29 May A wartime story of sabotage and heroism

And now for something completely different… WWII Allied engineer Tom Barnes became a hero to the Greek people – even making a fictionalised appearance in the novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – for his bravery and quick thinking during Operation Harling, an undercover mission to blow up a bridge playing a key part in Rommel’s supply lines to troops preparing for the Battle of El Alamein. But Tom’s story has never been fully told – until now.

In The Sabotage Diaries, award-winning writer and the daughter-in-law he would never meet, Katherine Barnes, recreates Tom’s tales of wartime heroism, in his own words, based on the clues he left behind: a compass disguised as a button; a secret map printed on silk clothing to evade enemy detection; his often coded diaries. The result is what Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph calls “A thrilling tale that could be straight out of the pages of an action adventure novel … a remarkable and highly readable tale of a little known World War II operation”.

You can read more below, in an article Katherine wrote especially for The Daily Telegraph.