Dupuy, R. Ernest "Major McGee Goes to War"

North Atlantic convoy story. Army Major Patrick McGee, just a few weeks in the army after a career as an editorial writer for a major American newspaper, finds himself senior officer aboard the 5,000 ton freighter STORVARK. He’s en route to London to serve a post in public relations and is a total landlubber. As senior officer on the ship, though, it’s his responsibility to take charge of the ship’s deck defenses against submarines. McGee rues this assignment since, until quite recently, he didn’t know one end of a gun from another. After the STORVARK drops out of convoy due to her slowness, the ship is attacked by a German U-boat. Maj. McGee rises to the occasion. Though his deck gun doesn’t sink the sub, it does succeed in scaring it away from the STORVARK. And it’s a good thing, as the ship’s Captain reveals, in a coda, that the freighter was carrying 900 tons of TNT! In real life, Col. R. Ernest Dupuy was a U.S. Army historian and popular writer on military topics.