryan, The Search for the Republic, Seán Cronin, Repsol: Dublin, 1980 ISBN 0-86064-018-3
External links
Release details
- 1975, US, Bantam Books ISBN 0-553-02500-7, Publication date ? ? ?, Paperback Edition