Nicholas Monsarrat

Presents the story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys in World War Two. This book shows how Compass Rose played a deadly cat and mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves.

Mar cruel es la historia de un oceano, dos barcos y unos ciento cincuenta hombres. En ella asistimos a los padecimientos que sufren el capitán George Eastwood Ericsson y el periodista Lockhart a bordo, primero, de la corbeta Compass Rose y, despues, cuando esta ha sido hundida, en la fragata Saltash. La peligrosa mision de estos dos barcos consiste en proteger a los buques de carga ingleses durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial; pero Ericsson y Lockhart no solo tienen que enfrentarse a las naves contrarias, sino que deben defenderse ante los ataques de un enemigo muco mas despiadado: el encrespado Atlantico. Mar cruel narra las multiples vicisitudes y sinsabores de las vidas heroicas de los valerosos Ericsson y Lockhart, cuyas relaciones personales estan marcadas indeleblemente por el mar y la guerra.Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat (Liverpool, 1910-1979) studio en Wincester y en el Trinity College (Cambridge). Ostento diversos cargos en el ejercito ingles durante y despues de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En 1951 fue galardonado con el premio Heinemann de literatura. De su amplia obra se han traducido al castellano, ademas del presente libro, El barco que murio de verguenza, El barco sigiloso, El cura de Malta y El marino maldito.

La Seconde Guerre mondiale vit près de trois mille navires anglais envoyés par le fond. Embarqué sur la Rose des Vents, joli nom pour y vivre l’enfer, Nicholas Monsarrat relate dans La Mer cruelle la

This is how the war at sea really was...Nicholas Monsarrats war, in those dark years of 1939-1945, was a ferocious, unforgiving, terrible war: the Battle of the Atlantic. An RNVR officer, he served on His Majestys corvettes, tough little ships charged with the impossible task of seeing vital convoys safely through the packs of marauding U-boats. Between watches he kept a record of life on board, the good times and the bad, true tales of heroism, fear and all too often death. This was the war at sea as it really was. The three books were sensationally published even while the war raged about him, and make a fascinating prelude to the post-war The Cruel Sea.Also in this edition are his other short pieces on the sea, including the stories HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour and The Ship That Died of Shame. Here is some of the most dramatic literature of the sea ever written, from one of the finest writers of his generation.

One of the most memorable characters of post-war fictionDaily ExpressA classic novel set in the siege of Malta 1940-1942 from the bestselling author of The Cruel SeaFather Salvatore was a simple, lumbering priest, a Kappillan serving the poor Valetta, when war came out of the blue skies to pound the island to dust.Now amid the catacombs discovered by a chance bomb, he cared for the flood of homeless, starving, frightened people who sought shelter from the death that fell unceasingly from the sky.His story, and the story of Malta, is told in superbly graphic pictures of six days during the siege. Each of those days brought forth from the Kappillan a message of inspiration to keep them going - the legendary tales of six mighty events of Maltas history which shone through the centuries and gathered them together in a fervent belief in their survival.