Alistair MacLean

Alistair Stuart MacLean (Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacGill-Eain; 21 April 1922 – 2 February 1987) was a Scottish novelist, who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. His books are estimated to have sold over 150 million copies, making him one of the best-selling fiction authors of all time.

MacLean served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, and his service aboard the HMS Royalist formed the basis for his debut novel HMS Ulysses. Many of his novels have been adapted to film, most notably The Guns of Navarone (1957) and Ice Station Zebra (1963). In the late 1960s, encouraged by film producer Elliott Kastner, MacLean began to write original screenplays, concurrently with an accompanying novel. The most successful was the first of these, the 1968 film Where Eagles Dare, which was also a bestselling novel. MacLean also published two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart.

According to one obituary, MacLean "never lost his love for the sea, his talent for portraying good Brits against bad Germans, or his penchant for high melodrama. Critics deplored his cardboard characters and vapid females, but readers loved his combination of hot macho action, wartime commando sagas, and exotic settings that included Greek Islands and Alaskan oil fields."

MacLean was born on 21 April 1922 in the Shettleston area of Glasgow, the third of four sons of a Church of Scotland minister, but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot, 10 miles (16 km) south of Inverness. He spoke only Scottish Gaelic before attending school.

In 1941, at the age of 19, MacLean was called up to fight in the Second World War with the Royal Navy, serving with the ranks of ordinary seaman, able seaman, and leading torpedoman. He was first assigned to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitted for anti-aircraft guns, on duty off the coasts of England and Scotland. Beginning in 1943, he served on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser. There, he saw action in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting aircraft carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz, and other targets off the Norwegian coast. In 1944, Royalist and he served in the Mediterranean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France and in helping to sink blockade runners off Crete and bombard Milos in the Aegean. During this time, MacLean may have been injured in a gunnery-practice accident. In 1945, in the Far East theatre, MacLean and Royalist saw action escorting carrier groups in operations against Japanese targets in Burma, Malaya, and Sumatra. (MacLean's late-in-life claims that he was captured by the Japanese after blowing up bridges, and tortured by having his teeth pulled out, have been dismissed by both his son and his biographer as drunken ravings). After the Japanese surrender, Royalist helped evacuate liberated POWs from Changi Prison in Singapore.

MacLean was discharged from the Royal Navy in 1946. He then studied English at the University of Glasgow, working at the post office and as a street sweeper. He lived with his mother at 26 Carrington Street, at St Georges Cross, Glasgow while attending the university.^{[citation needed]} He graduated with an MA (Hons.) in 1950, briefly worked as a hospital porter, and then worked as a schoolteacher at Gallowflat School (now Stonelaw High School) in Rutherglen.

While a university student, MacLean began writing short stories for extra income, winning a competition in 1954 with the maritime story "Dileas". He sold stories to the Daily Mirror and The Evening News. The wife of Ian Chapman, editor at the publishing company Collins, had been particularly moved by "Dileas" and the Chapmans arranged to meet with MacLean, suggesting he write a novel. MacLean responded three months later with HMS Ulysses, based on his own war experiences and credited insight from his brother Ian, a master mariner.

MacLean later described his writing process: