Book Review: H.M.S. Ulysses

© 1955 by Alistair Maclean

Minor spoilers …

An invaluable aid for any student of history is to read fiction relating to the period in question. When I first became interested in the Civil War six years ago, I read Jeff and Michael Shaara’s fictionalized versions on the various battles in the conflict (Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, The Last Full Measure, all highly recommended). Then my focus wandered toward World War II, and in addition to reading a slew of historical works, I also read The Caine Mutiny, Jeff Shaara’s The Rising Tide, even Worldwar: In the Balance, about an alien invasion that happens right in the middle of the action in 1943. There’s something about historical fiction that cements the people and places of a certain period into one’s mind.

Forgive a non-veteran’s presumption, but I always felt The Red Badge of Courage to be the most realistic depiction of war. Writing as one who – thank God – has never seen combat, it brought the dangers, the risks, the adrenaline, the fog, of warfare to life to me. Exhilarating yet terrible. A crucible for every man: how would I react in such a situation? Can I master fear and panic in a life-or-death situation? (An aside – if you haven’t read Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage since it was assigned to you way back in high school, forget any residual memories of that crime and re-read it.)

Now I think I’ve found a better book to bring that chaos to life.

Six months ago I picked up Maclean’s H.M.S. Ulysses and Ice Station Zebra at a used book store, not knowing anything about either except that the second was made into a Rock Hudson movie I saw a zillion years ago. Looking for something action-packed to counterbalance all the egg-heady stuff I’ve been reading lately, I snatched it off the shelf and whipped through it in a week. Though the first couple of days I had difficulty digested more than 10 or 20 pages at a sitting, due to just simply being busy with stuff, the last three days I couldn’t put it down, reading 60 or 70 pages a night.

The novel never, ever lets up over the course of 320 pages. It details a week in the life an English World War II cruiser, escorting a supply convoy of 34 ships from Scapa Flow (that’s the northern peak of the British Isle) to Murmansk, Soviet Union, a treacherous zig-zagging route within the Arctic Circle. Zig-zagging not only to avoid German U-boat wolf packs but also marauding flocks of Heinkels and Stukas. The temperatures hover at the freezing mark – flesh upon metal results in blood and pain. A dip in these waters is death after thirty seconds.

This is no Run Silent Run Deep – the tension ratchets up immediately and never lets up, one vignette of destruction after another. The crew’s already run ragged and mutinied on the voyage before, so this mission is one of expiation, or punishment. Our captain is dying of some sort of consumptive disease, but tries every last trick and trade to get his men to perform honorably on what will probably be the Ulysses’s final voyage. Over these grim and gritty pages men drown, have holes blown through them, drown, get funneled into propellers, freeze to death. Some mercifully die in the concussive aftermath of a Stuka bomb. And more than a few redeem themselves, dying so that others may live.

As it turns out, by novel’s end, one crewman of the Ulysses survives. Care to guess who it might be? And of those thirty-four cargo ships, carrying oil, ammunition, tanks, supplies, to open up a Second Front in the war to stop Hitler, only six make it to Murmansk.

Was it worth it?

Though H.M.S. Ulysses was a tough read, I liked it. From what I’ve read Maclean himself served in the royal navy during the war and a lot of incidents in the novel he directly and indirectly experienced. And I, having read it, feel that, even though through another degree removed, I also indirectly experienced the hell that was warfare during World War II.

Grade: B+

Note 1: Bonus points for having the ending to my all-time favorite poem, “Ulysses” by Tennyson, in the opening page.

Note 2: One rare disadvantage of reading a used book is that it could be damaged in an annoying way. In this case, the book smelled odd. Not bad, but not nostalgically good either. Sort of like a combination of mildew, nicotine, and something vaguely chemical. Perhaps the man who last read it was a machinist or something similar and had often thumbed through it with chemically-stained hands. Perhaps he may even have been someone quite similar to those men I journeyed around the Arctic Circle with these past seven days …