Hamish Wilson interviews Len Deighton

Hamish: 

Fighter is a history not a novel. What moved you to write a history as
opposed to a novel? 

L.D.

With "Bomber", by taking just a twenty four hour period I could tell the
whole story that I wanted to - which was just one raid from the moment
it was planned to the moment that the raid was over and the crews went
back to bed again. I couldn't do that with the Battle of Britain - I 've
always felt that fiction does benefit from the Greek "Unities", unity of
space, time and action, and since I couldn't, with 'Bomber', have unity
of space and I didn't have unity of action, in as much as it did have to
cut from place to place, I thought I must have very tight unity of time
and I condensed it down to that - with the Battle of Britain I felt that
any kind of fictional story of that sort would be weakened by the very
long time span and I also decided that some people wouldn't believe some
of the stories. For instance, Goering's mother sleeping with the
landlord, the way in which the British Air Ministry harrassed poor
Dowding, sacked him and chucked him out of office at twenty-four hours
notice or the way the milch ran down the Junkers 88 simply for political
reasons - mad sort of stuff like that. I think a writer would have to be
pretty bold to expect a reader of fiction to believe that so l decided
this material would have more impact if I made sure it was all factual
and wrote it as a factual book .

Hamish

You've got a fairly concise bibliography at the end ot the book and you
refer to Richard Collier's book "Eagle Day" as having a more extensive
bibliography. You also said that you started out by making a reading
list and going through that. How much primary source research did you
do?

L.D.

I didn't start off reading about the Battle of Britain. I started off
when I was re searching "Bomber" talking to German pilots about the
Battle of Britain. I think this was simply because they knew I was
English and so much of the research on the Luftwaffe is done by
Americans (Americans seem to be very keen on the German Airforce and so
on) but, of course, the Americans are not very interested in the Battle
of Britain and so when the Germans found I was English they would often
say things about the time of the Battle and I wrote this material down,
not with the idea of making it into a book but perhaps using it in a
story or something like that. But I began to be intrigued... I had
wondered whether the scores that the Germans put in - these things of
three hundred 'planes, it seemed to me to be extremely unlikely. But
after talking to the Germans I was very quickly convinced that their
claims were more rigorously examined than the Allied claims were. I was
talking to a lot of German fighter pilots - I found it very difficult to
find night fighter pilots and particularly difficult to find night
fighter pilots who had flown Junkers 88s so that I would often find
myself talking to single engined fighter pilots and I wouldn't stop them
in full flight - if they wanted to talk about the Battle of Britain I'd
let them talk on. Of course the same to a lesser extent when I was
talking to the RAF people for "Bomber", though it was a very different
Air Force in 1943. Then the Air Force consisted of 19-year old Sergeant
Pilots who, though they were not conscripts, were part of a conscriptive
system, whereas the pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain were
professionals, very few of whom had not been at least auxiliary Air
Force pilots before the war.

But I still encountered a lot of people who would talk about the Battle
of Britain so by the time, in 1970, when I began to read systematically
about the Battle, I had a lot of anecdotes already. Of course, I did
find that just because a man was present at a happening doesnt mean to
say that he will remember it accurately nor that he will tell you the
truth about it if he was. I found that people would very often
misremember things and I had to evolve a sort of - I hope you won't
think it underhanded - test to try to discover how accurate people's
memories were. For instance, I made notes about the time when certain
sorts of flares were dropped (on "Bomber"), the date they were
introduced and the date that the squadrons got battle dress uniforms and
so on, then I would inject in my questioning some thing like:- "About
that time would you be wearing battle dress uniforms?'' - something like
that...this gave me an idea of how accurately they were remembering. But
I would still find people saying very strange things - misremembering
things - in a way they wanted to remember them, so I think essentially
"Fighter" is based on documentary evidence. Mind you, I used to find it
quite frightening when someone would say something that was really
shattering and I'd think "My God, now I've got to go back and check all
that. This is going to take me another month!" One got this terrible
kind of reactionary way of hoping that someone wasn't going to tell you
something too surprising because you knew it was going to be weeks and
weeks of labour trying to track it down to find out if it was right or
not. I'll tell you a story - a typical example of the kind of thing I'm
talking about was when I went to a little German village of the sort I'd
chosen for my fictional raid in "Bomber" and I wanted to question a
civilian about what it had been like during the War. It was jolly
difficult to find somebody who had been a civilian during the War. Most
people had been in uniform and away on the Russian Front or something -
just finding people who remembered the War from the civilian point of
view wasn't easy. But I found this man and I said to him (we were in
this big Beer Hall), "You must have come here often during the War?"
"Oh, yes." "Well", I said, "Imagine it's the War now. Imagine that we're
all sitting here and it's the War." "Yes." "Well, how many people are in
uniform here?" "Oh, about three-quarters of them are in uniform" and I
said "Well, what kind of uniform are they wearing?" ''Most of them are
in NSKK uniform". Now this was the Kraftfahr Korps, the people who
trained the tank drivers eventually but also the truck drivers,
motorcyclists and so on. I thought that that was rather odd but
eventually I discovered that there had been an NSKK Depot nearby which
would account for that, So next I asked, "What are they all drinking?"
and he said, "Water," ' 'Really7" I said, "That's very strange. You mean
that everyone in here would be drinking water?" "Oh," he said, "During
the war everyone was drinking water.'' and I said, "Really?" and I
picked up a jug of water from the table and I said, "like this?" He
said, "well, more or less like that, slightly coloured." "What colour?"
"Brown" he said. "Do you mean that everyone was drinking brown water in
here during the War?" "Yes,'' he said earnestly. He was an elderly man
with no discernable sense of humour. I thought he was pulling my leg so
I said, "Well, what did people ask for when they went to the counter to
get their water?" and he said "Oh, they asked for beer."

Now had I not pursued that kind of information relentlessly, it would
have been easy to have taken him at his word and put down that people
were drinking water. It is the sort of trap that lies in wait and it's
really more assuring when people affirm the work you have already done.
There is a lot of exciting material that can be done in the way of tape
recording and talking to people. From my own point of view, it's much
more emotionally satisfying and exciting talking to people but this has
to be put together with confirmation from written sources. It's got to
fit together otherwise there are these terrible pitfalls. So "Fighter"
is put together from - well, a lot of the material has been published
before. I wouldn't say that the book is going to contain a great deal of
revelations for the expert. These are things which most experts will
know. Perhaps an expert in one area will be surprised by something I've
dug up from an expert in another area but it is essentially an assembly
of material putting together perhaps a bigger and broader look at the
Battle of Britain than has been published before, rather than containing
any particularly amazing things. If I had wanted to include, or had
found a lot of new things, I would have published a list of sources at
the end but I could see no point as I wasn't being sensational and I
wanted to keep the cost of the book down and so on. So I had the choice
of putting in a bibliography of books which people could get their hands
on or a much longer one. A bibliography can become an exercise in ego
for a writer and consist of pages of books which are very difficult to
get hold of and perhaps are in foreign languages and so on. In ''Eagle
Day" the author, Richard Collier, has done a marvellous job in finding
what sources are avilable so I put in my book that if anyone wanted a
really fantastic bibliography that was the place to go .

Hamish

In your acknowledgements at the end of the book you thank all the
wargamers who helped test your theories... and this is the first time
you mention wargames in your books.You based an entire book ''Spy Story"
on a wargame. Are you a wargamer?

L.D.

I'm a life subscriber to ''Strategy & Tactics" but where I live in a
remote part of the country, and it is remote, I don't have much
opportunity. But when I lived in London, back in the fifties, I was a
member of the British Model Soldier Society which, at that time, was
doing some quite interesting wargames - large scale wargames with teams
working and, strictly as an observer, I liked going. I found that when
they did the naval actions that I particularly enjoyed them, especially
when the teams were separated and were not given an opportunity to see
the floor and so on, as an observer, one had this marvellous, God-like
feeling of being able to watch the game going on while each team had no
absolutely clear idea.

Hamish

This is very much figure gaming. What about board gaming? You've done a
bit of that? 

L.D.

Well, yes I have, but I've played with people who are no better than I
am - I mean I'm no expert, I'm not really good at it. I find it amusing
and if I want to know something I'm more likely to write off to someone
and ask their opinion because I think I'm pretty fallible as a wargamer.

Hamish

But the gaming to which you refer in "Fighter'' - was this done, for
instance, on the SPUK board for "Sealion''?

L.D.

That was done by some people who were trying to improve on... 

Hamish

Was it Lou Zocchi's ''Battle of Britain" game? 

L.D.

Yes - I think it was that.... they were trying to extend it into a
bigger game but in ''Spy Story''....originally "Spy Story" began because
of a letter from a wargamer. Perhaps I should tell you that  - that was
the origin of that story. A chap wrote to me and said "Did you know that
'Bomber' was a very good basis for a wargame?" He didn't mean
commercially but that it could be adapted for wargaming because of the
gun shooting and the night fighter and so on. He thought that all that
would adapt very well. I wrote back to him - we exchanged a few letters
and I became very interested in that thought and I suppose I was toying
with the idea of trying to design a war game. I mean it was a very silly
idea because I really am not clever enough - I don't have the sort of
mathematical mind that one would need to do it. But then I thought I
could write a story in which people were playing a wargame. I knew that
when I did I would require a sort of board to explain it to the
audience. This is the aspect of ''Spy Story" that professionals - I mean
they've been very kind about it - have pointed out to me as being
inaccurate in the sense that there wouldn't be a board - there's only a
lot of data being churned out by machines. But I required the board in
order that my characters could look at it and notice something
physically going on and so I evolved a sort of war game idea and I
thought it would be interesting to show the way in which the little
plastic counters in the game are a matter of life and death and flesh
and blood when they're translated into reality so I tried to write a
book in which we are able to see all this happening in terms of plastic
and formica but also to see it happening in the submarine under the sea.
When I was writing it the American electronic interception ship, ''The
Pueblo ', I think it was, was captured and I figured that it would be
sensible to put such electronic interception equipment into a submarine
because it would make it more adaptable and elusive and so on. About a
month or two after the book was out, someone leaked the information that
that's what the Americans were doing and that they had electronic
submarines. I suppose that it wasn't so secret...I'm sure that if I
could regard it as a logical development the Russians had long since
seen it that way.

Hamish

You're a lifetime subscriber to S&T. How long have you been subscribing?

L.D.

Oh - well, I think I've got nearly all their copies. I think I was very
interested in the break down for the war games. I found that their
descriptions of the political events leadings up to the game was very,
very useful and at first I photostated that material and put it on file
in my references then I thought even though a lot of the things weren't
of any interest to me that it seemed worthwhile to have all the copies
of their magazine and then I think they wanted to put in a computer or
something and they had this special offer for a hundred dollars you
could become a life subscriber, so I bought a life subscription and a
few months later a letter arrived saying "could you tell us your correct
age?'' and I realised that they must have taken on all those life
subscriptions without checking up people's ages and that they feared
there were going to be all these Methuselahs taking their magazine for
eternity. They weren't qoing to come out of that very well. But I look
forward to reading the book and I also think that's it's a beautifully
designed book. I usually get the games. They did that very, very good
one, didn't they, about the Pacific? Do you remember that one? Very,
very complicated - that one.

Hamish

Do you mean U.S.N?

L.D.

Yes, that's right. That's a very good one.... it's a big one though. I
often get all the pieces out and just sort of look at the game, not
really playing it at all but simply reading the rules and trying to get
a look at the way the game would be pla,yed. The things I have played
have been Eastern Front games. I think for the average wargamer they are
probably the easiest to understand or translate from having read
military history into wargaming. I think they're the most
straightforward .

Hamish

U.S.N. is one of the biggest ones. They've done a whole series of
Eastern Front games. All different aspects of the Eastern Front from
"Barbarossa"....

L.D.

"Barbarossa'' - yes, I've got that one. I've played that.

Hamish

The biggie is "War in the East'' which has become "War In Europe''. Have
you played that?

L.D.

No, I've not played that. I've heard of it but I've not played it. I
would rather like to go to a War Games Convention and see things being
played.

Hamish

There is one in October, just outside Manchester.

L.D.

Oh - is there? There's an attractive idea because there's a stamp
exhibition just after then that I'd like to go to.

Hamish

We'll see if we can't get that organised. Back to the games - you like
the smaller ones like ''Barbarossa". How about things like "Winter War"?

L.D.

I have that but I've not played it. It's another one of those things
where I've laid it all out and looked at it but I've not played it.

Hamish

Napoleonic? 

L.D.

No, I'm not so interested - I mean I like reading about the Napoleonic
Wars. I think the thing that started me on that is a book by David
Chandler. I think it's a marvellous book. I remember when it came out -
I bought it and went through it. I find Napoleon an absolutely obnoxious
character, I can find no real difference between him and Hitler. I mean
the idea of the French, who are truly great lovers of freedom and
democracy accepting as a national hero a man who was a tyrant and a
bully and a most obnoxious man is a very strange circumstance of their
history, I think. But it is easy to see why it is probably one of the
most popular areas for wargamers and model soldiers but I haven't gone
into it very deeply.

Hamish

Finally if you had one choice of one magnificent board wargame to be
produced especially for you to play, what would it be?

L.D.

Definitely the Pacific. The Americans versus the Japanese in the
Pacific. I think I like the open spaces the air the movement of the
carrie;s. I think that the Carrier War in the Pacific would be my
choice.

Copyright Hamish Wilson 1977