THE CRUEL SEA
OK, nothing to do with sailing but an awful lot to do with the sea. This is a book that focuses on the vicious Battle of the Atlantic during WWII when the British Navy desperately tried to keep the supply line between the US and the UK open in the face of a sustained and savage attack by the German ‘Wolf Pack’ of U Boats. To this end, large convoys of slow moving merchantmen were escorted across the Atlantic by the Royal Navy with predictably awful results. The book is fiction but it clearly draws heavily on Montserrat’s own experiences serving as Sub Lieutenant and eventually Lieutenant Commander on various corvettes and Frigates during this epic running battle. As such, the book has the very clear tang of authenticity which makes it both gripping and horrifying in equal measure. This is certainly not a book for the faint hearted and Monsarrat pulls no punches in portraying the war at sea for what it was; savage, remorseless and relentless. The book also conveys with great accuracy the extent to which Britain and its allies were caught on the hop in 1939 and also charts the path from rather ad hoc amateurism at the start of the war to its development into an e ective fighting machine. Monsarrat is also clearly a patriot but, thankfully he is not blindly patriotic making for a balanced and considered narrative that looks at the complex relationship with other allies such as the US and Russia. The real star, however, is the North Atlantic which comes across exactly as it should; bleak, savage and, yes, cruel. Sam Je erson