Dan van der Vat correspondence

Dan van der Vat was born in 1939, and had a Dutch father and British mother. He spent his early years under Nazi occupation in Holland. After the war the family moved to London. His father became a successful children’s books author. In the late 1950s van der Vat went to Durham University, where he took a degree in classics, and wrote for Palatinate, the student newspaper. Upon graduation he entered journalism, working in Newcastle and Manchester. Van der Vat worked for the Sunday Times investigative team where his subjects included the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He also worked as a foreign correspondent in South Africa (from where he was expelled by the authorities) and Bonn in West Germany. Van der Vat returned to Britain in the 1980s to work for the Guardian. Later in life, van der Vat became a successful historian. His books included The Grand Scuttle (an account of the sinking of the German fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919), a biography of Albert Speer, and the best-selling Pearl Harbor (2001).