Win a copy of 'The Wolf' by Richard Guilliatt and Peter Hohnen

16/06/2009

 By July 1917 the First World War was about to enter its fourth horrendous year and ships were mysteriously disappearing off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand.

 

An Australian woman named Mary Cameron sails with her husband and daughter across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney. Less than a thousand miles from their destination, a black-hulled freighter appears out of the vast blue emptiness, and Mary and her daughter rush to the deck to greet her. Suddenly, two hinged iron sections of the freighter's bulwarks drop down to reveal she is bristling with guns. She is in fact the German warship The Wolf, and the Cameron family are about to find themselves captive on one of the century's most extraordinary wartime sea voyages.

 

The Wolf was the most technically advanced fighting ship in the world, a masterpiece of deception concealing hydraulic 6-inch guns, torpedoes, and a hold packed with 100 tonnes of mines. Under the command of Kapitan Karl Nerger, the ship undertook a 64,000 mile voyage in which she traversed three of the world's major oceans, destroying more than thirty Allied vessels and capturing over 400 men, women and children.

 

Incredibly, during its fifteen-month journey The Wolfmaintained radio silence, remained undamaged and survived solely on fuel and food plundered from captured ships. It was an assignment so secret that she could never pull in to port.

 

In The Wolf, Richard Guilliatt & Peter Hohnen bring this little-known story to life by drawing on dozens of eyewitness accounts, unpublished memoirs, declassified government files, newspaper reports and family archives unearthed during three years of intensive research in several countries.

 

What emerges from these accounts is an extraordinary adventure story which shows the tremendous impact that one lone, audacious German warship made on the people of many nations during the final two years of the First World War.

 

The Wolf is published by Bantam Press on 18th June 2009, RRP £17.99 

 

 

Mature Times has 10 copies of the book to give away. For the chance to win a copy, just answer the following question.

 

Who directed the film 'Australia', starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman?

 

( If you're not sure , a review of the film appears in the Film Reviews Archive section of the Motoring & Leisure pages)

 

 

Competition closes 13th July 2009