Operation 235

Set in the summer of 1939, Operation 235 pits the United States against Nazi Germany, as the two nations compete for control of the world’s purest uranium deposit. In 1938, German scientists were the first to perfect nuclear fission, the process required to build a super weapon. But they lacked the volume and purity of uranium needed to turn the science into a bomb.

The answer lay at a mine in Shinkolobwe, deep in the interior of the Belgian Congo, which was owned by a Belgian who gifted the deposit to the United States government, trying to prevent the Nazis access to its rich ore.

Based on actual events, this fictional account brings together the future head of the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the CIA), Bill Donovan, and our protagonists, Lt Cdr Dean Butler and diplomat Nash Owens. The men are dispatched by President Roosevelt to the Belgian Congo, to ensure the uranium ships safely to the United States.

But the Americans have competition. Hitler directs the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht’s intelligence section, to take the uranium, and a violent struggle ensues as German agents lead by a beautiful but cutthroat female agent and her brutal and sadistic colleague take aim at the Americans and their British ally. The pretence of peace and neutrality takes a back seat as the competing interests collide on both land and sea, in this historical thriller.