Thor's Anvil

Author’s Note:

Dear Readers,

As you may have noticed, I’m a serious and lifelong student of WWII. I can remember reading Sink the Bismarck in Middle School, and have loved all the battles on sea and land ever since. A warmonger? No. A man in love with this history? Yes. So please pardon me if I build a level of detail into these stories to properly honor that history, and the men and women who lived it through. Sometimes the outcome of a battle or entire campaign can hinge on one division, one regiment, one battalion, even one man. I try to go to each of those levels in my recounting of the war, Strategic, Operational and Tactical. And I try to give you a chair in the briefing rooms, and sometimes even get you inside the heads of all the main historical figures.

In the author interview for this book, I talk more about all this, and why my understanding of the history reaches deeper than the sweeping overall strategy of things. But I haven’t lost sight of where the series all began, on that ship in the Norwegian Sea. I know some of you are out there just wanting to walk that deck. Don’t worry, there will be lots more action featuring the original cast and crew to come. Yet the series isn’t just named after that ship, but also the man that gave the ship his name. One of the principal historical figures is young Mironov—Sergei Kirov, and his struggle to save his nation is at the heart of this story. The lines of fate run through him in very many ways, and his tale will continue in this volume, along with Fedorov’s mission.

That man now guides the history that gave rise to the ship that launched this series. In that light, please understand that the retelling of that history is now my overweening vision for the series as a whole. The life and survival of Kirov, the ship, and all the crew, depend on the outcome of this war. The entire question concerning the Grand Finality raised by Elena Fairchild and Paul Dorland rests on the plates I’m stacking up in this kitchen. Will the altered history ever give rise to the building of that ship? The crew of Kirov shattered the original history, and now I am doing my best to piece it back together, and their fate rides in the balance.

Some, like Karpov, have jumped into that history wholeheartedly, intending to win; to make it their own. Others, like Fedorov and Volsky, remained deeply conflicted about what they were doing. Over time, they come to see that they can never hope to restore things as they were. That admission means their lives are now on the altar I am building to that history, come what may. They must decide what they will do now to see it all through to a conclusion. I will do the same.

A lot of you write to me with comments, questions, suggestions or just to say what you like most about the series, or what you want to see next. Some tell me they wait for the next historical segment, the retelling of the war that is now part of the great labor of the series. Some say they want that material less detailed, while others ask for more. Some say they love the character based segments, both with the main characters aboard Kirov, and with the historical characters. Some want the naval action, others the land battles. In this offering, I will try to please you all.

I have a lot of ground to cover here. We last left the Pacific Theater on the 5th of May with that big carrier duel that became “the Battle of the Koro Sea.” That ran in tandem with the confrontation between Takami and Kirov in the Sea of Okhotsk. Now we return to the Pacific to catch up on what has been happening after Takami broke off and Kurita wisely retired from that engagement.

After that, I have six or seven chapters for you on the conduct and outcome of Fedorov’s mission, and its consequences. There will be a brief recap of what has been going on with Rommel and Patton, and that takes us to the halfway mark. The last half of the book will then be devoted to the east front, the struggle at Volgograd, and the Russian Winter Counteroffensive continues with yet another bold thrust by Zhukov in “Operation Jupiter.” I hope you enjoy it as much as I did while writing it, the research, the men, the battles.

Fear not! We return to Kirov big time in 1943. One Vladimir Karpov is about to take off the gloves….