Post by Administrator on May 22, 2020 11:22:48 GMT
Here, historian James Holland explores the real history that inspired the film Greyhound – based on C S Forester’s 1955 novel The Good Shepherd – and explains why the Battle of the Atlantic was the most vital campaign of the Second World War…
The mid-Atlantic, sometime in the winter of 1942. Commander George Krause has been on the bridge of his destroyer, the USS Keeling, for nearly 24 hours, locked in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a wolf pack of German U-boats – exactly how many is not clear. One U-boat was destroyed in the grey afternoon of the day before, and since then, Keeling and one other of Krause’s four-ship escort team – a Polish destroyer, the Viktor – have been pursuing another enemy sub without success, despite unleashing some 50 depth charges between them.
It is freezing cold, the ice covering the surfaces and rails of the destroyer’s deck. Krause, having eaten barely half a sandwich and drunk only a couple of cups of coffee in that time, is utterly exhausted, cold, hungry and thirsty, but keenly aware he must keep going until they push through this screen of U-boats and get back within the range of Allied air cover. It means another long day ahead of them and already six ships in the convoy have been hit and destroyed.
The responsibilities on the shoulders of this devout 42-year-old man are immense and he repeatedly has to make heart-wrenching choices. Should he pick up men in the freezing water or plough on and potentially save more? Every decision, calculation and educated guess regarding the enemy’s next move has potentially fatal consequences, not just for his own ship but for the entire convoy it is his task to protect.
To add to the weight of his responsibility, this is his first transatlantic convoy. Yet by stint of his seniority of rank and age he is the ‘Comescort’ – the overall commander of the four-ship escort of a Canadian corvette, British and Polish destroyers, and his own in the United States Navy.
It is at dawn, having been up all night, that Commander Krause conjures up a picture in his mind of an ideal convoy escort force: “With eight escort vessels and four destroyers a good job could be done,” he thinks, “and air cover.” But this was still 1942 and such forces were not yet available; he would have to make do with what he had.
The real history that inspired WW2 film Greyhound
Set in 1942, at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, a new World War Two film Greyhound starring Tom Hanks tells the story of a newly-appointed naval captain heading to the front for the first time, tasked with commanding a convoy of 37 Allied ships across the treacherous North Atlantic while being hotly pursued by wolf packs of Nazi U-boats
C S Forester’s The Good Shepherd
The depiction is fictional, but it is brilliantly conveyed by the legendary historical thriller writer C S Forester. Although The Good Shepherd was published in 1955, some 10 years after the Second World War ended, Forester certainly did his research. The evocation of this one 48-hour moment in the Battle of the Atlantic is powerfully done, while the enormity of the decisions and the complexity of commanding a convoy escort is written with a nod to historical accuracy and detail that is second-to-none.
It’s something of a forgotten classic – or rather, it has been, although not one passed over by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, a self-confessed Second World War nut, who has used Forester’s book to write and star in a new film based on the novel called Greyhound. Hanks plays Commander Krause (in the film he is named Ernest, not George).
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The mid-Atlantic, sometime in the winter of 1942. Commander George Krause has been on the bridge of his destroyer, the USS Keeling, for nearly 24 hours, locked in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a wolf pack of German U-boats – exactly how many is not clear. One U-boat was destroyed in the grey afternoon of the day before, and since then, Keeling and one other of Krause’s four-ship escort team – a Polish destroyer, the Viktor – have been pursuing another enemy sub without success, despite unleashing some 50 depth charges between them.
It is freezing cold, the ice covering the surfaces and rails of the destroyer’s deck. Krause, having eaten barely half a sandwich and drunk only a couple of cups of coffee in that time, is utterly exhausted, cold, hungry and thirsty, but keenly aware he must keep going until they push through this screen of U-boats and get back within the range of Allied air cover. It means another long day ahead of them and already six ships in the convoy have been hit and destroyed.
The responsibilities on the shoulders of this devout 42-year-old man are immense and he repeatedly has to make heart-wrenching choices. Should he pick up men in the freezing water or plough on and potentially save more? Every decision, calculation and educated guess regarding the enemy’s next move has potentially fatal consequences, not just for his own ship but for the entire convoy it is his task to protect.
To add to the weight of his responsibility, this is his first transatlantic convoy. Yet by stint of his seniority of rank and age he is the ‘Comescort’ – the overall commander of the four-ship escort of a Canadian corvette, British and Polish destroyers, and his own in the United States Navy.
It is at dawn, having been up all night, that Commander Krause conjures up a picture in his mind of an ideal convoy escort force: “With eight escort vessels and four destroyers a good job could be done,” he thinks, “and air cover.” But this was still 1942 and such forces were not yet available; he would have to make do with what he had.
The real history that inspired WW2 film Greyhound
Set in 1942, at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, a new World War Two film Greyhound starring Tom Hanks tells the story of a newly-appointed naval captain heading to the front for the first time, tasked with commanding a convoy of 37 Allied ships across the treacherous North Atlantic while being hotly pursued by wolf packs of Nazi U-boats
C S Forester’s The Good Shepherd
The depiction is fictional, but it is brilliantly conveyed by the legendary historical thriller writer C S Forester. Although The Good Shepherd was published in 1955, some 10 years after the Second World War ended, Forester certainly did his research. The evocation of this one 48-hour moment in the Battle of the Atlantic is powerfully done, while the enormity of the decisions and the complexity of commanding a convoy escort is written with a nod to historical accuracy and detail that is second-to-none.
It’s something of a forgotten classic – or rather, it has been, although not one passed over by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, a self-confessed Second World War nut, who has used Forester’s book to write and star in a new film based on the novel called Greyhound. Hanks plays Commander Krause (in the film he is named Ernest, not George).
LINK 1
LINK 2