 First edition | |
| Author | C. S. Forester |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | A. E. Barlow |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Publisher | Michael Joseph |
Publication date | 1943 |
| Pages | 256 (paperback) 193 (hardback) |
The Ship is a morale-booster propaganda novel [1] written by British author C. S. Forester set in the Mediterranean during World War II, and first published in May 1943. It follows the life of a Royal Navy light cruiser for a single action, including a detailed analysis of many of the men on board and the contribution they made.
A vital convoy is heading to Malta, escorted by five Royal Navy light cruisers, including HMS Artemis. It is afternoon, and Artemis, commanded by Captain Troughton-Harrington-Yorke, has just beaten off a number of air attacks. An Italian surface fleet, with the battleships San Martino and Legnano and several light cruisers, will intercept it soon. The convoy must get through, so the British ships must fight. The crew, from the command level officers on the bridge down to the ordinary seamen in the lower decks, prepares for the coming confrontation, while part of them is also occupied with their own, very colorful lives.
Upon receiving reports from the lookouts at the masthead of enemy ships ahead, the cruisers lay a smoke screen, then attack. The ship sustains two hits, the first of which kills the ship's surgeon and several other crewmembers, while the second one does more damage to the ship and requires the flooding of "X" gun turret aft. The other two turrets continue to fire upon the Italian fleet, while destroyers lay a torpedo attack. A single shell, whose history from the mining of the ores to the firing of the gun is described in detail, hits the Italian flagship and strikes the final blow to the morale of the enemy commanders. With the San Martino being hit by a torpedo, the Italian fleet retires as night falls, and the convoy continues for Malta.
The captain remains on the bridge, more determined than ever to continue "the long struggle of sea power against tyranny", which so many naval commanders fought before him. [2]
The novel is divided into twenty-six short chapters, and describes a very short period of time - from 11.30 a.m. to nightfall on a single day. [4] The narrative interweaves the stories of the men aboard, from the Paymaster Commander to the Captain to the gun crew that fires the shot that changed the course of history, with chapter headings that come from the Captain's official after-action report.
The author dedicated the book "with the deepest respect to the officers and crew of HMS Penelope", and the action described is based on the Second Battle of Sirte. Forester had been invited to a mission aboard that vessel by the Admiralty earlier. [5] Less than a year after the book was published, the Penelope was torpedoed by a German submarine and sank with more than half her crew.
The second USS California (ACR-6), also referred to as "Armored Cruiser No. 6", and later renamed San Diego, was a United States Navy Pennsylvania-class armored cruiser.
HMS Liverpool, named after the port city of Liverpool in north-west England, was a Town-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy in service from 1938 to 1952.
The Battle of Calabria, known to the Italian Navy as the Battle of Punta Stilo, was a naval battle during the Battle of the Mediterranean in the Second World War. Ships of the Italian Regia Marina were opposed by vessels of the British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. The battle occurred 30 miles to the east of Punta Stilo, Calabria, on 9 July 1940. It was one of the few pitched battles of the Mediterranean campaign during the Second World War involving large numbers of ships on both sides. Both sides claimed victory, but in fact the battle was a draw and everyone returned to their bases safely.
Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white CinemaScope British war film based on the 1959 book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck by C. S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. To date, it is the only film made that deals directly with the operations, chase and sinking of the battleship Bismarck by the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Although war films were common in the 1960s, Sink the Bismarck! was seen as something of an anomaly, with much of its time devoted to the "unsung back-room planners as much as on the combatants themselves". Its historical accuracy, in particular, met with much praise despite a number of inconsistencies.
The Second Battle of Sirte was a naval engagement in the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Gulf of Sidra and southeast of Malta, during the Second World War. The escorting warships of a British convoy to Malta held off a much more powerful squadron of the Regia Marina. The British convoy was composed of four merchant ships, escorted by four light cruisers, one anti-aircraft cruiser and 17 destroyers. The Italian force comprised a battleship, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and ten destroyers. Despite the initial British success at warding off the Italian squadron, the Italian fleet attack delayed the convoy's planned arrival before dawn, which exposed it to intense air attacks that sank all four merchant ships and one of the escorting destroyers in the following days.
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HMS Penelope was an Arethusa-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Harland & Wolff ; her keel was laid down on 30 May 1934. She was launched on 15 October 1935, and commissioned 13 November 1936. She was torpedoed and sunk by German U-boat U-410 near Naples with great loss of life on 18 February 1944. On wartime service with Force K, she was holed so many times by bomb fragments that she acquired the nickname "HMS Pepperpot".
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HMS Forester was one of nine F-class destroyers built for the Royal Navy during the early 1930s. Although assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935–36 during the Abyssinia Crisis. A few weeks after the start of World War II in September 1939, she helped to sink one German submarine and then participated in the Second Battle of Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Forester was sent to Gibraltar in mid-1940 and formed part of Force H where she participated in the attack on the Vichy French ships at Mers-el-Kébir and the Battle of Dakar between escorting the aircraft carriers of Force H as they flew off aircraft for Malta and covering convoys resupplying and reinforcing the island until late 1941. During this time the ship helped to sink another German submarine.
Single-Handed is a 1953 British war film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Jeffrey Hunter, Michael Rennie and Wendy Hiller. It is based on the 1929 novel Brown on Resolution by C. S. Forester. Set largely in the Pacific, Hunter stars as a Canadian sailor serving on a British warship who battles single-handedly to delay a German World War II warship long enough for the Royal Navy to bring it to battle. The film was released in the United States as Sailor of the King.
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