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Summary: A splendid and moving masterpiece of naval fiction.
Review: This is no ordinary blood-and-glory sea story, with a ship full of heroes who can do no wrong. Here is real life - the misery of North Atlantic weather, in a small ship rolling constantly in the tremendous swell. An untried and amateur crew aboard a newly built ship are pitted against an omnipresent and invisible enemy below the waves, who is able to mark ships and sailors for death seemingly at will. In perhaps the most bitter fight of WW II, the crew adapt and learn, making Compass Rose a highly effective weapon against the German U-Boats. Written in 1951, Monsarrat bases his story on his own experience as first officer of a corvette on convoy escort duty. He clearly identifies with his primary character, Lockhart, who joins HMS Compass Rose in 1939 as a very junior Sub Lieutenant. The people and ships are fictional, but this is nevertheless a true and moving story. A brilliant story, totally unforgettable!
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Summary: A cut-above WWII Sub-chaser film !
Review: There are probably two really good films that depicit life aboard a surface ship - target from a submariner's point-of-view - from the perspective of seeking-out and destroying U-boats. One is Dick Powell's "Enemy Below" (Mitchum-Jurgens); this is the other ...well worth viewing.
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Summary: Terrific read (could Spielberg remake the movie?)
Review: I read this in high school, and it is still possibly my favorite book (15 years later). I convinced my (future) wife to read this book when we were dating, and although she had no significant interest in WWII history like I did, she was touched and moved by the story as well. Very well written book that puts a human face on war.
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Summary: Absolutely Fantastic!
Review: This gripping and long novel is an absolute classis, it is impossible to put it down! The escapades of HMS Compass Rose and Saltash are escellently depicted here, and it is a really great way to find out about life of convoy escorts in WW2, a definite must have gubbinz!
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Summary: Brilliant war movie, the stuff heroes are made of.
Review: As in all movies, the film tends to shy away from the direct action required to make this a memorable war film. The lacklustre portrail of Lt. Bennett RANR was very loosely portrayed even tho he had a marked impact upon the initial part of the action. Lt. Bennett's part in the set up was pathetically humorous. It was from this in-glorious start that the book captivated the reader, but was lost in the film. This initial portrayal set up a graphical accounts of the war at sea in corvettes. Not much bigger than a large fishing trawler these ships travelled across the Atlantic and on the Russian convoys, being commanded and worked by ordinary people from ordinary families and ordinary jobs. Young men turned into sailors virtually overnight, this film captures some, but not all, of the viciousness of people battling, not only the enemy, The Germans, but also the elements, continual rough seas, freezing nights and days, standing watche after watch, comotosed, little ot no sleep for days on end, fighting of attack after attack by Doenitz's submarines and by bombers of the Luftwaffe, sleeping at Actions Stations, dying not of bombs, torpedos, machine guns, but of exhaustion, fear, and freezing to death in the cold, cold waters of the Bearing Sea. These were the real things this film failed to bring home to its audience. Failed in a vain bid to sell the sailors as someone fighting to save his country at a massive, massive price. The war at sea could not have been won without corvettes, like Compass Rose and the men who sailed in them. It was the corvettes and the sailors of the Royal Navy who kept the sealanes open for supplies of fuel, arms and food, to keep the British Isles alive.
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Summary: The best sea storie I will ever read
Review: This is the best book I have ver read I loved it and you will too
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Summary: Adaption of Monserrat's tribute to WWII RN escorts
Review: Made in the 1950's with the co-operation of the UK Royal Navy the film follows the fate of a small group of seaman, with minimal experience who manned the small escort vessels that fought the Battle of the Atlantic. Though ficticious, the film is set against the true historical context of the battle and incidents portrayed have a basis in historically recorded incidents. The sheer emotion of ordinary men stoically fighting, and often failing, to survive in the hostile world in which they have been thrown by the war is excellently portrayed with crisp editing and effects. An excellent adaption of Nicholas Monserrat's book with some editing of the original text in order to get the film down to a reasonable length. Though by modern standards the continuity is slightly lacking in the seagoing shots, this in no way reduces the sheer impact of the events portrayed. END
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Summary: One of the most realistic accounts of sea life I've read
Review: As a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy, I have been searching for books that can give me an idea of what the seagoing officer experiences on a deployment. Monsaerrat's THE CRUEL SEA is by far the most realistic, vivid portrayal I've read about life on a small ship. From personnel problems to equipment failures to helping injured, dying sailors, THE CRUEL SEA covers a vast spectrum of nightmares and headaches aboard a small convoy escort. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in going to sea!
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Summary: The best naval story I have ever had the pleasure to read.
Review: Although written for the Royal Navy corvette duty of World War II it brings the adventure of the sea to life for anyone. As a U.S. Navy veteran, I found this book to be outstanding in its reality of the sea, the ships, the men, and the tensions of war. The Cruel Sea is difficult, if not impossible, to put down. I'm ready for other books by Nicholas Monsarrat, he is a powerful and enlightened writer.
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Summary: The everyday man at war
Review: "The Cruel Sea" gives an excellent account of the real war at sea, the everyday lives of sailors and the situations they were up against both at sea and at home. The reader feels the fear, the anguish, the camaradarie of the crew. There is no glamour in war, there is the ordinary man doing his best to win the battle and when it is won, to go home to continue with his life
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