The Cruel Sea (Classics of War)

"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 read The Cruel Sea many years ago, and never forgot it. I decided to reread it, which is sometimes not a good idea, because maybe you realize it wasn't good as you thought. That's not the case with The Cruel Sea. This is an outstanding novel about horrible warfare, almost six years in length, in the North Atlantic, as Royal Navy escort frigates and corvettes, too few at the beginning, were charged with protecting convoys on the voyage across the Atlantic, to bring back supplies for embattled England. Monsarrat knows whereof he writes; he served on an escort corvette in the North Atlantic for the duration of WWII. He tells a very human story of men at war and ships. What comes through is the great compassion of Captain Ericson and his Number One, First Lieutenant Lockhart, as they fight and serve and give their all. I almost never do this, but I read portions of this book aloud, simply to hear the excellent prose. Simply put, this is a classic.

This is an exciting and yet very poignant novel of naval warfare which took place in the North Atlantic during World War II. It focuses primarily on two English naval officers whose job it was to escort--with first an inadequate corvette and then a frigate--the numerous convoys that went back and forth across the Atlantic throughout the course of the war.

It was a difficult job to begin with and got worse: by 1941 Allied shipping was being destroyed by German U-Boats at an alarming rate. During one memorable journey, eleven of the 21 ships they were sent to escort were sunk. This was an enormous toll, both in supplies and in lives lost.

What this great book does is give us a first hand view of the action, and also the effect that it had on these men, and the lives of those around them. To be sure there is blood and gore here, but it is not sensationalized or glorified. It is simply recorded in a straightforward manner, and is all the more chilling because of it. What is really emphasized is the psychological effect. We get a clear picture of their exhaustion, their fear, their terror, and their frustration in their inability to deal effectively (at least early on), with an unseen and deadly enemy.

They are at sea for months at a time and incapable of dealing with family problems on shore: philandering wives, sick mothers, far-away sons and loved ones. Their homes and villages are being bombed. They begin to feel hatred--not only of the enemy, but of the ship itself, and all that it represents: exhaustion, terror, helplessness, and death.

The captain must make terrible decisions at a moment's notice. After one attack, he steams towards where he believes a U-boat to be, an area which also happens to be occupied by English survivors of an earlier wreck. He decides he must drop his depth charges, knowing for certain that these sailors will die. Later, he agonizes over whether there was a U-boat there to begin with.

We get a sense of the dangerous nature of the sea itself. There is no place to go during wild Atlantic storms, and sometimes they last for days. Everything in the ship is tossed around. There is no hot food. Sleep is impossible when you are routinely thrown out of your bunk. Everybody is banged and bruised and sometimes severely injured by suddenly being heaved against a bulkhead. Of course there is also the terror of being swept overboard entirely. The only saving grace was that, during a storm, the U-boats didn't attack.

The book covers this aspect of the war, and covers it thoroughly, from 1939, which is chapter one, to 1945, which is chapter seven. It is written from the perspective of adult men and women we learn to know well and come to care about deeply. We are saddened when they are wounded, or killed. And the termination of the love affair between the first mate and his "Wren" was nothing less than heart-wrenching. This is a great novel, and belongs on the shelf with perhaps the half-dozen or so of the greatest novels of World War II.

A few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal did a review of a new book about the sea. They also listed what they considered to be the top 5 Sea Novels. Nicholas Monsarrat's "The Cruel Sea" was listed, with a brief summary. It sounded interesting (I'm always interested in how other fiction authors treat the subject of warfare), so I downloaded the Kindle version and started reading.

And that's where the trouble began. As a professional and moderately successful writer myself, I often tend to be critical of other authors. I can detect where they took shortcuts, created cardboard characters, or developed vague and unrealistic plot lines. But occasionally a story hooks me in, makes me go along with the necessary suspension of belief that the writer creates.

Rarely do I get to the next level, which is outright jealousy of the writer. I find myself wishing I could have written something like that, said something that makes a permanent impression, or imagined something so vivid and realistic that it defies comparison. And when the author manages that feat again and again, it makes for a compelling read that stays in your mind forever.

One of the other reviewers here mentioned something about Monsarrat's `lyrical' descriptions. They are far more than that. For example, in the movie version of Titanic we watched a gripping visual of the passengers and crew tumbling into the sea, into water so cold that it will soon kill them. In "The Cruel Sea," the crew is forced onto rafts off the Icelandic coast, and soon, one by one, the weak and the strong start to die. The author's fine writing takes us into the bone-chilling water with the crew, lets us imagine the thoughts whirling through their minds at doom's swift approach, and presents us with an horrific image of the worst kind of death.

One example. "She was beautiful - not in a remote fashion, but with a face which beckoned, a mouth formed only for kissing, and a body so soft, so shapely, and so glowing that its only conceivable purpose was to fuse the sinewed imprint of a man's... her body seemed to flicker for his delight . . . whenever she wanted, she could promote this frenzy."

That, boys and girls, is good writing.

Another example. "Here in Gladstone Dock was the hard shell for the convoys, the armour of the Atlantic; it did not shine, it was dented here and there, it was unquestionably spread thin and strained to the limit of endurance; but it had stood the test of two brutal years, and it would hold as long as the war held, and for five minutes longer."

That is a description of men, of a navy, of a nation, committed to battle, who will not yield and will never give up despite the enemy's advantages in men and material.

One last snippet concerning a visit to sickbay. "As he stepped into the crowded, badly-lit space, he no longer felt the primitive revulsion of two years ago, when all this was new and harassing. But there was nothing changed in the dismal picture, nothing was any the less crude or moving or repellent. There were the same rows of survivors - wet through, dirt-streaked, shivering: the same reek of oil and seawater: the same relief on one face, the same remembered terror on another."

When a writer can accomplish something like that, you know the book will stay with you long after you put it down. Some of my personal favorites, where I felt much the same sense of admiration for the authors are "Seabiscuit" by Laura Hellenbrand, for many passages in JR Tokien's "Lord of the Rings," for Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," and for William Gibson's "Neuromancer," to name just a few.

Monserrat's story, though the style is a bit dated, is a challenging read, a long voyage that will break your heart along the way. But it will be worth the journey, and every reader will bond with different passages, the ones that resonate and reach out to him or her alone.

Sam Barone

The Cruel Sea is perhaps the finest novel written out of World War II. It is drawn on the actual service in the Royal Navy of the author. It is the story of two ships, maybe 200 men, German submarines and the constant relentless ocean. Even when there is no combat action, the sea is always there in all its forms - just waiting for a small defect to occurr and then it will claim another victim - be it man or ship.
The sailors of the Compass Rose are a dramatic cross section. The captain is a reservist from the merchant navy while his officers are all volunteers from the civilian sector. One officer's only sea going experience is crossing the channel in a small yacht with a one woman crew. Not the best of material.
The crew is even more diverse. The senior ratings, coxswain, signalman, engineer and several others, are all professional Royal Navy and it is one these men the captain will lean the most. The remainder of the crew is drawn from all walks of life from clerks to vet assistants. Together they are all molded into a working crew.
The contacts with the German submarines are numerous but the end result is disappointing to some in that only two submarines are sunk between the two ships. Lots of survivors are pulled from the sea though as the submarines whittle away at the convoys chugging across the sea.
One gets a sense of the unending grind that the men endure as the ships make thier rounds from Liverpool to New York with a side trip to Russia for variety. Even shore time is not enjoyed as the local Liverpool area is pounded by German bombers and wives and girlfriends are not willing to endure the constant seperation.
Compass Rose is sunk and the crew, once more, is held together by the captain. Some men are heros and die a heros death and others are simply freightened men trying to stay alive which few do. It is a sobering time for the survivors as they look back at their life in Compass Rose.
The captain and one officer move on to another ship and finish the war in her. Again, it is a return to the grind of fighting the sea and occassionally fighting the Germans. One submarine is sunk by the new ship and the war ends.
There is little glory to be earned in this story, rather it is a tale of survival, hanging on to make it through the day or night. Everyone is a hero in this story from the junior sailor to the captain. It is a story that is being remembered less and less as the survivors of World War II diminish in numbers. It is a story to be read and remembered - when there was no array of electronic weapons and nuclear energy to draw upon to destroy an enemy; rather it was skill, patience, persistance and a willingness to endure that saw a successful outcome from a combat between corvette and submarine. Sometimes the corvette won and sometimes the submarine won. Many times it was a draw.
I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the war at sea during World War II. It should be in every naval officer's personal library regardless of nationality. Once read, it should never be forgotten.

The Cruel Sea is a classic novel of World War II from the British perspective. It centers on life on a Corvette, a small ship used by the British much as Destroyer Escorts were used by the Americans, mostly for defense of convoys, but occasionally for offensive work against U-boats. Its greatest value is from the creation of an intimate sense of the many variations of "life at sea" during the Battle of the Atlantic. In contrast to The Caine Mutiny, it gives a fair degree of detailed characterization of many of the men including mini-plots that tell of events that played out in the lives of sailors in the British Navy. The author served on a Corvette and, thus, writes with distinct familiarity with the ships and the ordeal of living for months in a rocky, salty, wet environment with little chance of engaging the enemy, sinking a U-boat, or even surviving an encounter. Even so, there are enough exciting moments to keep the story alive and enough information about naval life in WWII to make it well worth reading.

This is absolutely one of my favourite books, and I'm reading it for the 5th or 6th time right now.
Based on his real wartime experinces, the author creates a fascinating story of "one ocean, two ships, and some 150 men". Living from day to day through the horrors of naval war in the North Atlantic with the wonderfully-crafted characters, one is only beginning to imagine just how terrible it must have been. You breathe with them, you fight with them, you sleep with them and you live through their good and bad times - finding yourself unwilling to put this book aside.
Read this book, and Buchheim's "The Boat", and you can truly say: "Now I know what it was like!"

I've read this one several times over several years (first as a college history class assignment), and it still amazes me how Monsarrat is able to capture the spirit and tribulations of men at sea during war time. If you're at all interested in WW II or naval operations, you must read this book, as Monsarrat penetratingly explores the psyches, motivations and character of the book's principal characters. As the war in the North Atlantic goes on, the reader grows with the characters - who are for the most part Royal Naval Reservists or newbie volunteers, rather than professional Royal Navy "lifers". Together, the men and the ship go through their shared baptism of fire against the U-Boat scourge during the dark days of 1940-1942 convoy duty. This book, like Alistair MacLean's HMS Ulysses, is a true naval history classic. Don't skip it.

This is first rate WWII historical fiction. Accurate in the big picture with interesting, surely representative, vignettes of the sailors and their families. But the focus is on the action, what it was like in the violent, stormy Atlantic trying to convoy life-sustaining merchant ships to and from Britain under threat of the stealthy, deadly U-Boat wolf packs.

You get put in the shoes of a captain, a subordinate officer or a common sailer as they go about their duties and face up to the fear of a torpedo and a cold, oily sea waiting to gobble them up without hope of rescue.

The battle of the Atlantic was a very close run thing. Heavy losses from 1941-1943 threatened to starve Britain out of the war. It was only in late 1943, early 1944, when Allied tactics and technology finally adapted, that the tables were turned and the U-Boats were the ones sent to the bottom.

But what makes this book a stand out is the first person descriptions of the fear, drudgery, exhilaration, camaraderie, and tragedy of war at sea during those days. The author could not have written as he did without experiencing it himself and his prose often rises to literary excellence.

A very good WWII novel that in many ways is the literary bookend to the film 'Das Boot'. Both take place in small warships which is conducive to revealing personalities and dynamic group psychology. The reader sees the action primarily from the standpoint of Keith Lockhart, a former journalist who begins as a freshly minted volunteer reserve officer. His character resembles the author, Nicholas Monsarrat, who was RNVR himself, served in and eventually rose to command both a corvette and frigate during the war. Nearly uncontrollable bureaucratic forces at play as the war drags on leads to a greater impersonality as humanity seemingly loses out to weapons and toughness as they move from the 90 person crew of the corvette to the 170 of the larger, more capable frigate.
In comparing "The Cruel Sea" to his other war book, "Three Corvettes": the former, a bestseller, is a better structured story, while the latter, a rivetting first hand account actually written during wartime is better journalism.