I recently read Nicholas Monsarrat’s famous book about the Battle of the Atlantic, THE CRUEL SEA.
I have watched the film based on the book many times, but this was the first time I had read the book … and realised that the film only covers about fifty percent of the story.
The film ends pretty well after the corvette HMS Compass Rose is torpedoed and sunk and the two main characters in the book – Lieutenant Commander (later Commander) Ericson and Sub-Lieutenant (later Lieutenant and finally Lieutenant Commander) Lockhart – take over the newer frigate, HMS Saltash in 1944. The book continues the story up until the end of the war and includes the surrender of the German U-boat fleet.
Sir Donald Sinden (left) as Lieutenant Commander Lockhart RNVR and Jack Hawkins (right) as Commander Ericson RNR in the film 'The Cruel Sea'.
In my opinion, the film is excellent … but the book is even better. It is an example of storytelling at its finest and drew heavily upon the writer’s own experience of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Highly recommended!
Lieutenant Commander Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat FRSL RNVR joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve early during the Second World War and served in the following ships:
- August 1940 – December 1941: 1st Lieutenant, HMS Campanula (Flower-class corvette) (Sub-Lieutenant until October 1940 and then Lieutenant)
- February 1942 – February 1943: 1st Lieutenant, HMS Guillemot (Kingfisher-class corvette)
- March 1943 – October 1943: Commanding Officer, HMS Shearwater (Kingfisher-class corvette)
- December 1943 – March 1944: Commanding Officer, HMS Ettrick (River-class frigate) (Promoted Lieutenant Commander)
- April 1944 – December 1944: Commanding Officer, HMS Perim (Colony-class frigate: a US-built version of the River-class)
.jpg)
Always one of my favourite book/film combinations. My dad took me to see it when it first came out. He was in HMS Pennywort for the entire war, pottering backwards and forwards across the Atlantic with an aside to D-Day coverage. I have his diary of the time, but he doesn't (and never did) go into much detail. He seemed to think the film got most of it right.
ReplyDeleteJoppy,
DeleteIt is without a doubt one of the best war films ever made and war stories ever written, mainly because they did not shy away from the physical and mental costs to the participants.
Even if your father's diary is lacking in detail, the fact that you have it and can read it must give it a huge amount of value to you and your family. It is a true link with your past as much - and possibly even more - than something like a collection of photographs.
All the best,
Bob
A really excellent book (and film), though, as I was only about ten years old when I first read it, I didn’t fully appreciate just how good it was until a later re-read. This got me thinking how lucky I was to be exposed to so many good books at an early age and reminded me of a - I guess unknown to your younger readers, and generally largely forgotten – period in British publishing when reprint book clubs were a major force in the literary scene.
ReplyDeleteThese existed to produce cheap – but still of good production quality - hardback reprints of recently published books, which they sold to their hundreds or thousands of subscribers in the interval before a paperback version was issued. My parents were members of at least three such clubs and were getting about thirty-six books a year, a mixture of popular novels and nonfiction, the latter mostly recent history (and thus about the second world war). And since I was a precocious reader, I was devouring all of them from a very early age. Some are still on my shelves, not only “The Cruel Sea”, but also – sticking to history - John Master’s “The Road Past Mandalay” and Slim’s “Defeat into Victory”, though a quite a few titles have gone missing over the years (like “The Dam Busters” and “Reach for the Sky”).
This descent into nostalgia can, I hope, be forgiven, if only because it illustrates just how different my childhood experience was in the 1950s compared with that of my grandchildren in the 2010s (and I naturally think that my experience was better). The result in my case was a love for military history which has lasted a lifetime, though considering where my interests have concentrated, the most influential of my parent’s books was Arthur Bryant’s “Years of Victory” from the appropriately titled “The Reprint Society”, where my ten year old self followed the British Army across the plains of Spain from Corunna to Arroyo dos Molinos.
And finally, turning to a novel I didn’t read as a boy, but which is also closely tied to real naval events, I can recommend “Eagle at Taranto” by Alan Evans, which is set in the very early part of the war in the Mediterranean (though the book description on Amazon is terrible - I wouldn't have bought it having read that - and the reference to it being part of a series is dubious to say the least).
Mike Hall,
DeleteI didn’t read THE CRUEL SEA until I was in my mid-teens, soon I after I had read CS Forester’s THE SHIP … which is also an excellent book about cruiser warfare during the Second World War.
I was a member of BCA’s Military History Book Club for many years and acquired a huge number of books, many of which still grace my bookshelves, The demise of book clubs is regrettable, but younger people seem less interested in reading books and prefer online media as their source of information. I can remember a student telling me that they couldn’t find something in a textbook, and when I asked if they’d looked in the index, all I got was a blank look. I had to show them where the index was and how to use it. Their reaction … ‘Wow! It’s like a printed Google search!’ I suspect that is not as unusual as one would hope.
Being retired, my wife and I occasionally watch the daytime quiz shows on TV, and we are both amazed at the normal contestant’s lack of what we would have thought of as General Knowledge … and these are often people in their late twenties up to late forties. Ask them a question about so-called celebrities, and they’ll know the answer: ask them about basic history, politics, or geography and they are - likely as not - floundering around for an answer.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ll add it to my list of books to read.
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
ReplyDeleteI read 'The Cruel Sea' as a teenager - gripping yarn, well written. I later discovered an unfinished epic by Monserrat "The Master Mariner", the central character of which has been cursed by an abandoned comrade 'to live forever'.
I quite liked Douglas Reeman's WW2 sea stories, though there was something formulaic about them. The central character was usually someone hardbitten and well experienced, in command of a vessel barely suited to the operations to which it has been consigned, and often having to deal with a rather brash and careless superior (one tends to think of Admiral David Beatty). The naval actions seem to have been modelled upon real ones, but with a bit more besides.
They are good reads, but a deal lighter than Monserrat.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteI’ve just finished Monsarrat’s HMS MARLBOROUGH WILL ENTER HARBOUR and I’ve just begun THE MASTER MARINER. The latter book seems to have been written after a huge amount of detailed research by the author, and so far I’ve found it almost unputdownable.
I’ve read quite a few of Douglas Reman’s books as well as his BOLITHO books, which he wrote using the name Alexander Kent. I agree that the books can be a bit formulaic at times, but I still enjoyed reading them. My favourites were HMS SARACEN (which is about a monitor) and THE IRON PIRATE. The latter is about a German cruiser captain during the latter stages of the Second World War, and it’s nice to read a book written from a point of view that is on the other side of the fence.
All the best,
Bob
My English O level set text.. :o)
ReplyDeleteSteve-the-Wargamer,
DeleteNow that would have been worth studying for O-level!
You lucky person!
All the best,
Bob