Description
An Operational Necessity by Gwyn Griffin Novel Hardcover Book 1967. It is this delicate balance which forms the heart of Mr. Griffin's most important novel to date. A powerful and superbly written story of wartime murder in the South Atlantic in World War II, followed by guilt and retribution, and climaxed by one of the most electrifying courtroom scenes in modern fiction. "In war at sea the killing of shipwrecked persons who have taken refuge in life-boats is forbidden," declared the Supreme Court of the German Reich. At the same time, a combatant in direct peril may claim exemption from certain articles of The Laws and Usages of War as "an operational necessity." Yet it is a claim which must, of its very nature, be immensely difficult perhaps nearly impossible-to justify adequately after the event. It is this delicate balance which forms the heart of Mr. Griffin's most important novel to date.