Talk:The Cruel Sea (novel)

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Name

N real criticism, but Compass Rose is a preposterous name. What kind of flower is that, anyhow? Surely Monsarrat could have selected a better name... Also, anybody want to compare it to the Canadian 1949 novel on corvette ops (6 Days at Sea?), or "The Enemy Below"? Trekphiler 10:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The name Compass Rose is perhaps a nautical joke on Monsarrat's part - Flower Class Corvettes were all (not unaturally!) named after flowers and there were hundreds of them. Rather than picking a flower name at random and risk using the name of a real ship, he rather cleverly chose a 'rose' that he knew wouldn't have been used - because a Compass Rose is the symbol found on nautical charts showing the points of the compass. Ian Dunster 14:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not like I didn't get it; the "Flower"-class (Gladiolus, actually) is a repeat of the WW1 "Flower"-class (Acacia) improvised escort in concept. The "Flower" is the Brit reference after the names were assigned (just like Afridis came to be called "Tribals", leading the ignorant to think Tribal is the class name). My objection is the absurdity. Monsarrat could just as easily have used Quackgrass or Purple Loostrife or something, which would have been funnier for those of us in the know, and true to the naming system. Nor could it have been hard to find their names.

On another matter, I got this on my userpage:

Please help with my attempts to edit your entry on "The Cruel Sea". i have been going back to near original sources as you will see atThe Cruel Sea and trying to find which actual ships were used and what is the identity of the ship I was told was "Compass Rose" in my thumbnail, despite having K40 or K49 or even 3 digits on her bow Sibadd 21:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I missing something? It looks taken care of to me. Trekphiler 16:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Conways All The Worlds Fighting Ships refers to them as “Tribal class”; I wouldn’t call them ignorant. And the “Flowers” from both world Wars they call “Flower class”.

As for the double meaning of “Compass Rose”; thanks, Ian, I hadn’t seen that.

A quote from the book might be appropriate on the subject:

“Compass Rose was nothing out of the ordinary; it had to be a flower name because she was one of the Flower class corvettes, and, (Ericson smiled to himself) by the time they got down to Pansy and Stinkwort and Love-in-the-Mist, no-one would think anything of Compass Rose. Those were trivialities anyway… Swanny18 16:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"The sinking of a submarine forms a key episode in the book as Ericson must choose between destroying the enemy vessel or saving some British sailors who are in the water above the enemy's location." This episode is on of the most dramatic of the novel, even known to seafarers and other people who didnot read the book. When I was in the Maritime Institute is was a textbook example. However, most probably no submarine is involved in this scene, only the hull of the sinking merchant vessel. Please be accurate when writing for an encyclopedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.123.166.239 (talk) 11:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rank

Executive officer for Lockhart Should Be changed to First Officer Dur to Royal navy Usage of the rank.(unsigned post added on 12 June 2007 by Celticosprey )

Fair use rationale for Image:Nicholas Monsarrat - The Cruel Sea book cover.jpg

Image:Nicholas Monsarrat - The Cruel Sea book cover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done