"Good WW2 Naval Fiction?" Topic

Can anyone recommend some good WW2 naval fiction?……quite enjoy a good novel nd am looking to stock up!

cheers

Douglas REEMAN has written a lot of WWII naval fiction. They a really good reading.

link

And his grammer is better than mine.

I second the Douglas Reeman books.

CS Forrester has some as well (Just finished a book of short stories "Gold from Crete"…good stuff!). How about Alastair Maclean, didn't he write some WWII sea fiction?

There is nothing better than "The Cruel Sea", by Nicholas Monserrat. North Atlantic convoy runs.
Jack Hawkins was damn good in the movie, too.

Alastair MacClean's "HMS Ulysses" is in a similar vein, and when I first read it as a teen, I thought it was great literature. Not so much now, but still good non-stop tragic action.

Hernan Wouk's "War and Remembrance" has some good naval scenes. You should probably read "The Winds of War" first.

Edward Beach's "Run Silent, Run Deep" is both a great book and movie.

I'd suggest "The Caine Mutiny" by Herman Woulk. The book does a great job of telling the main story from many different points of view (mainly as an insider or an outsider) to the events described.
I'd also suggest "Whip" by Martin Caidin. It's about a B-25 group that flies and fights against the Japanese in the pacific. Not quite a true "naval" novel, but the do shoot up and bomb ships.

I endorse Reeman and Maclean. Another good book is "The Cruiser" by Warren Tute.

"Away All boats", Kenneth Dodson
"Harm's Way" and "Cmdr. Prince, USN", James Bassett
"The Enemy Below", D. A. Rayner
"Sharks and Little Fish", Wolfgang Ott
"Tales of the South Pacific", James Michener

I second the OFM's endorsement of "The Cruel Sea". A true classic of naval literature.

Others include;

"Away all boats"

"The Ninety and Nine"

"Mister Roberts", Thomas Heggen & Joshua Loggan. Okay, it's a play, but its a very GOOD play.

It's not really fiction, but anything by Don Sheppard is good. He wrote a three volume set on his career in the US Navy during Vietnam/Cold War. They read like a Hornblower novels. He spent most of his time on Destroyers. The three books are:

Blue Water Sailor
Riverine
Destroyer Skipper

Really good books.

"now hear this", by dan gallery

"teahouse of the august moon" (?)
"don't go near the water".

'The Cruel Sea', by Nicholas Monsarrat.

C.S. Forester's "The Ship" set in the Med (and based on the trials and tribulations of the H.M.S. Penelope) and in particular "The "Good Shepherd" about a US destroyer on convoy duty in the North Atlantic are among my favorites.

Try Ronald Bassett for really accurate depictions of the life of ordinary (RN) sailors during WWII.
The Tinfish Run
The Pierhead Jump
The Neptune Landing
--Thoroughly recommended.
Gerry McGinty

"Time and Tide" by Thomas Fleming was an excellent fictionalized account of a USN heavy cruiser. Get the hardcover- the paperback is abridged and actually kills off a few main characters early.

Also Sloan Wilson's "Ice Brothers" about the Greenland Patrol.

Alexander Fullerton's Nicholas Everard Series is excellent, almost as good as Tute's "The Cruiser." There are six books in the series. I've read the first, STORM FORCE TO NARVIK, and I can recommend it. Published by McBooks Press, I found the first one through the Daedalus catalog.

Brian callison does quite a few

Brian Callison's books are excellent; the only fiction author who has any clue about the Merchant Navy in the Second World War. Every other author I've read hasn't had any idea!

Another gret one: "South to Java" by William P. Mack. Fantastic account of a 4-stack DD in Java early 1942. I read the whole thing on a flight to Asia last year.

There are some excellent non fiction books, that read as easy as a novel and are quite exciting. Convoy Commodore is one. A very ordinary seaman is another.

Talking non fiction.
One book to avoid at all costs is BITTER OCEAN. The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1945. By David Fairbank White.

Advertised as a superior history of the longest running battle of WW2, and a better starting place for the general reader. It is anything but. The author seems to have set out to write a literary masterpiece and somewhere along the line after collecting several chapters of words and their alternatives from his thesaurus, decided he needed a subject as well. Fancy phrases and words do not make a history. The book sometimes takes pages to describe an event another author would have conveyed to the reader within a paragraph, and probably fitted in much more detail.

The reader may survive the first few pages, but after that will find rising nausia as he realises the author is about to embark on several more pages of cliches and phraseology before finally reaching the point. I found the book terribly frustrating and felt the editors should have given the author a good shake by the shoulders and told him to get on with the story.

Very little history was put at risk, but it left me wondering how many sets of thesaurus were expended in the writing of this book.

I tried reading Convoy East, another by the same author as Convoy Commodore and couldn't finish it. The author had no idea of what he was writing about.

For non-Fiction the best three are "The Real Cruel Sea", "Arctic Convoys" and "Malta Convoys", all by Richard Woodman; he really knows what he is talking about.

Richard Woodman is an outstanding author of historical subjects.

Douglas Reeman--very good pulp writer--Also from the other end of the periscope--Das Boot the novel---Very very good…

I don't think Ned Beach's story is fiction… he was a highly-decorated Sailor, and Commanding Officer of far too many submarines.

For chills, thrills and other good submarine action, nothing beats 'Thunder Below' by ADM Gene Fluckey. link

As a general rule, most fiction about the RN is moderately good, where it isn't pot-boiler stuff of the Reeman ilk, especially when written by writers who are ex-RN themselves; even by people who have no direct experience themselves. However, nearly all fiction where the Merchant Navy is the subject is complete rubbish, particularly by authors who are ex-RN, as most authors, even when they have done some research, how no idea how Merchant Ships operate or run. As Britain is supposed to be a "maritime nation", the profound ignorance that exists about its maritime heritage I find shameful.
I read one of Alexander Fullerton's called "Westbound, Warbound", which was a classic of its type. The author had done some research, but was so full of errors that I found it unreadable. The author, an ex-RN officer, clearly had so little idea of how a Merchant ship operated that I found it quite offensive and didn't bother finishing it. For example, having the Chief Engineer calling the Captain "sir", nonsense, or a cadet doing chart corrections!

J P W Mallalieu's "Very Ordinary Seaman". Wonderful book.

Yes, he is Baronness Mallalieu's dad.

All the best,

John.

A good trilogy that covers from WW I to the end of WW II. The Lion At Sea; The Dangerous Years & Back To Battle by Max Hennesy. The books follow the carreer of Kelly Maguire from midshipman to admeral, in many ways the character is based on Mountbaten. In many ways it isn't. I would also second the reccomendation for Fullertons Everard series.

Fatman

Hennesy also wrote, under the name Richard Harris, the classic novel the Sea Shall Not Have Them.

One of the reasons that I find Fullerton's attemps so annoying is that he thinks that, because he is succesful in his own genre, he can write about anything nautical. A bit of research to give some authenticity, mentioning ship's agents, Admiralty Pilot Books, cargo operations and stowage, but then betraying his lack of knowledge with the rest of the book. Here are a few examples in more detail:
1) An order is given, "Away sea-boat's crew"!
Merchant ships don't have a "sea-boat". The have lifeboats, which the Board of Trade specifically prohibit being used for anything but use as a Lifeboat. There would be nobody onboard trained in boat handling, unlike a Royal Navy ship. A Merchant Ship would never have the need to do so, and wouldn't have the manpower available. Thus the whole episode is completely unauthentic.
2)When in port none of the Officers seem to involve themselves with cargo operations, which is their prime responsibility in port. Instead they wander ashore, usually in uniform, which an MN Officer would NEVER do!
3)The Officers seem to have a Ward Room steward available at all times, who prepares food and drink for them. RN ships do, MN ships absolutely do not.
4)The Officers do not interact with the ship's Engineers. In an MN ship the Engineers are Officers and are (very nearly) socially equal to the Mates, and they mix freely. In the RN the situation is different, with often the Chief Engineer being a CPO, whereas the C/E on a Merchant Ship is very nearly as senior to the Master, and would be treated with a great deal of respect by all of the Mates. The Officers, Mates and Engineers, would all use each others first names, and there would be absolutely NO saluting! The only titles used would be Captain by all of the Officers to the Old Man, and Chief by all of the Officers to the C/E, unless the Old Man and C/E were talking to each other when they may use first names to each other. Again, the RN depending on conditions, are more likely to use titles.
5) Cadets were not treated as Midshipmen, and certainly in those days, were rarely treated as Officers. They would NEVER do chart corrections, EVER. They are solely the responsibility of the Second Mate. I know, I was one!

I'm afraid that when an author gets so many things wrong one loses all faith in his story telling. I find the author's arrogance in thinking that he can tell a story set in a Merchant ship when he doesn't know anything about them quite offensive.