Customer Reviews

The Cruel Sea

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If I were asked to recommend three great movies about any Allied or Axis army, navy and air force in World War II, they would be "The Desert Fox", "The Cruel Sea" and "Twelve O'Clock High". All three were made in black and white soon after the war, and all have the unmistakable realism of true accounts.
"The Cruel Sea", based on the famous Nicholas Monsarrat novel of the same title, lend its story beautifully to the stark contrasts and subtle mid-tones of black and white film (you don't get all those mid-tones of grey in color film). The story is grippingly personal, tragic and redeeming, gradually and painfully building the intense bond of camaraderie that seems to be particularly strong among navy people - probably because the sea can be the loneliest and most unforgiving place on earth (hence the title). Recalling the names Compass Rose and Saltash Castle, you'll taste the freezing brine of the North Atlantic, smell the mix of diesel fuel, blood and cordite, and hear the cries of your mates drowning in your wake. The real deal in black and white.

Written by someone who experienced WWII in convoy escort duty, The Cruel Sea is quite realistic in a double sense: You get the drama of the war as well as the times when war is dull or frustrating, for example when an officer dumps paperwork onto subordinates. Realistic without being cynical is a good combination.

And if you'd like to read another book on this theme but with more of the immediacy of the war, try C. S. Forester's, The Good Shepherd, the classic account of a single convoy at the height of the war with U-boats as told by the captain of a US destroyer. Unfortunately, new it seems to be available only in an overpriced but ugly reprint, so you might want to find a used copy. I have a paperback version that I reread every few years.

--Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II

This story of the crew of the Compass Rose, a WWII Allied Corvette, is beautifully told with good character development. Fighting dangerous gales, waves and sperstructure ice, the Compass Rose sonarman and tactical teams pursue and are pursued. They wait, listen, move, chase and flee U-boats, torpedo-ing and depth charging their way through North Atlantic misery, locked in a psycho-thriller conflict with the German Wolfpack. The story tells of the physical and mental hardship of the fighting crew of this small, fast, seaworthy and heavily armed surface ship, and the immense toll the Wolfpack took on Allied shipping. The reader explores the bravery and courage of mentally exhausted sailors trying to muster every last bit of reserve to outwit, outpunch, outhunt and out-maneuvre stealthy U-boats and the worst that the North Atlantic winter maritime environment has to offer. Monsarrat has a real page turner here, and he makes the reader feel the emotional duress and psychological stress the crew experiences together and individually as it hunts the hunter and at the same time is being hunted by it. If the classic English sub-titled movie 'Das Boot' is the ultimate undersea perspective of the Allied navy-U-boat conflict, then the surface perspective is definitely the story of the Compass Rose - Lest We Forget.

Andrew Mendelson's review mentions a "misplaced death". He misses the point it was as un-necessary and as useless as many in the war - and that is one of the points of this classic war novel. Monserrat writes well about the sea because he was at sea and this story is one of his strongest because he tells it from the point of view of someone who witnessed it for real.

The Cruel Sea is an extensive fictionalising, reworking and fleshing out of his wartime short stories "HM Corvette, East Coast Corvette, Corvette Command", published during the war when it was quite clear he did not expect to survive the Battle of the Atlantic on which the bulk of the Cruel Sea is based. The Cruel Sea is taughtly drawn, superbly observed and records the transition from amateur civilians into trained professional killers with all the physical, and emotional casualites that were incurred along the way.

The 1953 movie (also available on Amazon) is also a good adaption of the tale.

Mosarrat shows us that there is no glory in war, but much honor attached to the men and women of the armed forces. The Cruel Sea tells us how to behave during a conflict - be loyal, resilient, and have faith in ourselves and our comrades
I re-read this book every few years and each time I am impressed with the characters, settings, and the lessons that Erickson and Lockhart teach us. And each time I feel better about people and their potentials. This book stays in the current section of my bookshelf.

The more I read this book,(having read it on six previous occasions),the more I want to read it. The best book ever written about war at sea. Nothing else come close.

SUPERB BOOK, a Classic I use this title because the story is written from the viewpoint of a RNVR Officer (a prewar voluntary reserve officer, background and qualifications yachtsman). I mention this because having a father that served on USN convoy duty before the war started (USS Jacob Jones), and having lived in the UK amongst many who also served in the war, I realize now that the book and the film provide an accurate and vividly emotional portrayal of what it was like. Also, add to list of why "There will always be an England"

"The Cruel Sea" focuses on the British naval experience during World War II--more specifically, on the crew of a corvette during the first half of the war and, to a lesser extent, of a frigate during its waning years. Like most war stories, the plotting is at times necessarily predictable (yet still thrilling), but Monsarrat's epic is a cut above in both its human element (even in its occasional depiction of Germans) and in its presentation of the morally gray aspects of war. This is no ode to blind patriotism. Instead, the novel is an elegy on the selfless bravery and selfish survival instincts of a group of sailors whose reasons for being in the war are as varied as the men themselves: the stern but fair-minded Lieutenant-Commander Ericson, the indolent and tyrannical (and somewhat comical) First Lieutenant Bennett, the nervous and self-doubting Sub-Lieutenant Ferraby, the level-headed and thoughtful Sub-Lieutenant Lockhart (who, I would guess, is Monsarrat's alter ego), and a supporting cast of dozens. There are some spine-chilling and devastating battle scenes, but the book never once loses its focus: the men (and women) who fought and endured the war.

Another surprising aspect of "The Cruel Sea" is its intense lyricism. There are many sentences and descriptions that linger in the mind long after one has finished the novel. The death a crew member: "He did not exactly surrender to the sea, but he stopped caring much whether he lived or died; and on this night, an ambiguous will was not enough." An officer finding out his girlfriend is pregnant: "The child would be the occasion of their marriage, not the cause for it." Equally impressive is the novel's unusual wit--humor far beyond the stereotypical bawdiness of sailors: the friendly banter between crew members, the scrapes between men on leave and family members or other civilians, the hilarious clash of cultures when the frigate is docked for repairs in New York City.

Generally, I am averse to "war novels" (with the exceptions of the usual famous classics); I'd rather read the real thing--journalism or history--and forego the shallow characterizations and poor writing so common to the genre of military fiction. So I can't explain what caused me to pick up this 500-page book, but I am certainly glad I did. This novel is a neglected classic and should be read by an audience far beyond the aficionados of war novels.

I found this book purely by accident, thanks to a recommendation by another book review. I think this is perhaps one of the finest novels about combat, certainly about naval combat, that I have ever read. Every word rings with a sense of authenticity and drama that is all too often missing from modern literature.
I'm loathe to give away any plot detail; the story builds slowly like a fine meal. In short, the book concerns itself with two warships during escort duty during the whole of British involvement in WWII. The first ship, a Corvette, is small and perhaps a bit amateurish to begin with. Its history, and the relations of its crew are treated in intricate detail. The second ship, a Frigate, is larger, less personal and much like the war more mechanized and colder; its is more effective, to be true, and a step closer to victory but also represents a loss of humanity.
Monsarrat weaves these two stories into a seamless whole - the bood deserves to be called an epic, and at times I almost felt like I was watching an old British war film, like Sink the Bismarck: every word rang true. I had one small complaint, and that involves either a misplaced death near the end of the novel. Again, I don't want to give anything away but it just felt unnecessary.
Please, read the book. If you are at interested in Naval history, or just want a good read, you won't be disappointed.

the best drama-at-sea novel of WWII, really, and stylishly written, by a professional writer who served as a naval officer. You not only believe he was there, you believe you are there. After reading it, one feels the weariness of war.