It is indeed the Jack Higgins book, made into a great movie starring Micheal Caine as Oberst Leutnent Steiner- a true soldier and a Fallschirmjaeger (paratrooper), with his father a ranking Wehrmacht General Oberst--Robert Duvall plays the Oberst in the Abwehr, who develops the plot to capture Churchill in Nov 1944 when he was planning a week-end retreat to the North Coastal area of England. Himmler approved this plan, thought with Winnie as hostage they could sue for peace and end the war they were losing daily by then--
Some of the idea for this came from the successful rescuse of Hitler's Henchman pal Benito Mussolini-in Septemeber of 1943- Mussolini was held prisoner in a Italian Alp area retreat, thought to be invincible from ground forces. Oberst Otto Skorzensky and his men did daring jump, overpowered the guards and rescused El Duce- Hitler personally decorated Otto with a Knights Cross with diamonds and oak leaves-
Donald Sutherland plays the IRA operative who works as a game keeper for the Abwehr on a marsh estate area where Sir Winston is due to visit- great plot, the last movie I believe directed by John Sturges--
The Luftwaffe comes into play a bit, and a Ace fighter pilot is chosen to fly the aircraft for Steiner's mission- He has been denied the Knights Cross, for Luftwaffe pilots this was usually presented by Goering personally at a weekend event- involving hunting and a lot of schnapps too- at Karinhall- This pilot was denied this prestigious award, as he made the mistake of telling Goering face to face that the British Supermarine Spitfire was a bit better at close quarters dogfighting, better turn and bank agility I heard that the ME 109 Series German fighter planes.
There may well be some truth to that, in the Pacific theatre our pilots and aviators learned that the fast Jap ZEKE- Zero fighter had one major weakness (besides no armor- like the famed Republic P47 Thunderbolt carried for example)- if a pilot could push a Zero in making a right bank turn, often the Zero would stall and be a 'sitting duck"-
The plot fails, but Steiner and his men were sentenced to a suicide torpedo team as punishment for an incident which shows to me that not all the Germans, civilians or military, were despots like Hitler, Himmler and Goering- Steiner, as a decorated Lt. Col. encounters a Waffen SS unit under command of a General, loading jewish civilians onto a train somewhere in Poland- a girl tries to escape and Steiner protects her, holds the SS General at bay with his Walther pistol- to save his men who stand with him in this brave action, from being shot by the superior number of SS forces, he surrenders- He is then later picked for this "suicide mission" and his General father is held prisoner by Himmler as 'insurance"
Great story- Jack Higgins is one of the best, and his research into this scenario is First Rate- see the 1976 movie "Der Adler ist gelandet" The Eagle has landed-- much better than the earlier 1968 movie with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton- "Wo Adleren sich traven"- Where Eagles dare-
