Operation Crucible [Paperback]

Sheffields on fire, it glows orange, like hell, like a furnace, like steel. The streets which were familiar are now just bricks, mortar and flame. My childhood, my home& just a pile of stone.

A story of four ordinary men in extraordinary times...

On the 12 December 1940, more than six hundred people lost their lives in over seven hours of continuous bombing by Germany's Luftwaffe. Their objective? Wiping Sheffields world famous steel works - the heartland of Britains munitions manufacturing - clean off the map. The ruthless attack left Sheffield in ruins  destroying families, shattering a way of life, and changing the city forever.

At 11.44pm on the night of the raid, a single 500kg bomb reduced the Marples Hotel, which stood proudly in Fitzalan Square, from seven storeys to just fifteen feet of rubble. Only one of the ten compartments in the hotels cellars withstood the blast. Within it, trapped, were four men. This is their story, from beginning to end...

Kieran Knowles makes his professional playwriting debut withOperation Crucible. He is a graduate of Loughborough University, LAMDA, and the Royal Court Young Writers Programme.Kieran Knowles has fashioned a remarkable first play... while showing that steelwork depends on a carefully synchronised collaboration, Knowles also individualises the men... While celebrating the men's courage, Knowles also shows how, in the crisis of enforced incarceration, their solidarity breaks down... Although created from research, this is a play that vividly evokes both the terrors of wartime bombing and Sheffield's capacity for survival. Michael Billington, The Guardian