I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that I like reading history, both fiction and non-fiction works.

The Bastard Brigade by Sam Kean is non-fiction and covers: “The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged The Nazi Atomic Bomb.”

It chiefly focuses on US personnel and endeavours in this area, juxtaposing the Manhattan Project with efforts to prevent the Nazis getting a nuclear weapon first. However, The Bastard Brigade does cover the spectrum of the scientific world, including what was happening in Germany and Britain, France (the Joliot-Curies), Denmark (Niels Bohr), and Norway regarding the manufacture of heavy water.

The Bastard Brigade is a very readable and accessible book, generally historically accurate but with the focus on storytelling and personalities, rather than heavy duty science—although there’s enough science there to ensure the reader understands the scientific achievements (and failures) and also the stakes. Some of the interesting side information (to the main nuclear focus) included the importance of geological survey to determining where the D-Day landings would occur, and also that John F Kennedy was a genuine war hero. (US-ians probably know this, but I certainly didn’t.)

Overall, I would describe The Bastard Brigade as popular history, with a deliberately colloquial, or even folksy style, e.g.:

“The agency (the OSS) was going through a tough period at the time. Given its freewheelin’ ways…”

Kean also likes his adjectives. For example, the reader never encounters the German scientist Kurt Diebner without at least two precursor adjectives: e.g. “pathetic, striving Diebner” or words to very similar effect. I understand that such tags are potentially useful for differentiating the large cast of scientists and operatives for readers, helping remind us “who’s who”, but I did find the practice off-putting as the book progressed.

To stick with the Diebner example (although it was not a lone case) I would also have liked more in-text justification of the pejorative adjective use, as I identified at least two instances where Diebner’s actions, however “striving”, were far from “pathetic.” In the first example, Diebner’s nucleur reactor progress surpassed that of Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenberg, allegedly with far fewer resources to call upon. In the second, a team working under Diebner’s auspices got the Vemork heavy water plant operational in six weeks, following sabotage that was supposed to put it out of action for at least two years.

The book also contains a few errors of terminology, such as referring to V1s as “rockets” when they were, I believe,  pulse jets. Similarly, the author refers to “fighter jets” when in the WW2 context they were likely just fighters.

Despite these quibbles, I think The Bastard Brigade is entertaining and interesting, informative and accessible, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical non fiction and history of science, and likes to hone in on the real people behind the headlines.

I read the hardcover edition (447 pp), published by Little, Brown, and published July 2019, which I read via the Christchurch Public Library.