Prior to reading this book, the most I had read of HE Bates were his stories of the Larkin family (The Darling Buds of May and the subsequent novels). This book, written during the Second World War, is very different from those, although the style of writing is very similar.

Fair Stood the Wind for France tells the tale of an RAF pilot called John Franklin during the Second World War. He and his crew are forced to land in France when something goes wrong on their flight back from a bombing trip to Germany. Somehow they have to find their way through France and back to England, but considering they can only have landed in Occupied France or Vichy France, the only way they will manage that it with civilian help. They find it (of course) in the form of a young girl, Françoise, and her family, who live on a farm in Occupied France.

I enjoyed this book very much. It was very solemn, and lacked the humour of the other Bates' books I have read, but then given the subject matter that's not very suprising. Although written entirely in English, you do feel as though you are in France throughout, and I genuinally felt very nervous for the characters. It makes you believe. This may partly be because the book was written when HE Bates was himself an RAF pilot during the war, and because the impression of Occupied France is very accurate. Situations such as the occupying Germans taking hostages and shooting them in retaliation against French resistance, really did take place, but this book is not a study of the nature of the German occupiers, or of the French Resistance or even of the effect of war on France. The subject of the book is the effect of the war on John Franklin, well, not even that in fact, the effect of this event on John Franklin. But the effect is considerable.

This novel is relatively short and is probably not the most in-depth novel about the Second World War, but then the topic is so vast, could any book achieve that title? And this book is by no means shallow. It looks at one story, one event, in a thoughtful, sypathetic, honest way, and, perhaps most importantly of all, tells a good story.

A Word about the Author

HE Bates was born in 1905 at Rushden in Northamptonshire, and was educated at Kettering Grammar School. His first novel (The Two Sisters) was published in 1925 when he was only 20 years old, after he worked as a journalist and clerk on a local newspaper. Over the next fifteen years, he achieved a distinguished reputation for novels on English country life.

During the Second World War HE Bates was a Squadron Leader in the RAF, and wrote several stories of service life under a pseudonym - 'Flying Officer X', including one of his most popular and well known novels, Fair Stood the Wind for France. He also wrote several novels set in India and Burma, based on his experiances in the eastern theatre of war. He married his wife, Madge, in 1931 and they had four children including a son, Richard, who was joint exuctive producer on the Yorkshire Television production of The Darling Buds of May. He was awarded the CBE in 1973.

HE Bates died in 1974.

Bibliography: The Two Sisters (1925), The Purple Rain, The Jacaranda Tree, The Scarlet Sword, Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944), The Triple Echo (1971), The Song of the Wren (1972), The Day of Glory (1945), The Modern Short Story (1941), The White Admiral (1968), The Yellow Meads of Asphodel (1976 - published posthumously).

Books written as 'Flying Officer X' - The Greatest People in the World (1942), How Sleep the Brave (1943), and The Face of England (1953).

Books about the Larkin family - The Darling Buds of May, When the Green Woods Laugh, Oh! To be in England and A Little of What You Fancy.

Autobiographical books - The Vanished World (1969), The Blossoming World (1971), The World in Ripeness (1972).

HE Bates Enclyclopedia entry

Collaboration and Collaborationism - an article about Occupied France.

Larry's Bomber Command - a site about the RAF Bomber Command and specific raids.

The Darling Buds of May - a site about the TV series based on HE Bates' novels.

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