The Cruel Sea - Hardcover

A powerful novel of the North Atlantic in World War II, this is the story of the British ships Compass Rose and Saltash and of their desperate cat-and-mouse game with Nazi U-boats. First published to great acclaim in 1951, THE CRUEL SEA remains a classic novel of endurance and daring.

Nicholas Monsarrat was born in Liverpool in 1910, and educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. At the beginning of the war he joined the R.N.V.R. as a sub-lieutenant and attained the rank of lieutenant-Commander, spending his time on convoy work, latterly in command of a frigate. He was awarded the Heinemann Foundation Prize for Literature in 1951, and the Coronation Medal in 1953. Nicholas Monsarrat died in August 1979 and his ashes were later scattered over the sea.