Customer Reviews

Never Surrender

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Winston's War: A Novel of Conspiracy, the first novel of the Churchill series by Michael Dobbs, spans the time period from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's return from Germany after signing the shameful Munich Agreement with Adolph Hitler, to early May 1940, when he's handed a no-confidence vote by the House of Commons and forced to resign. But, WINSTON'S WAR is less about Chamberlain than the political infighting and back stabbing that brought Winston, thought to be a loudmouthed fool by his peers in Parliament and apparently washed-up in government, back to public office after years in political limbo.

NEVER SURRENDER picks up the story on May 10, 1940, when Winston is asked by King George VI to form a new government to face the Nazi menace across the Channel, and portrays the next several weeks into early June as the British Expeditionary Force in France is forced by German panzers into a desperate position on the coast at Dunkirk, from which they, and as many French troops as possible, must be evacuated back to England via whatever boats can float.

Winston, is, of course, the hero of the series, and the fictional story, based on factual events, is portrayed from his point of view. Several major figures continue from the first to second volumes, including the King, the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, snake-in-the-grass Joseph Kennedy, and Winston's loyal friend and political confidant, Brendan Bracken . To provide a human face to events in France, Dobbs pens the characters of Don Chichester, a conscientious objector serving with the Royal Ambulance Corps, Claude, a downed and injured French pilot that Don patches up, and a spaniel, named "Winston" by Chichester for his constant barking, that adopts the two during their retreat to the Dunkirk beach.

I was less enamored of NEVER SURRENDER than WINSTON'S WAR, though it's still a decent read. Dobbs moves back and forth between Churchill and Chichester; perhaps he should of stayed with the former for a leaner plot (since this is, after all, a saga about Winston). Churchill, plagued with feelings of deep inadequacy as he copes with defeatist ministers, intransigent generals, and a military disaster of biblical proportions, lives in the shadow of his politically disgraced and deceased father, with whose portrait he carries on imaginary conversations. Don's relationship with his own father, a stern and uncompromising Anglican vicar, has been strained ever since his mother died giving him birth. Indeed, the two are barely on speaking terms.

Dysfunctional relationships between fathers and sons is very much a theme of this book, and I got the feeling that the author tried too hard to make the point, especially after Winston's debilitating obsession with his father's memory received such scant attention in WINSTON'S WAR. And furthermore, the whole Don/Claude thing seemed inconsequential window dressing. Indeed, the ending to this sidebar was so contrived for effect that I almost pitched the book into a corner. If there had to be a subplot at all, I would rather it had revolved around, say, Bertram Ramsay, the beleaguered Vice Admiral in his subterranean tunnels under Dover Castle charged with bringing the Tommies back from Dunkirk. Or Winston the dog.

So, keeping a stiff upper lip, it's on to the third book in the series, Churchill's Hour: A Novel of Defiance.

Michael Dobbs yet again brings to life an icon of the 20th Century. We learn a great deal about the man, Churchill, both his passions as well as his demons. Dobbs' portrayal of the machinations of Kennedy/Halifax bring texture to a relatively brief but critical period following Churchill's ascendancy as PM and the heroic days of Dunkirk. The sidebar drama of the Chichesters adds additional color and brings out in clear fashion how monumental events engineered by national leaders impact the daily lives and struggles of an average family. Churchill, himself, comes across in all his complexity and imperfections as a man possessed with a determination and fundemental vision ironically more in tune with that of the average Englishman than that of the gentry class into which he was born. His ability to rally the British people over the heads of his political opponents is clearly set forth by Dobbs, who more than most understands the dangers of moral relativism taking hold of the debate in times of crisis.

Winston Churchill was done no favor when he was named Prime Minister in May of1940 just hours before Adolph Hitler's invasion of Belgium, Holland and France. As the world watched in horror, Hitler's army marched through those countries with surprising ease and pushed Britain's forces to the coast at Dunkirk where they seemed to be trapped like fleeing rats. Never Surrender tells the story of what turned out to be one of the most important three weeks of the twentieth century. It was during those dark days that Churchill almost single-handedly managed to keep his government from suing for peace with Hitler even when it appeared that his country would soon have no army or air force left with which to fight.

Michael Dobbs portrays a Winston Churchill who at times seems to succeed in spite of himself. Despite his bouts of depression, his drinking habits and the fact that most of his colleagues were convinced that he was already a failure, Churchill gave his countrymen the will to defy Hitler when it seemed near impossible that their resistance could ever succeed. The Winston Churchill of Never Surrender is a man filled with self-doubt, a man who still craves the approval of his long dead father, and a man who is willing to do whatever is necessary to save his beloved country. If he has to lie to his fellow ministers and staff, he will do it. If he has to ask thousands of men to sacrifice their lives in a hopeless battle to win time for others to escape Hitler's trap, he will do that. He understands, even if only a few others do, that negotiating with Adolph Hitler is the same as surrender, and he will never surrender.

But there is more to Never Surrender than Winston Churchill. Dobbs uses side stories and characters to further detail what was happening at all levels of British society during those crucial days. There are Don Chichester, a young conscientious objector and orderly with the British army in France and his Anglican vicar father who considers him to be a coward for not taking up arms against the enemy. There is Ruth Mueller, a German refugee and Hitler biographer, who has fled to England after being sickened by what has become of her own country, and who becomes an unofficial adviser to Churchill about what makes Adolph Hitler tick. There is even Joseph Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Britain, who watches smugly, and almost hopefully, as Churchill's options become fewer and fewer, a man willing to mislead President Roosevelt despite the consequences.

Never Surrender is a suspenseful account of what one man achieved despite obstacles that would have stopped most men in their tracks. Faced with obstinate military leaders who would not follow orders, defeatist ministers who were ready to quit the fight, and self-doubts of his own, Churchill was still able to defy Hitler and to rescue more than three hundred thousand men from the beaches of Dunkirk, men who would live to fight another day. The world was lucky that Winston Churchill came along when he did. Michael Dobbs has done a remarkable job in explaining just how lucky.

Michael Dobbs does a superb job of breathing life into Churchill. Although we all know the outcome of the war, witnessing the events through Dobbs' creative hand makes them all the more real. Although firmly grounded in fact, Dobb's fiction takes readers into Churchill's soul in a most believeable - and suspenseful - way. The huge and complex character of Churchill is exposed warts and all but always magnificently, and the well-known events it deals with like the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk get brought vividly to life. I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the high politics centered in London and the agonies of war witnessed from the mud through the character of Donald Chichester, the ambulance auxiliary in France - two totally contrasting heroes of the book, Churchill the aging warrior, and Donald the young conscientious objector. And could Joe Kennedy, the US ambassador to Britain at that time, have been such a villain? Dobbs lays him bare. I know it's a novel, but for me it brought home the truth of warfare much more effectively than many history books I've read. I found the characters gripping, they got me thinking, and I was left wondering which bits were fact and what was the fiction - and wanting to find out more. A great read.
It's about time that Dobbs is getting better US exposure. We want more!

... when they follow a truly great first book of a series. In this case, I for one might have rated Never Surrender higher, had it not been the sequel to such a wonderful book as Winston's War. Compared to its predecessor Never Surrender seems average in spite of being well written, probably because the cast of characters surrounding Churchill seems lacklustre compared to the witty and merciless portraits of for instance Guy Burgess, Brendan Bracken and Neville Chamberlain in Winston's War.

On a general level, Never Surrender deserves praise for managing to keep the reader in suspense until the very end in spite of dealing with historical events with a well known outcome. I understand there is to be another sequel, which will hopefully deal less with Churchill's emotional state and more with the political machinations of Whitehall during the war.

Michael Dobb's novel, "Never Surrender" is a stirring, fictionalized account of Winston Churchill's rallying of the British nation against the forces of Hitler in May 1940. The novel follows Churchill as he is thrust into the position of Prime Minister even as the BEF and French armies are retreating rapidly in the face of the Wehrmacht.

The novel by and large succeeds in retailing this important story, casting Churchill not as a towering giant above petty fears and bickering, but rather as a man plagued by doubt and haunted by the specter of his father. The political machinations of Churchill's enemies make up a sizable portion of this narrative, as does a subplot surrounding a strained father-son relationship amid the background of the war.

In all, this is an enjoyable novel and hammers home the instrumental character of Churchill in the opening days of the Second World War. John Lukacs notes in his non-fiction account of the same subject, "Five Days in London", that Churchill may not have won the war in May, 1940, but he alone didn't lose it. "Never Surrender" is a wonderful read about one of the crucial figures of the 20th century.

Every year brings surprises in the life of a reader! This year I have become enamored of Michael Dobb's excellent series on Winston Churchill's leadership of Great Britain during World War II.
Never Surrender is a short novel dealing with the dark days following Churchill's becoming Prime Minister on May 10, 1940. On this day the Nazis invaded Belguim, France and Luxembourg. What a horrible kettle of fish to greet Churchill upon taking the reigns of power from the mortally ill and weak Conservative PM Neville Chamberlain. Churchill had to wage war against Germany and the appeasers such as Lord Halifax who served in the British Cabinet. Winston was distrusted by many, disliked by King George VI and thought to be a reckless warlover who was alcoholic, mecurial, gruff and a spotlight grabber. He may have been some of these things but he was most certainly a british bulldog who would never surrender! Churchill drafted the English language to the cause of freedom and through his oratory and grit led Britain from the valley of despair.
In addition to the political and military malaise Mr. Churchill faced the author also introduces us to such intriguing characters as:
Ruth Mueller-A German anti-Nazi who meets Churchill. She chides him for his personality and declares that he need fight on against the forces of Adolf Hitler. Mueller had earlier done research on the life of the odious Hitler. She tells Churchill to break free of his obsession with his father Randolph's disapproval of him and become a great man.Mueller is also a door through which we enter the life of German refugees who were taken under custody on the Isle of Man by the British government. Mueller's thoughts allow us to go back into the earlier lives of both Churchill and Hitler. The scene in which Winston talks to his late father in a vision is a classic opener to this gut-wrenching novel.
Don Chichester is a C.O. who is assigned to a medical unit in Flanders. He participates in the retreat to Dunkirk meeting up with a French paratrooper and an interesting mutt he names Winston.
Rev. Chichester is Don's father. He is a vicar in Dover who partipates in the rescue of troops from Dunkirk. He is a veteran of World War I who saw his wife die in childbirth. He was part of a firing squad which executed a man during the Great World leading to his deep guilt over this action. He is unable to understand Don until a dramatic moment occurs in the final pages of the novel. A good, complex man who lets us see the reactiion of civilians and Christian believers to the darkest nadir of Britain's fortunes during the war.
We also meet many of Churchill's assistants such as Brendan Bracken and Max Beaverbrook in addition to soldiers in the Dunkirk miracle. Over 300,000 tommies and allied forces were evacuated from Dunkirk allowing them to fight another day. The RAF, British NAvy and civilian captained boats rescued the troops in one of history's most dramatic rescues.
An egregiously despicable character is JFK's womanizing, heavy drinking, boastful, untrustworthy and defeatest father Joseph Kennedy who was the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James.
Michael Dobbs books are a joy to the lover of historical fiction. He writes in a clear and easy to read and comprehend style. I plan on reading all of the novels in the Churchill series. They are a delight.
The free world is very fortunate that Winston Churchill led England during World War II. He was not perfect but he was on the side of freedom and the good angels. Bless his sacred memory!

I picked this book up on the sale table at a bookstore (sorry Amazon) and found it so compelling that I had to order the others in this series by Michael Dobbs (from Amazon this time). I day-dreamed through most of my history classes but have found that some of the current "historical fiction" and the well written non-fiction history books have drawn me into a sincere desire to study what I so foolishly skipped in my girlhood. I am also enjoying the reviews from all of you who have always valued our past.

By Geoff Fairclough. Author of "Rammi's Children."
I WAS THERE.
My memories could well have become distorted over the years, and 1940 was a year we should never forget.
In 1940 I was in my early teens, having been born in 1927, and so I read "Never Surrender" with a real sense of memories refreshed. I vividly recalled many of the real life characters that Michael Dobbs weaves into the early parts of the book: Halifax and Chamberlain, Butler, Field Marshall Gort, Earl Haig and the rest of the aristocratic mob that so nearly brought us to defeat. I also read the book with considerable enjoyment just as a novel, admiring Mr Dobbs craftsmanship as I did so. Nowadays we find it difficult to appreciate how out of touch with the rest of us our then leaders were, living as they did, cocooned in a rich man's artificial paradise. We can therefore surely also forgive Mr Dobbs' use of the device of slightly "over egging" many of the characters.
Perhaps "Ruth Mueller" was there to represent the little people of Europe and England? Those foolishly courageous people, who were prepared to go up against the mighty German Wehrmacht, pitchfork in hand. "Don?" is he there to do the same for the ill equipped and poorly led British Expeditionary Force?
Winston himself was a larger than life English eccentric, and we loved him for it. Yet we must not forget that the real heroes of those times were the British People, who inspired Churchill. Without their support Winston would still have been a lonely voice, a Cassandra crying alone in the wilderness. Thank you Michael.
As a post script I would add that Churchill read the mood of the people of Britain exactly right. There was never any talk of surrender or defeat that I can remember among us ordinary people. the assumption was always that we would win in the end.

The beginning of the Second World War was immensely challenging for the Allied nations. Hitler had been preparing for war ever since the establishment of his dictatorship, and the Allied powers were caught off guard. Dobbs is brilliant in his combination of fact and fiction to illustrate the genius of Churchill, and the great difficulties experienced by the United Kingdom in fighting Germany. This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in History.