Robert Harling was a key figure in twentieth-century graphic design, editor before the war of Typography and later House & Garden, which he edited between 1957 until his retirement in 1993, and typographic advisor to the Sunday Times for almost forty years. At the start of the war, and being a keen sailor, Harling joined the RNVR and took part in the Dunkirk evacuation, before serving on Atlantic convoy duty. His close friend Ian Fleming later recruited him to 30AU, known as 'Fleming's Commandos, ' where he spent the rest of the war operating in naval intelligence and on the front line. He is the author of eighteen books, including half a dozen novels, books on typography, architecture and artists such as Eric Ravilious and Eric Gill, and a memoir of his friendship with Ian Fleming. He died in 2008.
Description
This is a classic, absorbing and realistic work which more than almost any other Second World War naval memoir leaves the reader with an unforgettable impression of what the war at sea was really like. (from the Introduction) "This is a fitting memorial to the 'Tombless Dead' and if, dear reader, you don't read another memoir, you should read this one!" --Martin Willoughby, The Wessex Branch of the Western Front Association "A jolly good yarn." --Australian Naval Institute--Derek Law