Group Captain Eugene Emile Vielle (E.E. Vielle) was born in London in 1913, the son of a naval officer. His career in the Royal Air Force ranged from being a fighter pilot to 'world-wide duties' during Word War II. He ended the war commanding one of the largest RAF bases in England and in 1949 he was appointed Deputy Director of Operational Requirements at the Air Ministry in London. After his retirement from the RAF, Vielle initiated an avionics company, called Avel Corporation, to develop an aircraft anti-collision system. Quite an impressive career. Vielle died in 2015, just short of his 102th birthday.
Vielle wrote a couple of novels that were marketed as ‘With the Impact of Alistair MacLean’. His 'No Subway' is now a somewhat dated – and justly forgotten – story about problems that could possibly occur during the construction of the Channel Tunnel. However, his 'The Shadow of Kuril' is a still harrowing story that features HMS Thunderer, the latest of the navy’s nuclear submarines that disappears during a mission under the arctic ice.
Does 'The Shadow of Kuril' even now, decades later, continues to have the impact of Alistair MacLean? I dare you to buy and read the novel and I can assure you that it still delivers the same punch as it once did in 1971.
The 'Shadow of Kuril' casts a long shadow. Read it and you will understand why the publisher thought this novel had (and still has) the impact of Alistair MacLean. The Master Storyteller himself would agree.
He began to write his memoirs, titled 'Almost a Boffin' in 1962, but did not publish them until 2013, as he felt too much of the content was even then confidential.
First
publication: 19 July 2017
Second (updated) publication: 30 April 2025
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