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Brown on Resolution

Started by TaosGlock, December 25, 2017, 01:15:02 AM

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TaosGlock

Another DOM type of book. Fiction, but good.

The story of how a single British Rifleman mired a German ship in port for nearly 2 days while it needed repairs, thus allowing the allies to catch up with the German ship and destroy it.


WARNING: like the book and movie, "No Country for Old Men", there is no happy ending.

The story opens on the (fictitious) volcanic island of Resolution in the Galápagos, during WWI, where a wounded British sailor is dying of blood loss and thirst. Then the novel goes back in time of how Brown came to be on Resolution Island.

Leading Seaman Albert Brown is the son of Agatha Brown, a middle-class religiously brought-up woman who conceives him as a result of a five-day fling in 1897 with a young naval officer, Lieutenant-Commander Richard Saville-Samarez. Agatha is resourceful, and as she has her own income she is able to leave her disapproving family and take lodgings, where she represents herself as a widow.

She brings up Albert to believe that it is his duty to join the Navy, which he does after his mother's early death. He is posted to HMS Charybdis and at the outbreak of the first world war he finds himself in the Pacific. His ship is sunk in a battle with the German cruiser Ziethun; there are only three survivors, of whom he is one (the others are severely wounded). They were rescued/captured by the Germans.
Ziethun was holed beneath the waterline in the battle and her captain decides to take her into the natural harbor of Resolution to effect repairs.

While these are going on Brown slips over the side with a rifle and ammunition and swims to the shore, where he establishes himself on a vantage point overlooking the ship. He shoots numerous Germans, both those carrying out the repairs and others who are sent in a landing party to capture or kill him. In this way he delays the departure of the ship for 48 hoursâ€"long enough for a British battle cruiser that was in pursuit to arrive and sink her  a couple hours later just after she left the island.

Just a few hours before, Brown was wounded by a lucky German shot and is alone and dying, almost dead, upon the razor sharp lava, amid the spiny cactus, and among dozens of spent rifle shells on Resolution Island in the Galapagos group. He finally dies soon after the departure of the German ship. He knows nothing of her fate and thinks he has failed. The irony of the situation is compounded by the fact that the captain of the British cruiser is his father, Samarez, who never knew of his son's existence.

I won't spoil the actual "Rifleman" parts where Brown basically snipes at the Germans a few hundred yards away.

There were a couple movies made of this book called Brown on Resolution, 1935 and the Sailor and the King, 1953.

The book was originally out in 1929, my original copy is dated 1963 and as a young boy I remembered reading it.
Might be available on Kindle.

The images I got of Brown shooting Germans came alive when I read it. He was sniping at the Germans with his Gewehr M98 and the 7.92x57JS ammo. Every squirrel and rabbit I saw with my old Monkey Wards 22  was a prime target for me to act out like Brown on Resolution.

Years later I picked the book up again, a couple years before my first Appleseed.
Then, shortly after that I read Paul Revere's Ride as recommended by Fred in Shotgun News.
A couple years later I did my first Appleseed and heard stories of other DOM.
It all came together for me at that point.

Rifle used:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/living-history/german/german-weapons/german-rifles/gewehr-98-standard-german-infantry-rifle-of-world-war-i




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