De Hartog, Jan Star of Peace: A Novel of the Sea.

A World War 2 novel which was, according to its title page verso note, “based in part on a play by Jan de Hartog entitled ‘Skipper Next to God..’” Set in 1939 and culminating on the day that Hitler invaded Poland, de Hartog’s novel focuses on the ill-fated journey of the fictitious Dutch tramp freighter-turned political refugee ship STAR OF PEACE, from the time that 250+ German Jews are loaded aboard her in Hamburg to the vessel’s scuttling off the east coast of the United States many months later. In between, de Hartog describes the Jews’ fruitless attempt to land legally in Uruguay (they’d been sold visas which turn out to be forgeries) and how the STAR OF PEACE’s born-again Christian master becomes determined to land his passengers safely somewhere in the New World. De Hartog is at his best in descriptive passages, such as the refugees’ harrowing embarkation at the HAPAG docks in Hamburg and in the STAR OF PEACE’s sinking in the midst of a Newport yacht regatta. His ship master, the young Joris Kuiper, is portrayed in tragic terms as a man who is prepared to lose his wife and children as well as his livelihood (he owns the STAR OF PEACE) in order to abide by the claims of his personal religious faith. In the end, Kuiper defies the Dutch and U.S. governments, the Dutch Reformed Church and even members of his own, hand-picked crew to successfully get his precious human cargo into the United States.