![\"Never](\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Wneversurrender-192x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Never Surrender — by J.G. White (Austin Macauley, London, 2016) [Photograph by Edith-Mary Smith]<\/p><\/div>The novel Never Surrender<\/em> by J.G. White (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2016) will delight anyone who saw service in Britain\u2019s Royal Marines and will fascinate those who have never entered military life but are curious to experience second-hand the rigours, rituals and traditions associated with any branch of the armed services.<\/p>\n The trials of the book\u2019s main character, Dacre AJ, begin when he first decides to join the Royal Navy but finds the RN desk at the recruiting office unmanned and so ends up joining the Royal Marines instead. (Random life-changing decisions really do happen: Field Marshal Montgomery chose his regiment because he liked the cap badge!) From recruiting office to the Royal Marine training depot at Deal in Kent, to the RM barracks at Eastney, close to Southsea, to Dover\u2019s old Napoleonic fort called the \u2018Drop Redoubt\u2019\u2014 White describes it all. There is a boxing tournament in Eastney. Dacre is good at boxing. And the Drop Redoubt has its one-hundred-and-forty-feet deep \u2018Grand Shaft,\u2019 whose multitudinous steps are good for maintaining the fitness level of new recruits.<\/p>\n Dacre\u2019s environment is one of square-bashing, of rifle training, of sleeping in trenches half-full of water, and embraces all of the spit-and-polish regimens of barrack life. He may live in a unique, even insular, world, but it is just as solid and valid as anyone else\u2019s. Plus Dacre has a few good mates. He experiences being with a woman for the very first time\u2014a watershed event that is engineered by those same good mates. The fact that the young woman is the daughter of \u2018First Drill,\u2019 the most senior of Dacre\u2019s RM instructors, adds extra spice and danger.<\/p>\n The writer steadfastly tracks the tumultuous events of 1939 and 1940, often using conversations between historical figures such as Antony Eden, Winston Churchill, and Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsey. The latter was charged with organizing the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk.<\/p>\n The German Blitzkrieg<\/em> rolls through Belgium and into northern France. The British and French armies are in full retreat. Meanwhile, in harbours along the southern coast of England, small boats, fishing vessels, ferries and yachts are gathering, preparing to sail across to France and \u2018bring our lads back home.\u2019<\/p>\n Churchill was first to remark, afterwards, in the House of Commons, that \u2018wars are not won by retreat.\u2019 Nonetheless, the Dunkirk evacuation remains firmly fixed in the British psyche as one of the great events of history, alongside the victories of Henry V\u2019s soldiers at Agincourt and the RAF fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain. Thus White\u2019s novel, Never Surrender<\/em>, takes a sudden turn, midway through the book.<\/p>\n Dacre, already a fully trained Royal Marine, is not yet eighteen and so not eligible for active duty. But Britain\u2019s stranded expeditionary force is need of help and Dacre is experienced at sailing and canoeing. He is assigned as a one-man crew to Mr. Leslie Thomas of Maidstone, Kent, owner of the thirty-five foot cabin cruiser, the Gypsy Rose<\/em>. Dacre and Thomas make several trips to France, returning each time with a boat-load of grateful Tommies<\/em>. Thus White\u2019s Never Surrender<\/em>, joins other famous novels of Dunkirk, most notably The Snow Goose<\/a> by Paul Gallico and Atonement<\/a> by Ian McEwan.<\/p>\n All in all, Never Surrender<\/em> is an interesting novel and well worth reading.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The novel Never Surrender by J.G. White (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2016) will delight anyone who saw service in Britain\u2019s Royal Marines and will fascinate those who have never entered military life but are curious to experience second-hand the rigours, rituals … Continue reading