Kate Furnivall

Sweeping romance. Sumptuous settings. Unforgettable adventure.

Welcome to KateFurnivall.com

Hello!

I didn’t set out to be a writer. It sort of grabbed me by the throat when I discovered the story of my grandmother – she was a White Russian refugee who fled from the Bolsheviks down into China in 1917. What a breathtaking tale that is! It inspired my first book, The Russian Concubine. Since then I’ve been passionate about writing books that touch readers’ hearts and explore more of the extraordinary tumultuous world we live in. I was hooked.

I hope you will be too. Happy reading.

Kate Furnivall

CHILD OF THE RUINS

Hodder & Stoughton 2023

CHILD OF THE RUINS is set in Berlin during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. The war has ended and there is supposed to be peace, but the city is being blockaded by Russian troops. The two million citizens trapped inside have to survive on aid dropped to them day and night from American and British aircraft. Within this confinement, two women are both seeking vengeance and are desperate to find a missing child. They will resort to any means possible to get answers.

CHILD OF THE RUINS is fast-paced and thrilling, but also a powerful examination of the aftermath of war and of a period in history that few people have written about. Russian troops have closed all access to Berlin. The sharp eyes of the Russian state police watch everything; no one can be trusted. Anna and Ingrid are living in the shadows in a city where the line between right and wrong has become dangerously blurred.

I am passionate about this story and about this crucial moment in history in 1948 when the Western world was on a knife-edge. The threat from the Soviet Union was acute and it resonates with what is happening in Europe right now. We owe so much to those who took part in the Berlin Airlift. Everybody needs to know about it. I hope CHILD OF THE RUINS will help people understand how we got to where we are today.

CHILD OF THE RUINS – AUTHOR’S NOTE

THE BERLIN AIRLIFT

The Berlin Airlift (called Berliner Luftbrücke in German, meaning ‘Berlin Air Bridge’) took place from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 and was a turning point in European history. It set down a marker. A vital wake-up call to the ambitions of Stalin’s communist Soviet Union.

In 1945 at the end of World War II, Germany had been divided into four zones by the victorious Allies. The American, British and French zones occupied the west of the country, the Soviet zone occupied the east. Berlin, the country’s capital, lay marooned deep in the communist Soviet zone. The city was also divided into four sectors, each one administered by one of the four Allies, but immediately after the war the relationship between the Western Allies and the Soviets deteriorated to such an extent that the Soviets withdrew from the Allied Control Council that had previously governed Berlin with a degree of cooperation. It soon became clear that Stalin had plans to oust the Western powers from the city. Bent on further domination of Europe, he had already seized control of Czechoslovakia in February 1948. If Berlin also fell, the Western Allies were convinced that Stalin’s expansion plans would press forward to take over the whole of Germany.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had declared that ‘an iron curtain’ had fallen across Europe and nowhere was this more evident than in Berlin. The balance of power was on a knife edge. The threat of World War III was real. East against West, capitalism against communism. This was a turning point in our history that needs to be remembered.

Stalin was no longer willing to tolerate the existence of the capitalist sectors of Berlin isolated within his huge swathe of communist territory, a thorn in his side, so when on Friday 18 June the Americans, British and French collectively launched the Deutsche Mark to replace the Reichsmark, the Soviets took it as their chance to strike back hard. They gambled that the Western powers would have no stomach for another war. They closed access to the Western sectors of Berlin. Checkpoints were erected in the streets and all rail and water routes were closed off. The Berlin Blockade had begun.

The two million inhabitants of West Berlin would be left without the electricity, food, and fuel needed for survival and they would starve if nothing was done to help them. So the Western Allies resorted to air routes. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945 when the war ended, three air corridors into Berlin, each 20 miles wide, had been agreed by the Soviets. It was to these corridors that the Americans and British now turned. They realised that a massive unprecedented airlift was the only alternative to war or withdrawal. They had no wish to enter into another war but Allied withdrawal from Berlin would open the door to the Soviets to push deeper into Germany. American President Truman stood firm against further expansion of Soviet territory and in June 1948 the Berlin Airlift – named Operation Vittles – began, in order to keep a city supplied by air transport alone. It had never been done before and by many it was believed to be an impossible task.

On 28 June 1948 the first American and British planes landed in Berlin at the US airport of Tempelhof and at the RAF airbase of Gatow. During the next ten months it was a constant battle to keep the aircraft flying into Berlin with their life-saving cargo, two-thirds of which was coal. Non-stop day and night through all weathers. In the winter of 1948/49 freezing conditions and fog often made flying conditions extremely difficult and dangerous, so that tragically there were 101 fatalities during the operation. Nevertheless the Berlin Airlift delivered 2.3 million tonnes of cargo to the city, transported by more than 275,000 Allied flights. Of these flights, 75% were American, covering over 92 million miles (that’s almost the distance from Earth to the sun!). One US pilot, Gail Halvorsen, even found time repeatedly to collect and drop candy to the children of Berlin in a wonderful gesture of friendship, and became known as the well-loved Candy Bomber.

The Airlift, under the command of US Generals Lucius D Clay and William H Tunner, became so efficient at keeping the inhabitants supplied with the basics needed for life that after ten months the Soviets recognised that despite the hardship the inhabitants were suffering, Stalin’s strategy to drive the Western powers out of Berlin had failed. On 12 May 1949 the Soviets conceded defeat, lifted the Blockade and reopened land and water access to Berlin. The Airlift continued until 30 September to ensure the build up of a stockpile of supplies in the city in case the Blockade was reintroduced by the Soviets, but this didn’t occur.

Twelve years later in 1961, to the West’s horror the city was further divided by the construction of the notorious wall, but in 1989 it was torn down and the two halves of Berlin were finally reunited in freedom. It was the Airlift, Operation Vittles, that laid the foundation that made this possible.

The Berlin Airlift was an astounding feat of dedication, skill and bravery, as well as of political foresight for which we in the West should today be grateful. I hope this book will remind people how much we owe those brave pilots.

 

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