"Favorite Naval Novel?" Topic

What is your all-time favorite fiction book involving naval action?

The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat.
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Fine movie, too.

An obscure novel from the '60s, "Bandersnatch" by Desmond Lowden. It's a naval heist, an attack in the Med by a refurbished ex-MTB on a huge yacht (think Onassis's "Christina O"). Yes, the plot is similar to Jack Finney's "Assault on a Queen," but I think "Bandersnatch" is much better written. And check out the cover:

I bought the book as a quick beach read in a used book store decades ago, and was blown away. I re-read it every year or so.

A toss-up between MASTER & COMMANDER or THE POST CAPTAIN by Patrick O'Brian.

Shawn.

The Great Pacific War by Hector C. Bywater

The Wreck of the Grosvenor…even though it's man against the sea.

This 12th Century one…

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I found this comic lacking…

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HMS Ulysses by Alaister McLean. One of his first, and I think, his best.

Convoy warfare on the Arctic run…

Another vote for HMS Ulysses, though The Cruel Sea is a very, very close second.

I always thught of "The Cruel Sea" as "HMS Ulysses" written by a grownup.

Ship of Rome, quality punic war stuff.

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"Beat to Quarters" by by C. S. Forester.

"Mutiny on the Bounty" by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. After that, anything by Forrester or O'Brian.

'The Ship' by C S Forester? It tells the story of a British cruiser's part in a naval battle during World War II.

Master and Commander
Sloop of War
Ship of the Line
Ship of Rome

This one's easy. Das Boot!

C S Forrester's Hornblower series The "grandfather" of all naval series My favourites would be a Ship of the line/Flying Colours

Grey Seas Under by Farley Mowat. An excellent book about salvage tugs in the Atlantic.

Also,

A Ship is Dying
A Plague of Sailors
HMS Ulysses
Moby Dick, i so wanted to go a-whaling after reading it!

I vote for Hornblower saga, too.

Captain Hornblower followed closely by The Cruel Sea.

J P W Mallalieu, "Very Ordinary Seaman".

And, of course, any of the "Artful Bodger" books by John Winton.

All the best,

John.

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers. Still one of my favorites.

Hornblower and the Hotspur for me.

Das Boot.

"The Hundred Days" by Patrick O'Brian. But I like all of the Aubrey Maturin series, and all of the Hornblowers as well.

I also like the Hornblower series.
I also like some of Rafael Sabatini's novels, e.g. Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, and Sword of Islam (features galley warfare in the Med in the 1500s)

The Cruel Sea

To Glory We Steer, and Jack Chalker's retelling of the USS Indianapolis. Unless it was by James P. Hogan. I'm really drawing a blank on it, and the book is somewhere in the house too. A Bertram Chandler wrote some sea stories in his John Grimes series(Sci Fi) that were good too as Chandler was a Sea Captain.

O'Brian
Hornblower
Sabatini

Dang… I'm gonna have to crack 'em all out again.

In a different vein, I liked The Hunt for Red October. If anyone has some other good submarine novels, please make the recommendation.

And it's time to look up The Cruel Sea. Never read that one, or seen the movie.

Parzival, for a different submarine novel, you might enjoy Jack Finney's "Assault on a Queen." I wasn't impressed with the movie, though.

Two books that I read as a young boy come to mind. The fondness could be looking back at memories of 40 years ago.
"A Flock Of Ships" is the one I know for sure. The other comes to mind as "Battlewagon" but I'm not sure if that is correct. I had a green, hardcover book from the 1940s that told the story of life aboard an unnamed US battleship in the Pacific during WWII.

Parzival, when I was a young'un I read a book named Send Down a Dove by Charles McHardy. It was the story of a WWII British Submarine. I don't remember much about the plot at this late date, but I do remember enjoying it immensely.