''The Ship'' is a morale-booster propaganda novel written by British author

C. S. Forester Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 – 2 April 1966), known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Roya ...

set in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and first published in May 1943. It follows the life of a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to thi ...

for a single action, including a detailed analysis of many of the men on board and the contribution they made.

Plot

A vital convoy is heading to

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

, escorted by five Royal Navy light cruisers, including HMS ''Artemis''. It is afternoon, and ''Artemis'', commanded by Captain Troughton-Harrington-Yorke, has just beaten off a number of air attacks. An

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

surface fleet, with the

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

s ''San Martino'' and ''Legnano'' and several light cruisers, will intercept it soon. The convoy must get through, so the British ships must fight. The crew, from the command level officers on the bridge down to the ordinary seamen in the lower decks, prepares for the coming confrontation, while part of them is also occupied with their own, very colorful lives. Upon receiving reports from the lookouts at the masthead of enemy ships ahead, the cruisers lay a

smoke screen A smoke screen is smoke released to mask the movement or location of military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft, or ships. Smoke screens are commonly deployed either by a canister (such as a grenade) or generated by a vehicle (such as ...

, then attack. The ship sustains two hits, the first of which kills the ship's surgeon and several other crewmembers, while the second one does more damage to the ship and requires the flooding of "X" gun turret aft. The other two turrets continue to fire upon the Italian fleet, while destroyers lay a torpedo attack. A single shell, whose history from the mining of the ores to the firing of the gun is described in detail, hits the Italian flagship and strikes the final blow to the morale of the enemy commanders. With the ''San Martino'' being hit by a torpedo, the Italian fleet retires as night falls, and the convoy continues for Malta. The captain remains on the bridge, more determined than ever to continue "the long struggle of sea power against tyranny", which so many naval commanders fought before him.

Characters

HMS ''Artemis'' crew

* Captain the Honourable Miles Ernest Troughton-Harrington-Yorke – Commanding Officer * Commander James Hipkin Rhodes – Executive Officer * Paymaster Commander George Brown – Paymaster * Lieutenant(E) Charles Norton Bastwick - Senior engineer * Paymaster Sub-Lieutenant James Jerningham – Captain's secretary * Commissioned Gunner Kaile – in charge of the ship's

Admiralty Fire Control Table Admiralty Fire Control Table in the transmitting station of .The Admiralty Fire Control Table (A.F.C.T.) was an electromechanical analogue computer fire-control system that calculated the correct elevation and deflection of the main armament of a R ...

* Chief Petty Officer Patrick O’Flaherty - Gunnery director * Able Seaman Dawkins – Helmsman * Able Seaman A. B. Presteign – a member of the gun crew * Ordinary Seaman Harold Quimsby – Masthead lookout * Ordinary Seaman Albert Whipple - Masthead lookout * Ordinary Seaman Triggs – stationed in the magazine

Enemies

* Vice-Ammiraglio Gasparo Gaetano Nocentini, Italian Navy *

Kapitän zur See Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The rank is equal to the army rank of colonel and air force rank of group captain. Equivalent ranks worldwide include ...

Helmuth von Bödicke, German Navy *

Korvettenkapitän () is the lowest ranking senior officer in a number of Germanic-speaking navies. Austro-Hungary Belgium Germany Korvettenkapitän, short: KKpt/in lists: KK, () is the lowest senior officer rank () in the German Navy. Address The offici ...

Klein – Bödicke's translator * Luogotenente Lorenzetti – Nocentini's translator

Structure

The novel is divided into twenty-six short chapters, and describes a very short period of time. The narrative interweaves the stories of the men aboard, from the Paymaster Commander to the Captain to the gun crew that fires the shot that changed the course of history, with chapter headings that come from the Captain's official after-action report.

Background

The author dedicated the book "with the deepest respect to the officers and crew of ", and the action described is based on the

Second Battle of Sirte The Second Battle of Sirte (on 22 March 1942) was a naval engagement in the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Gulf of Sidra and southeast of Malta, during the Second World War. The escorting warships of a British convoy to Malta held off a much ...

. Forester had been invited to a mission aboard that vessel by the Admiralty earlier. Less than a year after the book was published, the ''Penelope'' was torpedoed by a German submarine and sank with more than half her crew.

Notes and references

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ship, The 1943 British novels Novels set during World War II Novels by C. S. Forester Michael Joseph books