Townend, William Red Ensign-White Ensign

Townend’s novel looks back to the years immediately before World War 2 in this work dating to 1942. His protagonist, marine engineer David Kilver, is a naive man working for a pro-German shipping line. Under the spell of love, he fails to recognize either the broad threat of fascism or the more immediate threats of German spies whom he encounters in Alexandria. All this changes once war begins: David’s ship is sunk by the GRAF SPEE and he briefly becomes a prisoner in the German naval vessel ALTMARK. When rescued, he quickly changes to the White Ensign (i.e., joins the Royal Navy). The May 9, 1942 Times Literary Supplement’s somewhat damning review of Red Ensign-White Ensign was written by no less a personage than British maritime novelist H.M. Tomlinson. In it he notes “The book is pungent with expletives, and suggests that the cinema screen has infected the writing of fiction with improbable coincidence through toying with time and space.” Alas, the cinema never seemed to take an interest in Townend, and none of his large body of work appears to have been turned into film.