Alexander Fullerton (1924–2008)

Page turners with merit

This review is for all 9 books in the series, which stretches across 2 world wars and focuses on three key members of the Everard family. The chatacters are well enough drawn and one cannot be surprised at their aristocratic background - it would seem too miraculous to put working class characters in positions of responsibility and ultimately leadership. So the Baronet Nick Everard very soon becomes a destroyer captain, then a cruiser captain and ulimately the commodore of military escorts to Atlantic convoys in WW2. His son to a Russian post revolution countess, Paul, becomes a submariner of note in the second war and his other son, allegedly a half brother but in reality his and his father's wife's love child, Jack, becomes an opponent in Nick's rather complicated family structure. Fullerton knows how to create tension and this last book excels in that area.… (more)

Originally published in 1953 when the war was still fresh in people's memories, this novel follows the British submarine Seahound on several of her trips from Ceylon to attack Japanese shipping in the last months of the war. At this point in the war, the Japanese had few ships left and in the Malacca Straits were relying on junks crewed by Chinese sailors usually guarded by Japanese soldiers. Seahound placed the Chinese on the smallest junk and sank the rest.

Another voyage meant inserting commandos for a raid and waiting to recover them after sailing through a mine field. The last trip which was intended to be a voyage for home is interrupted by the arrival of an enemy cruiser that Seahound joins other subs are sent it.

The text is full of background on the key characters and the problems at home and the usual details of fighting the war from under the water. Recommended.… (more)