David Divine

Arthur Durham (David) Divine, CBE, DSM, (1905–1987) was a prolific writer of books on a variety of subjects but will be chiefly remembered for two controversial books on defence issues, The Blunted Sword (1964) and The Broken Wing (1966). Divine had been a war correspondent and after the Second World War became the defence correspondent of the British Sunday Times, a post he held until 1975.

Born in Cape Town on 27 July 1904, the son of Arthur Henry Divine and his wife, Mabel Frances Durham, he was educated at Rondebosch Boys' High School and Kingswood College, Grahamstown.

He was employed as a journalist on the Cape Times between 1922–1926 and again between 1931–1935.

In 1930 he commenced his career as an author of adventure stories, thrillers, military politics and history books. Some were written under the pen name 'David Rame'. His first novel as Rame was Wine of Good Hope (1939).

During the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk in 1940 (Operation Dynamo), Divine crossed the English Channel three times in a 35-foot boat to rescue trapped British soldiers. During the last of these he received a stomach wound. For his efforts, Divine was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). The following year he published a novel based on his experience at Dunkirk, The Sun Shall Greet Them: A novel based on the Author's experience of the English evacuation at Dunkirk, WW II (1941). Divine would write the screenplay for the feature film Dunkirk (1958) and was the likely inspiration for central character Charles Foreman (Bernard Lee), skipper of the motorboat Vanity. Like Divine, he is wounded during the operation but Foreman dies from his wounds. Nine Days at Dunkirk was a factual account of the operation first published in 1945. In this he exposed the legend that the evacuation was carried out by the spontaneous and uncoordinated actions of the little ships when in fact they had been carried out as 'part of a highly organised movement' by the Admiralty. He was also highly critical of General Alan Brooke's (later Lord Alanbrooke) actions preceding the operation but very sympathetic to Lord Gort, commander of the BEF.

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