The Guns of Navarone

Author : Alistair MacLean

The Guns of Navarone is a well-known 1957 novel about World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean that was made into an equally acclaimed The Guns of Navarone film in 1961. The Greek island of Navarone does not exist and the plot is fictitious; however, the story takes place within the real historical context of Dodecanese Campaign - the Allies' campaign to capture the German-held Greek islands in the Aegean in 1943. The name Navarone could well be a take from the Bay of Navarinon located in the western tip of Peloponnese in Southern Greece. It was in this bay that the Ottoman Fleet was destroyed during the Greek struggle for independence in the early 19th century. 'Navarinon' was also the code name of an 1944 Allied secret operation to destroy German guns that dominated the Straits of Kythera in Southern Greece. Alistair MacLean spent some time around these straits during his service with the British navy in WWII and could well have heard of this operation.