Scott, Douglas Die for the Queen

Another Scott World War 2 maritime tale: this time it’s bluff and counter-bluff as the British Admiralty sends the liner QUEEN ELIZABETH – the world’s then-largest liner – on her secret 1940 maiden voyage from Great Britain to the United States in what turned out to be a successful attempt to elude the German U-boats which were waiting for her. The novel is very much in the Herman Wouk / Winds of War tradition, with its (romantic) action stretched across pre-War and then World War 2 Ireland, Scotland and Germany. Scott credits the idea for his story to an unpublished short story entitled “A Trick To Us” written by Ben Goldsworthy, a real-life World War 2 British naval officer who had been assigned to duty in the Clyde approaches at the time of the QUEEN ELIZABETH’s very real March 1940 mad dash across the Atlantic to the safety of New York City.