A Major Hoodwink

In the darkest days of World War II, as the German forces swelled all the more ferociously, one man used his wit and audacity where his rank fell perilously short. With German General Wilhelm Daser and his men firmly planted in Middleburg in Holland, Major Hugh Johnston of the Royal Scots Regiment managed to alter the course of their occupation with little more than a hoodwink. After all, he had the love of his life, his wife Mary Kate, anxiously awaiting his return. A Major Hoodwink: How a Royal Scot Outwitted a German General is the spellbinding story of two people who met while studying in Edinburgh, Scotland, tracing their life together through the build up and reality of World War II, while also revealing how they managed to survive. A portrayal of the determination it took to succeed in these trying times, this stirring work of historical nonfiction written by their son Rory Johnston recounts the defining moment in his parent's lives, and how they did what was necessary to protect the British way of life against the evils of Nazism. After discovering a cache of letters between his father and mother in a secretaire in 2012, Johnston was able to piece together the remarkable circumstances of the Royal Scots' invasion of the Dutch fortress of Walcheren, when German forces two-thousand-men strong met with Allied ranks of a mere one hundred and forty. Referencing Major Johnston's letters to his beloved wife while enlisted, A Major Hoodwink: How a Royal Scot Outwitted a German General also provides a new understanding of the essential role played by the 7th/9th Royal Scots in WWII, as well as the role of the Dutch Resistance. A rigorously researched, deeply felt account of a military event that was in many ways as seminal as D Day, this absorbing testament to the triumph over evil will resonate with anyone who has an interest in military affairs or simply revels in a romance that survived a chaotic world.