This image is the cover for the book Wreckers Must Breathe

Wreckers Must Breathe

A reporter discovers a German U-boat—and a plot to seize the English coast—in this thrilling World War II adventure novel.

The Cornish coast is wrecker’s country. Mile after mile of jagged rock means certain death for passing ships—and untold riches for the locals brave enough to swim out and take whatever they can find. For journalist Walter Craig, it’s a pleasant destination for a seaside vacation . . . until reports come in of German mobilization and England finds herself on the brink of war. At first, life continues as usual for the natives of Cornwall. But the conflict is much closer than they think.

Craig is cruising along the coast in a small fishing vessel when it nearly collides with a shadowy black shape. At first, the crew mistakes it for a shark, but it’s something far more dangerous: a German U-boat that has made its home in the heart of England to engage in a wrecking expedition the likes of which Cornwall has never seen.

Written in the thick of World War II, Wreckers Must Breathe is a thrilling novel of espionage and adventure in a country on the brink of destruction. For Craig and the wreckers of Cornwall, the war will be won or lost on this rocky stretch of the English Channel.

Hammond Innes

Hammond Innes (1913–1998) was the British author of over thirty novels, as well as children’s and travel books. Born Ralph Hammond Innes in Horsham, Sussex, he was educated at the Cranbrook School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist at the Financial News. The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. Innes served in the Royal Artillery in World War II, eventually rising to the rank of major. A number of his books were published during the war, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1940), and Attack Alarm (1941), which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain.

Following his demobilization in 1946, Innes worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. His novels are notable for their fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of place, such as Air Bridge (1951), which is set at RAF stations during the Berlin Airlift. Innes’s protagonists were often not heroes in the typical sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance. Often, this involved being placed in a hostile environment—for example, the Arctic, the open sea, deserts—or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. Innes’s protagonists are forced to rely on their own wits rather than the weapons and gadgetry commonly used by thriller writers. An experienced yachtsman, his great love and understanding of the sea was reflected in many of his novels.

Innes went on to produce books on a regular schedule of six months for travel and research followed by six months of writing. He continued to write until just before his death, his final novel being Delta Connection (1996). At his death, he left the bulk of his estate to the Association of Sea Training Organisations to enable others to experience sailing in the element he loved.

Open Road Integrated Media