HMS Ulysses (novel)
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HMS Ulysses (titled H.M.S. Ulysses in the United States) was the first novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, and ultimately, one of his most popular. Originally published in 1955, it was also released by Fontana Books in 1960. His experiences in the Royal Navy during World War II provided the basis for the story.
The novel received good critical notices as well, with a number of reviewers putting it into the same class as two other 1950s classic tales of World War II at sea, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny and Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea. [link]
The novel features a cruiser, one of a single type, extremely well armed, and about the fastest ship in the world. With her crew upon the brink of mutiny, the Ulysses puts to sea again to guard a vital convoy heading for Murmansk. Attacked by dive bombers, torpedo planes, U-boats and a German cruiser, the convoy is reduced from over 30 ships to 5—and to protect these the Ulysses, whose crew have finally pushed the boundaries of duty, sacrifice themselves to destroy an attacking German warship.
The same background of the World War II Murmansk convoys, with the combination of extreme belligerent action and inhospitable nature pushing protagonists to the edge of endurance and beyond, appears in Dutch novelist Jan de Hartog's The Captain (1967).
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