Based on the author’s own vivid experiences, The Cruel Sea is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys during World War II.
Darting back and forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat-and-mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves.
Packed with tension and vivid descriptions of agonizing U-boat hunts, this tale of the most bitter and chilling campaign of the war tells of ordinary men who had to master their own fears before they could face a brutal menace—one which would strike without warning from the deep.
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"After seeing the British movie as a 10 year old with my mother which fascinated me and left an indelible memory of the war at sea and the corvettes. In adulthood shuttling from one clinic to another in Pennsylvania I listened to the audiotaped Cruel Sea and was entranced by Nicholas Monsarrat's tale of the sea and the brave men who fought for our freedom. A remarkable book on all counts." — MJ Fialkov (5 out of 5 stars)
"After seeing the British movie as a 10 year old with my mother which fascinated me and left an indelible memory of the war at sea and the corvettes. In adulthood shuttling from one clinic to another in Pennsylvania I listened to the audiotaped Cruel Sea and was entranced by Nicholas Monsarrat's tale of the sea and the brave men who fought for our freedom. A remarkable book on all counts."
“Powerful…The dominant quality of this sturdy novel is compassion.”
“An impressive novel, portraying the war at sea with emotion, drama, tenderness, and terror.”
“A book that speaks to you and makes you part of its story.”
" Cruel Sea is one of the most famous novels to come from WWII. It's a vivid account of the Battle of the Atlantic written by someone who was there. This book will be read for a century. "
Nicholas Monsarrat (1910–1979) was born in Liverpool and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in World War II, first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then as a member of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His lifelong love of sailing made him a capable naval officer, and he served with distinction on a series of small warships. Resigning his wartime commission in 1946, he entered the diplomatic service. He turned to writing full time in 1959, settling on the Mediterranean island of Gozo until his death.
Simon Vance (a.k.a. Robert Whitfield) is an award-winning actor and narrator. He has earned more than fifty Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration thirteen times. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London. He is also an actor who has appeared on both stage and television.
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