Jack Hawkins and Donald Sinden are wonderful - almost always (and necessarily in wartime) stiff upper lip. The sounds, the movement, the look of cities and harbors, the clothes - it's as if one's uncles' tales have all come to life. The film is gritty, and just has the feel of the 1940s in its bones.
The movie does not skimp on the danger either - the shocking losses of ships in convoys that the corvette "protects", the extreme difficulty of finding and sinking U-boats, almost gives one the feeling, "what's the point of convoys?" (Imagine all surgeons operating with an average 3% survival rate - well, 3% recovery is better than none - but imagine the wear on the surgeons). There are no striking heroics - just the very real feeling of people performing onerous often dangerous duties as well as they're able - which is heroic itself. This movie is the opposite of the "boys' own adventure" sorts of movies. Monserrat is a master at the depiction of men at war - from his extraordinary technical knowledge to his ability to convey the fatigue, the cross feelings living in close quarters, the bitterness, the moments of triumph or relief. The reward for completing that duty? To do it again, and again, to keep family and friends alive.I first read this book when I was 14 (and had my father take it back from me when I had to ask "what's 'urinate' mean, dad?"). The Cruel Sea is not a Boy's Own adventure - it is about the grinding terror of escort duty in the Battle of the Atlantic day after day, escorting unarmoured merchant ships across the Atlantic in danger from convoy raiders and U-boats and knowing that this is Britain's only lifeline. The HMS Compass Rose is torpedoed, but instead of ending the story it follows the few survivors onto the HMS Saltash, and their continued service until the end of the war, as this is the story of people, not a single ship. Unusually for a war story it doesn't end with the sinking of the ship. It is not an easy read: it is realistic about the casualty figures, the injuries, and the hard choices the escort captains had to make. Written by a Royal Navy officer who served in corvettes and on convoys, drawing on his experiences and written less than ten years after the end of the war, The Cruel Sea is considered the best novel about the Battle of the Atlantic, and one of the greatest war novels of all time.
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