I Read Books: The Ship
C S Forester, perhaps best known for his age of sail Hornblower novels, wrote this about a modern naval action, which was published in 1943 after interviewing some of the crew of the light cruiser HMS Penelope. It’s a fair novel, a great look into how WW2 ships fought and were organised, and a magnificent work of propaganda.
HMS Artemis is part of the escort of a convoy to Malta. The novel begins after an air attack has just finished and the paymaster decides that it’s a good time to give the men some food before anything else occurs and sends them soup, sandwiches and cocoa at their stations. This is not quite as simple as it sounds; the galley crew are at their action station (damage control) and need to be released. The stove is turned off, the only heat source is superheated steam. The food needs to be made up, distributed and carried to the men at their stations. Meanwhile the paymaster is very insistent on getting the pans mugs trays etc back. And as they’ve been at their stations all day, he’s faced with a dilemma; he can offer them cigarettes and chocolate but he can’t just hand it out, it needs to be paid for.
All this goes without a hitch because he’s planned it out, and perfected his system. And although feeding the men at their stations seems a minor thing, it’s important as they’re about to fight a serious battle with the Italian Navy.
The novel then cycles through most of the major stations on the ship as the enemy ships are sighted and the battle develops. In particular it works through how the guns are aimed, using various devices and a room full of men in this age when computer is a job rather than a machine. Some of the crew are regular navy, some are for the duration. Some are single-minded and dedicated, most are very good at their jobs. A few are less so, the newly-promoted petty officer who is riding his men too hard, the ordinary seaman who always screws up. There’s a poet, and a rapist, and the Captain’s secretary who is desperately afraid and nearly breaks under the strain.
I said propaganda and by that I mean more than one thing. Firstly, though the British ship is shown warts and all, it’s not merely their excellent training and clever tactics that takes them through a battle with the superior enemy fleet. Forester makes this a moral victory; the captain and all his crew have only one aim, to protect the convoy. Meanwhile the Italian Admiral and his German advisor have mixed objectives, trying to please their respective superiors.
Secondly though fictionalised, this action is based on the Second Battle of Sirte. Forester claims in the novel [SPOILERS] that by driving off the Italian Fleet the convoy makes it to Malta, which prevents Malta falling, which diverts the Axis strength from other fronts in the war; hence there is one shell fired by the Artemis that changes history. In reality, although they drove off the surface attack, the convoy was delayed getting to Malta and was damaged by air attack, leading to most of the supplies being destroyed.
Read This: For an exciting contemporary WW2 sea battle, with plenty of detail on how you actually shoot a gun from a wobbling platform going at 30 knots, 15,000 yards at a target going at 25 knots and actually expect to hit
Don’t Read This: If you’d rather not have this kind of detail in your twenty pen-portraits of characters manning a ship, especially as several get killed at the end of their sections (Artemis takes quite a hammering)
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