MacLean, Alistair H.M.S. Ulysses

One of the most celebrated sea novels dealing with the World War 2 horrors endured by mariners (naval and merchant marine) on the Murmansk Run. MacLean’s novel has as its focus the British naval cruiser H.M.S. ULYSSES as she makes her heroic last run to Russia guarding a combined flotilla of 36 merchant and naval ships. The convoy is an unlucky one from the outset (“the convoy the Royal Navy would always want to forget” MacLean writes early in the narrative), with the German military hitting the convoy with U-boat wolf packs, bombers and fighter aircraft, a warship and even the threat of the battleship TIRPITZ. Ship after ship after ship in the convoy is sunk, with the ongoing “massacre” sometimes described by MacLean in horrific detail, sometimes simply noted in an offhand manner. The ULYSSES herself dies valiantly in battle, with only a handful of crew surviving. And the convoy itself is whittled down to 5 or 6 vessels alone which make it successfully to Russia. MacLean is at his best his depiction of the “routine” shipboard lives of the officers and crew of the ULYSSES, all viewed in exceptionally humane detail. By the novel’s conclusion the reader cares about all these men. Also of note are MacLean’s fearful descriptions of the brutal physicality of Arctic convoy duty, often revealed in agonizing detail. If the novel has a fault it would be that MacLean’s ULYSSES suffers so many horrible incidents and coincidences that the tale, at times does seem a bit soap opera-ish. But this is a small complaint for such an important, passionate work. Put simply, R.M.S. Ulysses is a definite “must read” for anyone interested in the now legendary Murmansk Run.