Books: Knighthood Deflowered

OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN (339 pp.)—Evelyn Waugh—Little, Brown ($3.75).

For other embattled Britons, the winter of 1940 may have been their finest hour—but not for Commando Officers and Gentlemen Evelyn Waugh writes about in his second novel about World War II. With his elite brigades buried in Eastern Mediterranean retreat, the boss commandoman in London could count for instant offensive action exactly six men and a pariah captain left at home in a shipping snafu. Desperate for any justifying achievement, the general ordered out these seven, with his press officer, on a radar-smashing raid by submarine on a Channel islet.

No more unwilling...

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