Helpful Score: 1
An interesting personal story of life in war time Spain, and the British, and latter American, attempts to keep that fascist country neutral during WW II. The story centers around the author's father who was the press secretary for the British embassy and was heavily engaged in helping keep Spain neutral.
Two bits of WW II trivia I found interesting were: 1) Rick's Bar in the movie "Casablanca" was based on a real bar, Charlie's Bar, in Tangier; 2) the supposed death by drowning of a British Marine major carrying secret plans the Germans were suppose to see, and which was the basis for the movie "The Man Who Never Was," was actually questioned by a young Spanish doctor who did the post-mortem and kept the information that the man didn't die by drowning until after the war, as the doctor hated the Nazis.
However, while the book is not really all that interesting as it is basically a biography of the author's father, it did lead me to order another book on how the British and Americans kept Spain neutral, with more details than offered in this book.
Two bits of WW II trivia I found interesting were: 1) Rick's Bar in the movie "Casablanca" was based on a real bar, Charlie's Bar, in Tangier; 2) the supposed death by drowning of a British Marine major carrying secret plans the Germans were suppose to see, and which was the basis for the movie "The Man Who Never Was," was actually questioned by a young Spanish doctor who did the post-mortem and kept the information that the man didn't die by drowning until after the war, as the doctor hated the Nazis.
However, while the book is not really all that interesting as it is basically a biography of the author's father, it did lead me to order another book on how the British and Americans kept Spain neutral, with more details than offered in this book.
