AS they say, truth is often stranger than fiction.

And no one knows this more than author James Hayward.

James is a writer and historian who grew up in Colchester but now lives in Norfolk.

His latest book, Burn the Sea, is the true story of one of the greatest fictions of the Second World War and was partly inspired by his love of history growing up in the area.

“I’ve always had an interest in the Second World War,” he says, “in particular as a teenager when I lived in Colchester. Back then I spent a lot of my time cycling all over the area to the places where the Battle of Britain was fought over in the vain hope I might find something.

“I remember making pilgrimages to a shop in Clacton which Derek Johnson used to run. He was the author of East Anglia at War which was a huge influences on me during the Seventies.”

Later James would return to the area to study at Essex University and it was during that time he uncovered the story of the failed invasion of England, which he tackles in his very first book, The Bodies on the Beach.

Now he’s revisiting the subject, some 22 years later, in Burn the Sea Sparked by the Directorate of Military Intelligence and MI6, rumours that Britain had set fire to the English Channel to defeat a German invasion in 1940 quickly spread around the world. Highly popular in America, the incendiary ‘Big Lie’ became Britain’s first significant propaganda victory of the Second World War.

Yet the unlikely deception was founded in fact.

Dead German soldiers were washed ashore on British beaches, a secret Petroleum Warfare Department tested lethal flame barrages on land and sea, and fire ships were hastily dispatched to enemy ports as part of Operation Lucid.

Burn the Sea is the definitive account of the origin, circulation and astonishing longevity of the myth of the ‘invasion that failed’ in 1940, as well as its revival in 1992.

“There’s been a lot of material that has been declassified after 22 years,” James adds, “and of course there is a lot more information on the internet so that made it easier writing the book.

“It is a complicated subject dealing with military intelligence, propoganda and myth and so it’s a difficult story to explain, needing quite a bit of detail rather than a pacy narrative.

“What’s so remarkable about the tale is that it re-emerged as truth in 1992 when someone made an anonymous phone call to a newspaper. That just goes to show how powerful the original story.”

Burn the Sea is published on February 4 by the History Press priced £17.99.