Submariner

Coote, John O.

ISBN 10: 0393030741 / ISBN 13: 9780393030747

Published by W W Norton & Co Inc, 1992

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Submariner
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393030741
• ISBN 13: 9780393030747
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The author relates his experiences as a submarine commander for the British Royal Navy during World War II, describing patrols in the North Sea and the Mediterranean and enemy attacks that made submarine operations the most dangerous of combat services

Reviews

A gifted storyteller's altogether agreeable recollections of his years in the Royal Navy. The Australian-born son of a Cable & Wireless executive, Coote (ed., The Norton Book of the Sea--not reviewed) grew up in Adelaide, Batavia, Shanghai, Singapore, and other Pacific Basin venues to which his father was assigned at irregular intervals. Sent to England as a teenager, he was at Cambridge when WW II began, and volunteered for submarine duty. Coote devotes nearly half of his anecdotal narrative to his wartime experiences in the underseas service, which consisted of risky Mediterranean patrols, mainly offshore the French Riviera. As a junior officer aboard HMS Untiring (which took a heavy toll on enemy shipping), he endured the tedium and savored the triumphs that are the lot of those who survive combat. After the war, having decided to make a career of the military, Coote spent 15 years in a variety of more or less congenial billets, including a posting as liaison to the US Navy in 1955, when the difficult Hyman Rickover was converting American subs to nuclear power. In the meantime, he became a world-class racer of oceangoing yachts and climbed the promotional ladder, earning his captaincy in 1960. Soon, however, cutbacks in the defense budget had diminished Coote's chances for further advancement, and he retired to take a job with Beaverbrook Newspapers. At this point, the author ends an engaging saga that's chock-full of derring-do, acerbic commentary, and graceful tributes to a host of friends. Unfortunately for American readers, though, the text also bristles with Anglicisms and a rather full ration of Royal Navy jargon (``bunts,'' ``cuddy,'' ``Queen's Telegram,'' ``rhumb line,'' ``trews,'' etc.). This cavil apart, a genuinely appealing memoir that will leave many eager for an account of the author's days as a member of the fourth estate. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.