The Cruel Sea (Penguin World War II Collection)

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Now that I’ve got your attention, let me say that The Cruel Sea is not the greatest war novel of all time. The other man sighed. “How strange to meet Scylla and Charybdis in Atlantic waters. . . . Perhaps I should explain the allusion. There were—” There was no answer. The range decreased as Compass Rose ran in: they were now within six hundred yards of the swimmers and the U-boat, the fatal coincidence that had to be ignored. Ferraby was only twenty; his eyes were new, and took a good deal on trust. Other eyes — Ericson’s among them — were not new, and to them, it must: be admitted, the convoy was somewhat more impressive than the escort, which reflected perfectly the pinched circumstances of the Royal Navy at this stage. To shepherd these forty-six ships through waters that were potentially the most treacherous in the world, there had been provided one fifteen-yearold destroyer, of a class that, though valiantly manned and valiantly driven, was really far too slight and slender for the Atlantic weather: two corvettes—one a pre-war edition of crude design, the other Compass Rose; a trawler; and a rescue tug that already, in the sheltered waters of Liverpool Bay, was bouncing about like a pea on a drum. Five warships — four and a half would be nearer the truth to guard forty-six slow merchantmen was not a reassuring prospect. But there it was: the best that could be done. 3 The Cruel Sea is a 1951 novel by Nicholas Monsarrat. It follows the lives of a group of Royal Navy sailors fighting the Battle of the Atlantic during the Second World War. It contains seven chapters, each describing a year during the war.

I suppose you were slipping ashore the whole time.” He took an enormous gulp of whisky, coughed, and only just held on to it. His eyes moved unsteadily round to Morell and Ferraby. “And as for you married men—married — ” He lost the thread of what he was going to say, but unfortunately started again. “You had a wonderful time. Don’t tell me.” It’s too easy,”said Ericson broodingly, voicing their thoughts. “All it’s got to do is to fly round and round us, sending out some kind of homing signal, and every U-boat within a hundred miles just steers straight for us.”He eyed the sky, innocent and cloudless. “I wish it would blow up a bit. This sort of weather doesn’t give us a chance.” The Cruel Sea was recommended to me (h/t Bevan) after I finished reading Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny. Part of the reason I loved The Caine Mutiny was its sense of authenticity. In its minutely detailed depiction of life aboard a rusting old minesweeper, I felt like Wouk had created something real. That is certainly the case here. Monsarrat served in the Royal Navy during World War II, and has a grasp of all the granular details of life aboard ship. The particularity is mesmerizing.

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My Father for years, with an almost mantra repetitiveness has been telling me to watch the film or read the Cruel Sea, I always replied, “will do” with no real intention of getting round to it. I am so glad I now have. Published in 1951, this book is a classic fiction of maritime warfare in the Battle of the Atlantic during WWII, focused on a corvette ship assigned to protect convoys from German U-Boats. At the story opens, the newly built HMS Compass Rose is just being readied for launch and the crew is in training. The only experienced crew member is Lieutenant-Commander George Ericson, who had previously served in the Merchant Navy. His officers are new to the Royal Navy, as so many were at the start of the war, having previously held civilian jobs. It is told linearly, covering 1939 to 1945, with one chapter dedicated to each year, and is based on the author’s own (and, at that time, recent) experiences. He consulted a batch of reports from his staff, “Gunnery,” he wrote, as a subheading, and underlined it. “The single four-inch gun which is the sole major armament of this class of ship will only be adequate if constant attention is given to gun drill and to ammunition supply. H.M.S. Compass Rose did well in her various gun-trials, and the nightshoot was successful, both as regards the handling of the ship and the actual firing. Anti-aircraft shooting, conducted with a towed streamer-target, was less successful: it is recommended that more provision be made for anti-aircraft gun-control, possibly by loud-speaker operated from the bridge. Today's economic participants are perpetually at sea and failure may very well be a sort of virtual death. Our livelihood, which is often synonymous with life itself, can be stolen by seemingly inhuman forces, which are easily hated. Our home ports are but a fleeting reprieve, sometimes despised for the temporary shelter that they represent. And we are constantly cast adrift, at sea, at war, again and again. We were discussing the best way of dismantling the firing-bar on the asdic set.” He paused. “That’s not too technical for you?”

He should have done something about getting the mess cleared up in the fo’c’s’le, but he couldn’t be bothered. He should somehow have organized at least one hot meal a day, even if it were only warmed-up tinned beans; the galley fire was unusable, but with a little ingenuity it could have been done in the engine room. This, again, was more trouble than he was prepared to take. Instead, he sulked, and shirked, and secretly longed to be out of it. This is a story of the Battle of the Atlantic, the story of an ocean, two ships, and a handful of men. The men are the heroes; the heroines are the ships. The only villain is the sea, the cruel sea, that man has made more cruel... The Cruel Sea_1953 | Britmovie | Home of British Films". Archived from the original on 7 September 2010 . Retrieved 30 October 2010.

But this isn't just a war story. In a surprisingly subtle way, The Cruel Sea also chronicles the often abrasive process by which classes, previously unknown to each other, were thrown together onboard ship and had to learn to rub along - and how the earned respect, in the long term, led to the future Welfare State and the social equity and cooperation of the 50's and 60's. This book focuses on humans that are thrown into war from their peacetime lives. Accountants, bankers, journalists, cargo ship captains, pension seeking peacetime sailors, are all placed in a war that they, as individuals, had very little to do with its inception. From there, the changes in the characters are illustrated through the most extreme of circumstances and the ever-accumulating risk associated with time. Decisions are made and sacrifices are suffered. The enemy becomes transformed from humans with differing points of view into mere objects of resistance: worthy of a hatred that can only be bestowed upon the most inhuman of threats. And the defenders are transformed into machines that are virtually unaware of the hatred that they display. It is difficult to translate any full-length novel to the screen. There are too many `moments in time' to get them all in. So the adaptation of a novel by a screenwriter becomes a process of selection. Eric Ambler did his usual excellent job in writing this script, and if he left out some of the better bits, he also got the best bits in. Charles Frend directs it well within the style of the early 1950's. The special effects are above average for the time and not unacceptable by today's standards, although they are not spectacular. The film editing is clean and crisp with little to complain about. The musical score is not intrusive, but not up to the rest of the effort. It would be ten years before the art of Movie Music caught up to the rest, and here the score is no worse any other film of 1953. It is however the acting that gives this movie the push to get it far above the rest. He said — ah — ‘Don’t come the acid with me,’” Morell screwed up his eyes. “‘Come the acid’ . . . I must confess I have not heard that before.” In 1956, according to the documentary Fifties British War Films: Days of Glory, when Elstree Studios was being sold to the BBC, Sir Michael Balcon was asked what had been his greatest achievement during his tenure. He replied "I think perhaps The Cruel Sea because when we saw that for the first time, we realised that we really had brought it off. It seemed to just gel and be absolutely right. Sometimes you don't get that feeling, but with that one we all did."

Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as a "competent transcription of a bestselling book, cleanly produced and acted". [19] See also [ edit ]

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It is a masterpiece, I feel in some respects very ahead of its time (coming from my novice literature experience) it doesn’t shy away from anything, even delving into the troubles of married life with a no holes barred approach, which I would guess for the time it was written was taboo to say the least.

the time for sensibility was past, gentleness was outdated, and feeling need not come again till the unfeeling job was over." p. 106.

THE Captain carried them all. For him, there was no fixed watch, no time set aside when he was free to relax and, if he could, to sleep. He had to control everything, to drive the whole ship himself: he had to act on signals, to fix their position, to keep his section of the convoy together, to use his seamanship to ease Compass Rose’s ordeal as much as possible. He was a tower of strength, holding everything together by sheer unrelenting guts. The sight of the tall tough figure hunched in one corner of the bridge now seemed essential to them all: they needed the tremendous reassurance of his presence, and so he gave it unstintingly, even though the hours without sleep mounted to a fantastic total. THE war to which they went had hardly settled down, even in broad outline, to any recognizable pattern.