Harry Gilmour is a university student up on the Scotland-Britain border at the time of Britain’s entry into WWII. He volunteers (as opposed to enlisting) to the navy because he had some pretty extensive experience as crew on some ocean-going yachts. As a volunteer, his RNVR rank is a sub-lieutenant, his uniform also has a wavy ring around its sleeve. According to the RN (Royal Navy, the real sailors), he is ‘wrong class, wrong country, and wrong bloody ring on his sleeve.” His first assignment is on HMS Redoubtable, a WWI battleship that is still serviceable, where he oversees a damage control party. The first action has Redoubtable lobbing shells over a mountain between two Norwegian fjords. In an after-action gathering, the RN boys are hassling the sub-lieutenants and Harry stands his ground firm. This catches the eye of Peter Dumaresq, a Flag Lieutenant to a Rear Admiral. He is looking for a few good men.
The submarine corps in the late 1930s was looked upon by some snoots in the RN as being downright un-British. No self-respecting RN would sneak up on the enemy. But Peter offers Harry entry into a special navigation course, which Harry soon learns is a quick path to submarines.
Harry is a quick study, and he knows his way around docking procedures-ropes and knots, etc. He is assigned to the HMS Pelorus where he is in charge of processing a bunch of range, heading, depth, currents, and more necessary to help the captain determine when and where to fire his torpedoes. Their first patrol offers a juicy target and Harry handles his role well. Well enough for a couple RNs to accept him in as though he were a true RN. On the return voyage, a transport ship accidentally rams the Pelorus. One of his new best friends, one of the RNs, is critically wounded, but Harry manages to free him from the doomed sub and drag his to the surface and eventual recovery. The word gets out. Harry is one of ‘them’ now.
After a couple weeks of R&R from his own minor wounds, he is reassigned to another sub, which the crew (and only the crew) call ‘The Bucket’ instead of its formal French-themed name. Their new patrol is to work their way around Norway and gather information about a German presence at a Russian port. The thought is that Germany might launch an invasion of Iceland in order to control shipping lanes in the North Atlantic. Proof they find, but the captain makes the decision to engage the enemy and make the port unusable.
Author Black is a UK journalist by trade and his presentation is tight with a gritty reality of the horrors of war within the confinement of a claustrophobic tube (if you liked the movie Das Boot, you'll love this). Over half the book is inside the various subs of this dawn of the submarine warfare era. His research uncovered the minutiae of 50-60 men crammed into a tight space forcing comraderies that might not have occurred on the surface.
As with most new authors (to me), I had to work through Black’s style, which was a bit stiff and formal that was probably the way of the Brits 70+ years ago (we may both speak English, but we all know that UK-English is considerably different from US-English). This was one of the times where I appreciated using a Kindle because I had to use its dictionary on numerous occasions for British and Navy slang with which I was unfamiliar. There was an ebb and flow to the story where the tension on the subs was palatable, but when on R&R, the pace relaxed so we could get a glimpse of how Harry’s family life led him to his current responsibility. This isn’t Red October. The equipment was archaic by Clancy’s standards, but the story, especially during combat, was riveting. If you like WWII books and submarine-based stories, this one is a winner.
ECD
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