The Cruel Sea - BBC2 now

Its the last full fiction book I have read and would recommend it, even more than the film.

You really are reminded how inexperienced some of the officers were and ill prepared in the early days of the war. (The books tends to focus on the officers).

The main Corvette in the book is built on the Clyde, but Smiths Dock in South Bank produced a lot of Royal Navy Corvettes in WW2. My great aunty (May Artley) was a welding supervisor there in WW2.
 
Redwurzel said:
Its the last full fiction book I have read and would recommend it, even more than the film.

You really are reminded how inexperienced some of the officers were and ill prepared in the early days of the war. (The books tends to focus on the officers).

The main Corvette in the book is built on the Clyde, but Smiths Dock in South Bank produced a lot of Royal Navy Corvettes in WW2. My great aunty (May Artley) was a welding supervisor there in WW2.
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My mother's uncle, Tommy Moremon, was killed when the Bastiaise (Flower class corvette built for the French navy) was mined off the mouth of the Tees in 1940.

If you watch the World at War episode on the Battle of the Atlantic one of the escort commanders states that 2 of his officers were Canadians whose only seagoing experience was as passengers on the transport that brought them to the UK.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
My mate's dad 'Billy Turner' was torpedoed three times during WW2. I used to tell him I wouldn't go on Locke Park Boating Lake with him.
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Old Billy was a regular in the Cleveland Inn, Normanby and when the lads started to make a fuss about his service he started to open up a little and brought a photograph album in. In one of the photos in front of a ship's gun, he was sitting in the middle of a group of tough looking fellas whom he explained were the ship's boxing team.

Due to having a stroke Billy spoke in one word sentences, and out of a group of around 16 men on the photo he pointed to about all but three of the men saying dead, dead, dead, meaning they had been killed during the war.

He wouldn't say much about the war but looking at each photo he would smile but also fill up with tears.
 
xxlshirts_fit_all said:
Takes me back to a Sunday afternoon at sea in the mess with a beer…
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Thought exactly the same when I read the thread this morning. It was on at least once a deployment in the mess.
I mentioned it the other week whilst teaching a AW159 famil course when covering the sonar.
No one had seen the film
'Instantaneous echo Sir'
 
Was in the RNR in the late 70's. went out on a WW2 destroyer with an open front gun turret. I just cannot get my head around been out in the Atlantic in winter in those conditions. Super brave men those sailors.
 
Redwurzel said:
Its the last full fiction book I have read and would recommend it, even more than the film.

You really are reminded how inexperienced some of the officers were and ill prepared in the early days of the war. (The books tends to focus on the officers).

The main Corvette in the book is built on the Clyde, but Smiths Dock in South Bank produced a lot of Royal Navy Corvettes in WW2. My great aunty (May Artley) was a welding supervisor there in WW2.
Click to expand...
At least one of the ships used as 'props' in the film were Smiths Dock built.
You cant be more authentic than that, even though there was no swearing in the script.
The concept of the Corvette came from the Chairman of Smith's Dock, from a conversation with the Admiralty about what they could do for the war effort. They used the design for a whaler that they had built recently and turned it into a convoy escort. An incredible number were built (approx 1 every 6 weeks, I have heard) in South Bank, the Clyde and Canada.
Because it had the engine room of a merchant ship
it was easier to train up merchant seamen and 'wavy navy' officers.
 
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AB - Thanks a lot for that - useful.

Many people on Teesside now will not have much of a clue what happened at Smiths Dock in WW2. The work of the men and women there - kept Britain from starving and kept key materials coming in for the war effort. A ship once every 6 weeks is amazing and not an iPhone in sight.

My mother (just a member of the public) wrote a article for the old Evening Gazette about 30 years ago about old South Bank which included a photo of Teesside's "Rosie the welders" I know they built the flower class corvettes that sunk a number of U Boats. As a young girl she watched thousands walk in and out of Smiths Docks - hard to believe when he see the tumble weed drift down Middlesbrough Road now and every surviving building is boarded up.
 
I watched it yesterday, it is a great film with a great cast. I love a good sea faring war film.
 
It's years since I've seen it, but historian James Holland was talking about it not so long ago and thinks it is one of the best war films, because it is so authentic.

The book it is based on is a memoir, many of the actors served in the forces during the war. Donald Sinden tried to join the navy in WW2 - his father was in the navy in WW1 - but was rejected on medical grounds.

Jack Hawkins was an officer in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

Bruce Seton was an officer in The Black Watch.

Denholm Elliot was a gunner/wireless officer in a Handley Page Halifax. In late 1942, on a mission to bomb U-boat pens, his plane was hit by flak and ditched in the Baltic. He was one of 3 (of the 7 man crew) to survive. He was picked up by the Germans and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp where he spent his time performing Shakespeare for the other prisoners.

Here is a fascinating interview with Donald Sinden. It is easy to understand why it is so authentic.

 
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