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The Cruel Sea (Penguin World War II Collection)

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The last quarter of the book takes on a different character, as if Monsarrat found himself under pressure to keep his book within a specific length. They surfaced in secret places, betraying themselves and their frustrated plans: they rose within sight of land, they rose far away in mortal waters, where on the map of the battle, the crosses that were the sunken ships were etched so many and so close that the ink ran together. They surfaced above their handiwork, in hatred or in fear, sometimes snarling their continued rage, sometimes accepting thankfully a truce they had never offered to other ships, other sailors. Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as a "competent transcription of a bestselling book, cleanly produced and acted". [19] See also [ edit ]

From London". The Mail. Adelaide: National Library of Australia. 9 January 1954. p.50. Archived from the original on 29 March 2021 . Retrieved 10 July 2012. THE war to which they went had hardly settled down, even in broad outline, to any recognizable pattern. Vagg, Stephen (27 July 2019). "Unsung Aussie Filmmakers: Don Sharp – A Top 25". Filmink. Archived from the original on 2 August 2020 . Retrieved 14 February 2020. Now that I’ve got your attention, let me say that The Cruel Sea is not the greatest war novel of all time. There is also a moment when the Compass Rose discovers a lifeboat floating alone on the sea, a single dead man inside, sitting at the rudder:VICE-ADMIRAL Sir Vincent Murray-Forbes sat at his desk in the operations building overlooking Liverpool harbor. He was writing a report: it was one of hundreds of reports, on ships and men, that he was to write, month in and month out, until the end of the war. He did not know what lay in store for these ships or those men: it would not have made an atom of difference if he had been writing an epitaph on men due to be drowned tomorrow. He was concerned only with facts; and of these he had mustered a great many, during the past three weeks. By the time they were past the Straits, and had smelled the burnt smell of Africa blowing across from Ceuta, and had shaped a course for Gibraltar harbor, they were all far off balance.

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. 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."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.” Their first convoy was a bloodless skirmish, as were many others in that momentary lull; but it was a useful foretaste of what was to come, as well as a proving of the ship in weather worse than they had yet met.

They did four more convoys, of the rough, nervous character that marked most convoys nowadays; and then, at high summer, they were given what they had been looking forward to for many months — a refit, with the long leave that went with it; the first long leave since Compass Rose was commissioned. They had all wanted that leave: many of them needed it badly: life on Atlantic convoys was a matter of slowly increasing strain, strain still mounting toward a crucial point that could not yet be foreseen, and it took its toll of men’s nerves and patience, as surely as of ships. the time for sensibility was past, gentleness was outdated, and feeling need not come again till the unfeeling job was over." p. 106. This had been on my "to read" list for years. The notion of "war at sea" is not one that comes easily to me. I once had an argument with someone whilst rowing on Roath Park Lake. I got scared, because I was in a position of conflict with about 2 feet of water below me. It reminded me of the time, one balmy June day, when the clinker I was rowing in on the very warm Isis river sprung a leak. Two of the scariest moments of my life.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. 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.” So reading a book about large ships in sub-zero temperatures, two thousand miles from the nearest land and three thousand fathoms from the sea bed, written over 60 years ago- for all sorts of reasons, wasn't pushing itself massively in front of my nose to be read. 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.

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