Polonsky, Abraham "The Enemy Sea"

Action-packed World War 2 serial set aboard a tanker bound for New York from Galveston. American Magazine tag line: “The astonishing story of a girl who was much too beautiful and gay to be sailing on a grim oil tanker, most hunted prey of Nazi submarines. But nothing in the world could stop redheaded Carrie from plunging straight into the grimmest adventure of her outrageous career – not even the two men who loved and hated and were maddened by her.” (Whew!) Polonsky dwells on common World War 2 American fears: fifth columnists, traitors and saboteurs – and he dishes up quite a stew. The tanker in question (the fictious ARROW) is commanded by a man who seems to be an Axis sympathizer (later it’s revealed that his family is being held hostage in Germany), who makes a mid-Caribbean rendezvous with Nazi U-boats. After transferring all the vessel’s oil to the subs, the ARROW is scuttled – and with most of her crew, our redhead and one of her admirers locked in a storeroom. (The other admirer turns out to be a dastardly American turncoat in Hitler’s pay). Happily for “outrageous” Carrie, the tanker had been scuttled on a sand bank, so most escape death by drowning. Polonsky’s serial climaxes at the Coast Guard inquest into the ARROW’s sinking in a scene-stealer rivaling that of a “Perry Mason” rerun! The serial was later published as a novel (see next entry):

The Enemy Sea. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown & Company, 1944. 288 p.