Sub-Lieutenant John Cloche

Fighting for Freedom (1941)
Destroyer’s Luck (1942)
Sub-Lieutenant John Cloche (1943)
“Operations Successfully Executed” (1945)
Return to Base (1946)


The title of one of Percy F. Westerman’s other World War II stories is “One of the Many”. That is clearly how the author wished his juvenile readers to regard the series hero whom he introduced for war-time service only. John Septimus Cloche (by a quirk of Latin, English and French thus known as “Seven Bells”] is a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve who lives through some of the most crucial encounters of the Second World War. That he is a representative rather than an individual is brought out by the occasional slapdash approach to the author’s description of his personal characteristics.

One might forgive Percy Westerman for making an occasional slip in the name of his hero, for, as we shall see, he follows the adventures of so many young naval and flying officers in the one volume that forgetting which is which under pressure of falling bombs and approaching deadlines is eminently excusable. Thus on page 274 of “Fighting for Freedom” one of the heroes, Alan Mallett, is mysteriously referred to as “Basil” when he asks a question of his captain. Now elsewhere in the book Basil Hazeltyne is the young flying officer, one of the “Few”, who has been busy defending the south coast during the Battle of Britain and who is definitely not present on this occasion. Such a mistake is surely a mere slip of the pen not picked up by the editor.


More disconcerting, however, is what is reported on the last page of the later book “Sub-Lieutenant John Cloche”. Cloche listens as the medical officer tells him the extent of his injuries.
“As for your hand, that’s chipped about a bit, and you’ll go through the rest of your natural minus two fingers.”
Well, that isn’t so bad then, is it ? In fact Cloche will never notice this injury again. That is because the author appears to have completely forgotten about it. In “Return to Base” Cloche has his identity card stolen from him by a German agent. There’s no mention of the missing fingers (amongst the “any distinguishing features” section) on that. When the German agent is buried as Cloche (at this time missing during a Channel encounter) nobody remarks that the man has a full set of digits. In “Operations Successfully Executed” Cloche manages to get himself chosen for the 3 man crew of a midget submarine (of the sort that disabled the Tirpitz) without anyone noticing that he would have found it impossible to perform any of the difficult underwater manoeuvres described in detail.

The prodigious output of Percy F. Westerman over his writing lifetime, with more than 176 full length books as well as a profusion of short stories in magazines and story papers, sometimes masked just what happened to this writer during the crucial years of 1939-1945. A study of his novels for Blackie would reveal that at least 25 titles were published during this short period. As well as starting the exploits of John Cloche Westerman was simultaneously keeping in motion the careers of Colin Standish, Alan Carr and, for an even younger readership perhaps, his troop of Sea Scouts. There are also many other individual heroes who “did their bit” but didn’t evolve into series phenomena.

Each book is prefaced by the “Book Production War Economy Standard” which declared
“This book is produced in complete conformity with the authorized economy standards.”

It is clear that the one thing that wasn’t been rationed during this period were the efforts that Westerman made upon to keep his young readers fuelled with exciting adventures. Another declaration on the title pages of “Fighting for Freedom” gives a good indication of the way in which a Westerman story from this era was constructed.
“Although of course based on facts, the incidents of this story must be read as fictitious; the individuals mentioned are imaginary characters. Coldharbour, Burton Mandeville and Tarrant-le-Hole are not intended to represent any actual R.A.F. Stations.”

John Cloche, Alan Mallett and Basil Hazeltyne in “Fighting for Freedom” are either engaged in Channel raiding with the Royal Navy or turning back the tide of the Luftwaffe with the “Few” of the R.A.F. From time to time they cross the length and breadth of England by rail as they take up their new commissions. However, apart from cities like London, England seems to consist of a shadow country, camouflaged under a set of new names to protect national secrets. Thus flotillas of MTB’s and MGBs set out from “Otherport” and Alan Mallett goes on leave to a town in Dorset called Loope. (The anagram of that name would set a real problem for the German cryptographers].

Yet Westerman’s stories of heroism and tragedy reflected very closely the suffering of a country under continuous attack with the outcome of the war still uncertain. The message is mostly positively pro-British and distinctly anti-German as you might expect. However, the occasional niggle about the way in which the war is being conducted seems to have eluded the censor. Take for instance his attitude to the dictat which said that sign-posts had to be uprooted so that German parachutists and spies would be confused and have to ask questions to get to their destinations. In Westerman’s opinion this merely led to a waste of petrol and wasted man hours as perfectly legitimate personnel lost their way as they tried to deliver their essential war materials to the service bases that were crying out for them.

As well as direct authorial comment on these matters Westerman also often uses the device of a ward-room discussion to air different opinions about decisions and attitudes. The British officers express many extreme views that were no doubt held by the sailors of the time. The ordinary sailor’s and his superior’s declaration of what they would do to the crews of U-boats who set about machine gunning harmless merchant seamen in their boats after their ships had been sunk is countered by the compassion and humanity shown so often to any enemy airmen or sailors that they actually come across “in the drink”. The fate that should be meted out to politicians who allowed Germany to re-arm is another running theme of discussion when the officers are off duty.


Perhaps the most remarkable of the John Cloche series is the one that bears his name - “Sub-Lieutenant John Cloche”. In this story the author sticks more resolutely to one hero protagonist during the course of the whole 200 pages. It is remarkable because John’s sojourn on board H.M.S. Lamlash allows him to be present at some of the most devastating events in British Naval History. Unlike the extraordinary victories against all odds in the Battle of Britain this book records a catalogue of failures and disasters. On the way out to Singapore Lamlash is present at the sinking of the famous H.M.S. Ark Royal in the Mediterranean and later witnesses the Japanese air raids on H.M.S. Prince of Wales and H.M.S. Repulse that send those two figureheads of the Royal Navy to the bottom of the South China Seas. Think how sobering it must have been for the young boys of Britain to read,
“The British Navy had lost two of its capital ships, one that had been in commission for less than a year.”


At the end of the book things are not much better for the tremendous fortress of Singapore has fallen to the Japanese and, as we mentioned earlier, our hero “Seven Bells” Cloche is lying abed with incapacitating injuries. All that Westerman has to offer in return is that a vision that the British and Allied spirit remains unbroken with the crew of the Lamlash and the Australian soldiers that they have just rescued from the Malayan coast both ready to fight on undaunted.

“Will they invalid me out of the service ?” asked John, feeling that if such a thing should happen it would mean – just what he couldn’t imagine.
“Invalid my grandmother !” ejaculated the surgeon-lieutenant inelegantly. “The navy won’t let you go, even if you wanted to; which you don’t. You’ll be fit again before the time for the last lap – and victory !”

This is a brave book – and the author deserves every credit for writing it, the publishers for producing it and the censors for passing it. It’s propaganda of course, but propaganda of an unusual type. Time and again Westerman has his characters talking about the enemy propaganda machine and how many times British capital ships have been sunk – so many times in fact that when the losses are real the Nazi and Italian broadcasters are unable to reap the full benefits because they had already written off half the British fleet in earlier bulletins. Westerman’s attitude seems to be that grim though the news may be, it is always better to face the true facts with courage and resolution.

As I noted earlier it is Cloche’s versatility and his omnipresence that are really the most remarkable features of his heroism. At one stage Westerman even arranges for him to be posted to a battleship so that he can be a witness to destruction of the French fleet at Oran. When it comes to the Vichy government there are no words too strong for his characters to use about that particular bunch of Gallic traitors. He redresses the balance for Frenchmen as they would be seen in the minds of his readers by the accounts of the activities of the Maquis when John Cloche escapes from enemy captivity on a train across northern France. It seems that it is only by a whisker that Westerman resists the impulse to have him on the Normandy beachheads as D-Day is launched. However, he is certainly in Paris when the liberation of that city takes place.


Cloche had earlier fulfilled this function of the “everyman sailor hero” in “Operations Successfully Executed” when he piloted his midget submarine in a replica of the attack on Tirpitz, by sinking another large German vessel in well-protected Norwegian waters. As with his accounts of the Battle of Britain a lot of the realistic details are either left untouched or hastily glossed over. Presumably the dissemination of such information during war-time would still be prohibited or, more importantly, detract from the very necessary human factor, the celebration of the British fighting spirit that the author wished to develop.

Yet, for all of their adventures, John Cloche and his fellow officers just refuse to come alive as individuals and I have yet to mention the chief ingredient of the stories that jarringly undermines the general air of authenticity. This is Westerman’s preoccupation with the implausible activities of the various German spies who pop up in two of the later stories “Operations Successfully Executed” and “Return to Base”. At times he seems attracted to two extreme points of view. He wants his readers to be very aware of the dangers of a fifth column working within their country. On the other hand the author often tries to suggest the disintegrating morale of the Nazi empire by turning its agents into either cowards or buffoons. Hans Schenk, who treks across to the U.S.A. in pursuit of the allied midget submarines is so concerned at the fate he will meet if he returns to Germany in failure that he tries to make his escape to South America. Our last view of him is on board a German U-Boat which has ironically just torpedoed the British vessel that was taking him to safety.

Franz Braun (living under the alias of Frank Brown) in “Return to Base commits suicide by taking a fatal dose of poison when his son fails to come home from a meeting with a fellow agent. His desperate action is needless but was brought on by his “fear of betrayal by his German paymasters”. His agent daughter tries unsuccessfully to “pump” the soldiers who are awaiting the great embarkation for the re-occupation of Europe. As a threat these Germans are implausible and as a plot device they often detract from some quite thoughtful writing about the build-up to eventual victory. Westerman achieves greater conviction when he sends to war his pre-war merchant sailor, Alan Carr, whose career we shall look at next.