Time can be cruel as it leaves behind many important things. This book, The Cruel Sea is on such loss for it is seldom read any longer. Set in the Atlantic during World War II, it is a story of ordinary men called upon to do extraordinary deeds. Most of the men are young, a lieutenant of twenty who is called upon to be second in command, other junior officers who a few weeks earlier were bank clerks or shoe salesmen. The recruits don’t have any experience, and many cannot remember port from starboard but are responsible for staffing guns, handling depth charges and being on call to fight fires. At the top, on the bridge, is a retired captain who must mold his crew into a fighting unit while patrolling the hostile north Atlantic.