Crosscuts between London and the convoy are thankfully kept to a minimum as Mr. Hastings focuses on the hazards, mundane and terrifying, of naval warfare ... Like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings,Operation Pedestal is the story of desperate warriors shepherding a frail cargo through all the fire and steel their enemy can hurl. Mr. Hastings paints a portrait of naval combat with an artist’s brush guided by more than a half-century of combat reportage. Compassionate toward men who braved bombs, torpedoes, fire and a cruel sea, he showcases the Royal Navy—along with the merchant vessels it guarded—at its finest hour.
The immediacy of this book obliterates the cold detachment that time’s passage usually allows. We feel in our bones torpedoes hitting home. Hastings takes his readers into the bomb-blasted wardroom of the carrier Indomitable ... Given the dramatic quality of this book, it seems wrong to summarise the four-day ordeal British sailors endured. That would spoil the impact of a drama superbly told ... The delight lies in the detail, the percussive power of tiny facts ... All this detail renders these men appropriately human. That’s the way war should be told, but so often it isn’t.
... [a] white-knuckle ride ... gripping narrative ... high-octane adventure ... Hastings’s four-day tableaux of bloodshed is not for the faint-hearted. There’s the memorable account of Giacomo Metelline, gaping in horror when he went to the rescue of a fellow airman ... As for winners and losers, Hastings ends his highly readable book with the apposite question of whether Operation Pedestal was worth the loss of 13 ships, 34 planes and some 500 men.
The very word 'convoy' conjures an image of lumbering merchant ships ferrying food and supplies. It’s hardly the stuff to set the pulse racing. The veteran historian Max Hastings wants to redress this misconception with his latest book, Operation Pedestal ... The extraordinary events that followed, between August 11 and 15, form the white-knuckle ride of Hastings’s gripping narrative. This is a high-octane adventure served up with torpedoes, Stuka dive-bombers and catastrophic U-boat attacks ... Hastings’s four-day tableaux of bloodshed is not for the fainthearted.
... a free-flowing narrative ... Hastings should please his current fans and attract new devotees with this lucidly limned account, suitable for general readers and specialists alike.
Hastings’ first full-length narrative of war at sea measures up to his usual high standards ... Real-world war is sloppier than the Hollywood version, even more so under the author’s gimlet eye. Heroism was in abundant supply but not universal. Through Hastings’ keen analysis we see how commanders on both sides showed as much bad judgment as intelligence ... Another enthralling Hastings must-read.