![]() ![]() During the war my grandmother was a newly married young mum. Of course, we all know that the Arctic Convoys were awful. A couple of them might veer towards cardboard cut outs, but by and large the men are strong and believable figures. The characters of the men - and they are all men - in the book are very well drawn. The weapons and abilities of the ship's radar etc are very well documented - certainly good enough for any naval buff to feel that they are getting a clear description of what it was like on such a ship. It concentrates on the ship and its men - other vessels, people and aircraft are there in supporting roles only and rarely get much mention unless they impact directly on HMS Ulysses. I can only hope that his own war was not as terrifying and doomed as the events of this novel.Īs the title might suggest, the novel followed the course of a voyage by the cruiser HMS Ulysses as it escorts a convoy of merchant ships from Iceland to Russia. The book is based on his own naval experiences on the awful Arctic Convoys to Russia in the Second World WAr. It is an early edition and at the time I did not realise that it was MacLean's first novel. I grabbed it only because it was a MacLean novel that I had not read before. I picked this book up second hand in a charity shop for 50p. ![]()
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