From time to time there appears a novel about

World War II that captures the imagination ot

everyone who reads it, and it becomes a major,

international best seller.

The Eagle Has Landed and Eye of the Needle

were such books.

Hammerstrike is another.

It is quite simply one of the best and most excit-

ing novels to come out of World War II--the en

thralling, dramatic account of a secret event that

might have changed the outcome of the war, and

perhaps almost did...

It is the autumn of 1942. The war is going badly

for the Germans. In a daring bid to win favor in

Hitler s eyes and to tip the scales of war, Reichs-

marschall Goering has instructed a brilliant and

heroic Luftwaffe ace, Generalmajor von Stuerz-

becher, to mastermind an ingenious plan for the

simultaneous mass escape of German POWs from

Britain.

Codenamed "Operation Hammer," this top-

secret plan embodies Hitler s hopes of throwing

British security into total disarray at a critical

moment in the war, thus giving Germany a chance

to regain the military initiative she has lost.

Von Stuerzbecher, is to be the chosen instru-

ment of Germany s brilliant thrust at the very heart

of the enemy--until he vanishes, together with

his secret, after a meeting with the Fuhrer.

Late in November, an attractive, daring and

undisciplined German officer, who speaks perfect

English, hears with amazement that the serious

charges of drunkenness and assault on which he

is being held in military prison are to be mysteri-

ously dropped. Instead, Oberleutnant Christian

Eicke, demoted from his rank in the Waffen SS,

disgraced and politically suspect, is urgently

summoned to SS Headquarters in Berlin.

Von Stuerzbecher, it is learned, has been shot

down and interned in Skiddaw POW camp, in the

north of England.