Operation Kronstadt: The True Story of Honor, Espionage, and the Rescue of Britain's Greatest SpyTheMan with a Hundred Faces Review

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Operation Kronstadt: The True Story of Honor, Espionage, and the Rescue of Britain's Greatest SpyTheMan with a Hundred Faces ReviewI'll start by saying that it is a fascinating read. Yet it is rife with all sort of gratuitous mistakes and naivete. The plot revolves around (1) a story of Paul Dukes, British agent in Petrograd in 1919 and (2) operations of small British torpedo boat force in the same area and the famous raid of Kronstadt. So here goes:
- the adversaries of British boats ("Petropavlovsk" and "Andrei Pervozvanny") are consistently called battlecruisers. "Andrei" was a slow pre-dreadnought (not a dreadnought, as claimed) -- very far from battlecruiser. "Petropavlovsk" was a dreadnought (instead of pre-dreadnought, as suggested by Ferguson), by far more powerful of the two. Another capital ship, "Oleg" was not an armoured cruiser (this name was reserved for bigger and more heavily protected ships).
- there are more than a few passages like this: "With less than 10 days to go before the onset of the White Nights (the plans were in jeopardy)". There is no such thing as "onset of White Nights", contrary to what Fodor's travel guide may think. It's pretty darn White in the end of May, not much different from the middle of June.
- Krasnaya Gorka fort was not manned by "Ingrians", but by a regular Russian garrison. One can easily see how Sarin (a commandant of Terioki) babbled about Ingrians and how that babble was transferred into Gus Agar's diary, but this does not make it any more true (so much for valiant Ingrians holding out against Bolshevik onslaught, etc.).
- purported results of Kronstadt raid: "Petropavlovsk, Andrei Pervozvanni and Pamiat' Azova were all either sank or badly damaged". The truth is that Petropavlovsk was unscathed. Actually, the torpedo track reaching out to Petropavlovsk in the map makes no sense - the ship was pretty much screened by Andrei. Andrei itself took one hit (not two), Pamiat' Azova was sunk with one torpedo (not two). These inaccuracies would have been excusable if the book were published in 1925, but by now there is no sliver of doubt about the actual outcome of the attack.
And there is much more to be found in the gaffe department.
Generally, the book is full of over-dramatization - storms and squalls near Kronstadt (there cannot be any storm worthy of this name in this small body of water), horsemen dashing through Finnish pine forests (in close proximity to St.Petersburg and naval bases, there have always been good roads there), ever so formidable forts (manned by thoroughly degraded fighting force which lacked 90% of commanding officers) etc. etc. The book is written in a jovial, good-ol'-British-lad kind of style. I am used to seeing much more elegant and polished writing coming from British historians.
Well, all this being said, it is a fascinating read - it is the story itself which makes it difficult to put down the book.Operation Kronstadt: The True Story of Honor, Espionage, and the Rescue of Britain's Greatest SpyTheMan with a Hundred Faces OverviewPart Blackhawk Down, part The Riddle of the Sands, former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson has written an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller Operation Kronstadt not only reveals the early days of intelligence services but also uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a "mission impossible" against the best defended naval target in Russia. By May 1919, when the power struggle between former Tsarists and Bolsheviks hangs in the balance, the only British agent in Russia is trapped and in mortal danger. Mansfield Cumming (alias "the first C") dreams up an audacious-probably suicidal-plan to rescue him, and a young naval officer is sent with a specially selected team into the jaws of the Soviet fleet. This is the remarkable true story of the spy Paul Dukes (the only MI6 officer to be knighted for work in the field) and Gus Agar, whose extraordinary escapade won him the Victoria Cross.

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